 | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 19:29:36 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Richard
E-mail: rbramwell(at)sympatico.ca
1) Thanks for blowing your pseudonymity Ray!
2) Paul, now we can all watch for parallels in Health Care... or you could just look here in Canada:
* 24 hr waits in Emerge'
* Entire wards closed in some busy hospitals, while patients are lying on gurneys in the hallways.
* Patients waiting for major surgery dying of 'heart failure' (actually from Univeral Health Care) as they wait on those same gurneys.
* Physician earnings caps and, most evil of all, "clawbacks" â€"if a physician has surpassed his cap one year, the money is deducted from his earnings the following year.
* A variable, "failure to pay claims" by physicians by the Min. of Health. The physician has to pursue his claims to the Min of Health to get paid. Some report that they have had to pursue as much as ten percent of a year's legitimate earnings (i.e. earnings that are _within_ cap limits). This is particularly onerous because the task is usually left to a medical secretary who processes each patient's account and makes the claims. He or she must therefore repeat the claim process. So, in addition to not being paid, the physician's secretary's time is wasted in reprocessing claims.
* New physicians are unable to set up practice in the more lucrative and comfortable populated areas, because they cannot get hospital affiliation. They usually end up practicing in 'northern' regions, often having to travel to Indian Reserves and the like to service the scattered population there. This is viewed as laudable, because it demands that the physician be altruistic.
* Due to caps, tens of thousands of Ontario citizens cannot get a Family Physician, who gains nothing by increasing his or her patient list.
* Walk in clinics proliferate. But the MD's at these clinics come and go, do not know you, and only treat immediate problems, having no awareness of the general trends of your health.
* New procedures and drugs are not covered, either because they are not PROVEN to be safe, or they are pricey and are left off the list of those that are insured.
* Large sums of health care dollars are spent on the crisis du jour. Here, two of these have been West Nile Fever (from mosquitos) which is actually no more deadly than ordinary flu, and Asian Bird Flu which has killed several dozen people. Both received far more attention and funding than such more deadly epidemiological concerns as Breast Cancer and Heart Failure.
That is all I have off the top of my head... and I am NOT associated with the medical field in any way. |
| Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 21:46:52 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Jeff Montgomery
E-mail: jamontgom(at)hotmail.com
Yes, great article. The whole TOS issue is excellent -- as usual! I am an unabashed booster for that journal.
It doesn't matter how regulated an industry is, freedom-haters will always find a way to blame markets for any problem. Businessmen could be in leg irons and in prison, and they'd *still* blame markets. I call it blaming water for being poured out of a bucket. And reality forbid someone should try to make A PROFIT (gasp!).
The whole thing is so Atlas Shrugged. |
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