Sunday, March 21, 2010

Now that it looks like Obamacare is going to happen, what you we can expect

England

Great Britain’s National Health Service (NHS)was created on July 5, 1948. As with all government programs, bureaucrats underestimated initial cost projections. First-year operating costs of NHS were 52 million pounds higher than original estimates1 as Britons saturated the so-called free system.

Many decades of shortages, misery and suffering followed until 1989, when some market-based health care competition was reintroduced to the British citizens2.

Unfortunately for those requiring care, a mostly socialist health care system has problems. The articles and commentaries in this section identify some disasters caused by government intervention in the British health care system.

Canada

Parliament unanimously passed the Canada Health Act in 1984 and established a single-payer, publicly-financed health care system. To ensure a true government monopoly (is there any other kind?) Canadian provinces outlawed private health insurance.

  • Surgery postponed indefinitely for 1,000 Kelowna patients
    - Cathryn Atkinson, April 8, 2008 [Globe and Mail]
  • Majority of Que. dentists quit health-care system
    - March 27, 2008 [CTV.ca]
  • Why Ontario keeps sending patients south
    - Lisa Priest, February 22, 2008 [Globe and Mail]
  • Will Socialized Health Care in the US Kill Canadians?
    - Don Surber, March 3, 2008 [Acton Institute]
  • Wait times for surgery, medical treatments at all-time high: report
    - October 15, 2007 [CBC News (Canada)]
  • The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
    - David Gratzer, Summer 2007 [City Journal]
  • Cancer patients question why PET scan not covered
    - May 28, 2007 [CBC News]
  • BC Medical Association: Waiting Too Long for Hip and Knee Surgery Costs $10,000 Per Patient-Maximum Wait Times Should Be No Longer Than 6 Months
    - June 28, 2006 [CCN Matthews]
  • Ont. physician turns away patient for being 55+
    - March 17, 2006 [CTV.ca]
  • Canada inches toward private medicine
    - Rebecca Cook Dube, August 8, 2005 [CS Monitor]
  • Doctor defends private cancer clinic
    - Gillian Livingston, July 15, 2005 [Canadian Press]
  • Dogma trumps truth in health-care issues
    - D’Arcy Jenish, July 7, 2005 [Ontario Business News]
  • Why Canadians Purchase Private Health Insurance
    - Walter Williams, June 20, 2005 [Capitalism Magazine]
  • Doctor welcomes health ruling
    - June 9, 2005 [CBC Montreal]
  • Patients shouldn’t wait more than 8 weeks for cardiac defibrillator: experts
    - May 24, 2005 [Canadian Press]
  • Grads fail to slow doctor shortage
    - Jennifer O’Brien, May 21, 2005 [London Free Press]
  • Free Canadian health care comes at cost
    - April 10, 2005 [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]
  • Canada’s drug tab reaches $22 billion, report suggests
    - Sheryl Ubelacker, CP, April 6, 2005 [London Free Press]
  • Canadian health care is free and first-class — if you can wait
    - Beth Duff-Brown, March 19, 2005 [The Associated Press]
  • Pediatricians, parents warn of shortage of community-based care for children
    - Colin Perkel, March 4, 2005 [The Canadian Press]
  • Access to specialists difficult: study
    - February 16, 2005 [CBC Calgary]
  • Doctor shortages, frustrations vary from region to region, survey shows
    - February 15, 2005 [Canada.com]
  • Montreal leads the country in offering private health care
    - Aaron Derfel, February 12, 2005 [Montreal Gazette]
  • Canada falling short on medical imaging
    - February 9, 2005 [Macleans.ca]
  • Creative incentives required to retain older doctors
    - Dr. Charles Shaver, January 20, 2005 [Toronto Star]
  • MRI gap defies cash fix
    - Mark Kennedy, January 14, 2005 [National Post (Canada)]
  • A boy’s plight, a nation’s problem
    - Lisa Priest, January 13, 2005 [The Globe and Mail]
  • Where’s proof private clinics cost more?
    - Tom Brodbeck, December 4, 2004 [The Winnipeg Sun]
  • Surgery backlog tops 5,500 at kids’ hospitals; One-year waits common
    - Aaron Derfel, December 3, 2004 [The Gazette (Montreal)]
  • Hospital wait lists to get worse, Carriere says
    - Chris Traber, November 14, 2004 [Yorkregion.com]
  • Frustrated patients can’t handle ER waits
    - Jennifer Stewart and Jeffrey Simpson, October 28, 2004 [The Halifax Herald Limited]
  • Private medical clinic opens in Montreal
    …it answers, “an ever-increasing demand from the public for greater accessibility and quality of health services.” - October 13, 2004 [CTV.ca]
  • Canadians have higher death risk than Americans after heart attack: study
    - Sheryl Ubelacker, September 20, 2004 [Canada.com]
  • Canadian medical tourists in India
    - Jeremy Copeland, September 20, 2004 [CBC News]
  • Doctor shortage cripples Canada’s free health care
    - Clifford Krauss, September 18, 2004 [Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune]
  • Canada’s Once-Proud Public Health System in Crisis
    - David Ljunggren, September 14, 2004 [Reuters (Ottawa)]
  • Hospitals to cut, again
    - September 5, 2004 [Toronto Star]
  • Canada’s Medical Nightmare
    - Robert J. Cihak, M.D., September 1, 2004 [Health Care News]
  • Canada faces shortage of doctors
    - August 19, 2004 [MSNBC]
  • Canadians losing faith in health system: poll
    - August 16, 2004 [CTV.ca]
  • Ontario hospitals a health risk
    - Michael Hurley, August 8, 2004 [Toronto Star]
  • Need surgery? Here’s how long you’ll wait
    “It’s inhuman. The quality of my life is horrible and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.” - Jason Fekete, July 28, 2004 [Calgary Herald]
  • Docs, nurses fed up
    Canadian doctors and nurses are fed up with inter-governmental “bickering” that is dragging out wait times and causing more pain and suffering for patients. - July 28, 2004 [Winnipeg Sun]
  • Free Health Care?
    …in some cases, patients die on the waiting list because they become too sick to tolerate a procedure. - Walter E. Williams, July 24, 2004 [CATO]
  • The truth about Canada’s ailing health-care system
    All the major candidates in Canada’s recent national election acknowledged that the country’s health-care system is failing Canadians. - Robert J. Cihak, July 13, 2004 [The Seattle Times]
  • Health-care crisis looms, even with new money
    Canada’s health-care system is “five to 10 years” from the breaking point — even with cash injections from government, says the new president of the B.C. Medical Association. - Doug Alexander, July 5, 2004 [Vancouver Sun]
  • Emergency room delays a strong campaign factor
    “Go into the emergency room — it is the most pitiful piece of work you ever seen in your life.” - David Bruser, June 22, 2004 [Toronto Star]
  • Canadian Health Care in Crisis
    Analyst visits NC to describe how single-payer health care really works in practice. - Donna Martinez, June 17, 2004 [Carolina Journal]
  • Quebec cancer patients sue over wait
    Women waited months for radiation; lawsuit could cost system $50-million. - Ingrid Peritz, March 11, 2004 [The Globe and Mail]
  • Health care: no waiting lists
    ‘You get knee surgery within two days … try and get that in human hospitals.’ Canada’s [private] pet health-insurance industry is projected to grow at roughly 50 per cent a year… - Robert Scalia, November 30, 2003 [Montreal Gazette]
  • For some, surgery abroad a welcome answer
    - Daniel Girard, November 29, 2003 [Toronto Star]
  • Canadian Doctors Eyeing United States
    - Clifford Krauss, October 17, 2003 [The New York Times]
  • The Top Ten Things People Believe About Canadian Health Care, But Shouldn’t
    - Brian Lee Crowley, October 9, 2003 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]
  • Canadians’ health at risk, CMA says
    - Valerie Lawton, September 26, 2003 [Toronto Star]
  • Burnout is now doctors’ ailment
    Almost half of Canadian doctors say they’re burned out, emotionally exhausted and blame medicine for putting a drain on their family life. - Karen Palmer, August 20, 2003 [Toronto Star]
  • New MRI clinic in row over poaching
    While she insists she’s not making any money off the venture, she says it provides an income allowance for her and her husband, the other principal in the company. - Theresa Boyle and Robert Benzie, July 28, 2003 [Toronto Star]
  • Price Controls and Overall Drug Spending
    The Canadian system, however, tends to push up overall spending on prescription drugs, despite the low prices for some brand name ones. - John Melby, July 2, 2003 [Buckeye Institute]
  • Gore Endorses Canada’s Medical System
    - William L. Anderson, November 29, 2002 [Mises]
  • How Good is Canadian Health Care?
    - August 2002 [Fraser Institute]
  • Canadian Health-Care System Is No Model for Prescription Drug Reform
    - May 1, 2001 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]
  • The Ghost of America’s Health Care Future Lives in Canada Today
    - James Frogue and Robert Moffit, December 25, 2000 [Capitalism Magazine]
  • Socialized Medicine: The Canadian Experience
    Explores several lessons that can be drawn from the Canadian experience with socialized medicine:
    • Socialized medicine, although of poor quality, is very expensive;
    • Political compromise is the result;
    • Socialized medicine is both a consequence and a great contributor to the idea that economic conditions should be equalized by coercion. - Pierre Lemieux [The Freeman]
  • Canadian Health Care
    …if Canadians knew as much as they think they do about the economic and moral workings of Medicare, they might not be as enthusiastic as they are about their cherished right to ‘free’ health care. - Andrei Kreptul, August 30, 2000 [Mises]
  • When Patients Become Victims – The Crime of Government-Run Health Care
    - Merrill Matthews Jr., Ph.D. and Kerri Houston, May 1, 2000 (PDF format)
  • Socialized Medicine Leaves a Bad Taste in Patients’ Mouths
    - Lawrence W. Reed, February 23, 2000 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]
  • Canadians Dissatisfied With Socialized Medicine
    - January 26, 2000 [NCPA]
  • Memo to Al Gore: Canadian Medicine Isn’t Cheap or Effective
    - William McArthur, former chief coroner for British Columbia, January 28, 2000
  • Loved to Death: America’s Unresolved Health-Care Crisis
    As Canada’s national government slashes spending on medical care in order to reduce the deficit, local provinces are reducing medical staff. In Ontario, pregnant women are being sent to Detroit because no obstetricians are available. Specialists of all kinds are in short supply. Patients have to wait eight weeks for an MRI, ten weeks for referral to a specialist, and four months for heart bypass surgery. - Michael J. Hurd, November 1997 [Liberty Haven]
  • Is Canadian Health care a Good Model for the U.S. to Follow?
    - Michael Walker, August 1994 [Liberty Haven]
  • Health of the State (commentary by a cancer survivor)
    I tell you this not to alarm you, to elicit sympathy, or to bore you. I tell you because the episode has been, for me, a salutary lesson (just in case I needed one) in why the government should not be allowed anywhere near a syringe, a dressing, a scalpel, an oxygen mask, a tissue sample — anything to do with health.
  • Michigan Shouldn’t Copy Canada’s Health System
    - Lawrence W. Reed, July 29, 1991 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]
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