Health care anecdata

This is from Common Sense Political Thought: My health care anecdata

It’s certainly good news that waiting times in Canada have fallen, but I’d point out that they are less than a season in only one province, Ontario, and even there they are 12½ weeks, just barely under a season. Still, that’s better than 2008, where average wait times were over a season in every province. But while that’s some improvement, in Newfoundland & Labrador, and Prince Edward Island, average wait times were over half a year.

Here in the good ol’ US of A? Medical specialties are advertising to get more clients!
....
My cataract surgery is scheduled for tomorrow, the 19th of January. Total wait time, from the original diagnosis will have been 28 days, and, again, that includes the Christmas holidays and having to change ophthalmologists since my original one had retired from surgery. Realistically, the wait time from the new ophthalmologist alone was four days for the right eye procedure to be completed, and will be fifteen days for the cataract surgery, with a well-regarded surgeon with eighteen years experience in cataract surgery.

Our favorite Kiwi Kommenter would say, “But y’all pay much, much more for medical care than anyone else,” and he’d be right: we certainly do. But if I lived on Prince Edward Island, while my medical care would be “free” — “free” if I didn’t count having to pay higher taxes to support the Canadian health care system — I’d be having my first procedure sometime around the end of June, and only God knows when the second one would occur.

Perry has told us, many times, that physicians are overpaid, that doctors make way too much money, and that that is a big problem with our health care system. John C answered that point:

Let me tell you about my buddy, Karl. Karl is a doctor in Canada and every year when he reaches is prescribed income limit under the Canadian system, he drives to Boca Raton to open his Medical Concierge service. Karl, his wife, June and I go out for dinner often. Karl tells me that in four months in Boca he TRIPLES his income. In Boca he accepts only private insurance or cash.

This means that while Karl is in Boca, Canada is minus one doctor. Karl has several friends who do the same. He has also explained to me how he and his associates refer Canadians to US clinics and hospitals for service they cannot receive in Canada. I asked Karl why Canada doesn’t just pass a law saying they can’t do that. Karl’s answer was: “If they try that we will all just leave the system”.

(N.B., different Karl.)

Perry told us:

In principle, provision of health care services should not be a for-profit system, because health care services are a basic human right, in my view.

Were I to get snarky, I’d ask if that means that grocery stores shouldn’t be allowed to make a profit, since food is certainly an essential, but that’s a debate for another day. But look at the results of a low-profit system in single-payer Canada: long waiting lists, and doctors maxing out their income in eight months, effectively leaving the Canadian system short on physicians when they’ve topped out. Meanwhile, in our very much for profit system, we have very well-compensated physicians, and so much capacity in our health care system that practitioners are advertising for new patients.

From a sign in an auto repair shop:

Fast. Cheap. Good.

Pick any two.

I suspect in a socialized medicine system, you get to pick half as many.