Canada sending patients to US for treatment
Barack Obama has a high opinion of the Canadian single-payer health-care system. In March,
he lamented that the only thing separating us from Canada’s system was
our “legacy” of……

“Look, the fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the U.S. Senate for the public option, there never have been,” Conrad said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” “So to continue to……

Lol… you obviously didn’t even read the summary version.

Now, don’t we feel better?

Cricket624 on August 17, 2009 at 1:49 PM

Now we do!

“This “activity-based funding” would be an incentive to provide more efficient care,”

No it won’t. Dr. sees patient. Dr. prescribes pills. Next patient please!

Sounder on August 17, 2009 at 1:01 PM

I love illustrations of the difference between efficiency and efficacy. Patients per hour up; patient life expectancy way, way down.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4126013 .

I work in a foundation hospital.We compete for patients,funding is based on results.

http://www.nhs.uk/servicedirectories/Pages/ServiceSearch.aspx

I am not bothered what health system you have in the U.S ,obviously it is up to you.

I am not saying you should have ours.

But there seems to be and lack of understanding of how the N.H.S works and a lack of interest to gain more knowledge.

mags on August 17, 2009 at 12:25 PM

Euthanized?

Some good folks out there have been reading the healthcare legislation, myself included, in an attempt to understand it and translate it to normal everyday english for those of us not Obama-speak Inclined.  All the legale….

This is what we can expect here. You wait. You’re given pills and told that someone will see you sometime in the future.

Put the lime in the coconut, you called your doctor, woke him up,
And say, ‘Doctor, ain’t there nothing I can take,
I say, Doctor, to relieve this belly ache?
I say, Doctor, doctor, ain’t there nothin’ I can take,
I say, Doctor, dooooctor, to relieve this belly ache?’
Put the lime in the coconut, drink them both together,
Put the lime in the coconut, then you feel better,
Put the lime in the coconut, drink them both up,
Put the lime in the coconut, and call me in the morning

Now, don’t we feel better?

Of *COURSE* they’re looking at adding a private option!

They’re going to make a *FORTUNE* treating Americans coming to the Great White North for treatment!

Mew

acat on August 17, 2009 at 10:18 AM

sounds like they’re counting on the passage of Obamacare

But what illustrates the Canadian system and what should make the proposed system here a scary thing is what recently happened to her niece.

Here niece is a lovely, lively 16 year old. The other day she was walking home from her babysitting job when she suddenly collapsed on the street. Police & paramedics were called. She was unresponsive (but breathing)… they tried everything to try to wake her, they even tried pain to see if they could shock her back to lucidity. Nothing. She was taken to the local hospital where she was placed on an IV, intubated (just in case she stopped breathing) and given Dilantin. She finally regained consciousness.

Here’s the scary part. In the US currently if this happened to someone they would not be released. They would be admitted to the hospital and a battery of tests would be given to find out the cause of the problem. The results would be quickly reviewed and a course of action would be put into place.

In Canada it doesn’t work this way. They did some tests and then released her. They gave her 30 days of some medicine to try to prevent the situation from happening again and told not to be alone. The neurologist on assignment will review the results of whatever tests they did and will set up an appointment “sometime within the next 30-45 days”!

Here’s a young girl who suddenly and inexplicably falls into a sort-of “coma,” is rushed to the hospital unresponsive, they don’t know what’s causing it (this is the second time it’s happened, a few weeks before she also collapsed and she was misdiagnosed as being “hypoglycemic” and sent home too)… and now she has to wait 30-45 days to find out what is causing it, all the while praying that it doesn’t happen again… it could be a tumor, serious heart problems — heck anything! But she has to wait because they are short of neurologists who can review her case (and she lives in a moderately sized city connected to Toronto). After diagnosis she’ll probably have to wait even longer for treatment.

This is what we can expect here. You wait. You’re given pills and told that someone will see you sometime in the future. Specialists will be unavailable or thin. You live in fear that you may not see another tomorrow. And you pray that someday, somehow, somewhere you may be allowed to get the opportunity to get well before it’s too late.

That’s the future for us, and it should chill ever American to their core, to the bone, to their soul.

No it won’t. Dr. sees patient. Dr. prescribes pills. Next patient please!

,” the president of the Canadian Medical Association wants a major change to eliminate long wait times and inject creativity back into the hidebound system. Dr. Robert Ouellette wants to use competition to do it:

What a novel idea!

Cutting elective surgeries in Vancouver for the Olympics.

Who seriously thinks any actual surgeons had any medical input into this decision?

Examples abound. That’s just one.

Drained Brain on August 17, 2009 at 10:38 AM

What is trully scary they have 2k surgeries schedules for oct 2010 -meaning some people who need surgery are to wait at least a year to get it.

but the concept of saying that we’re going to close 100 ICU/Acute Care/Surgery beds, in facilities otherwise open for business, boggles the mind.

landshark on August 17, 2009 at 11:48 AM

If you don’t have the money, you have to do something. Better to have some beds open than none.

I don’t know why anyone would reuse a syringe on a different patient even to inject drugs into IV lines. I assume their thinking was sterile needle to withdraw sterile medicine to inject into sterile line. However, the IV line may not always be sterile. Again, never heard of anyone doing this. It’s not taught. In the US, the pharmacy is responsible for mixing the drugs and dividing into the dosage for each individual hospital patient. It’s more expensive but it cuts back on medication errors and frees up the nurses.

Obviously, they don’t do this in Canada. Nice way to cut costs and increase errors.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4126013 .

I work in a foundation hospital.We compete for patients,funding is based on results.

http://www.nhs.uk/servicedirectories/Pages/ServiceSearch.aspx

I am not bothered what health system you have in the U.S ,obviously it is up to you.

I am not saying you should have ours.

But there seems to be and lack of understanding of how the N.H.S works and a lack of interest to gain more knowledge.