Canadian Healthcare the real story

[n david]

Originally Posted by Dordrecht

Really?

And I have been cursing????

What else does your repeated use of BS mean?

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by n david

What else does your repeated use of BS mean?

Big Slushy?

[Dordrecht]

Originally Posted by n david

What else does your repeated use of BS mean?

You are now cursing yourself ?

[Dordrecht]

Originally Posted by Aquila

Big Slushy?

[n david]

Originally Posted by Dordrecht

You are now cursing yourself ?

I'm quoting you, not using it in a sentence.

[Originalist]

Canadian Healthcare testimonies..

I live near the Canadian border in WNY. A Canadian friend of mine and I both injured our lower backs in the L3-L4 area.Excruciating pain and sciatica. I got an MRI the next day. His wait time for an MRI was 6 months. Of course he called a facility in Buffalo paid cash and got his MIR within a week. Luckily if you have money you will be able to purchase prompt treatment and diagnosis outside of California.

Quebec, Canada's biggest city is Montreal. The city has plenty of hospitals. The hospitals have always done a good job taking care of our elderly aunt who was in her late 80's. Her son Glen, age 67, was a professor of physical training. He was in tip-top physical shape, working out in the gym every day. He was constantly writing books on his area of specialty and traveled the world giving seminars.

One day in late December 2015 Glen was feeling very ill and took at taxi to the nearest hospital's emergency room. The only emergency room doctor on duty was busy with other patients. While waiting to see the doctor Glen filled out a bunch of forms, and apparently signed a "standard form" which contained a "Do Not Resuscitate" clause. Eight hours later Glen was still siting in the emergency room, waiting to see a doctor. Glen was told there all of the doctors working in the hospital were busy and to come back on another day. Disgusted, he took a taxi home. After several hours in bed the nausea went away.

In early January 2016 Glen was working with some students at the gym when he became gravely ill. One of the students was a medical school student and he insisted on calling an ambulance. Glen and the med student rode in the ambulance to the same hospital where Glen had previously sat for 8 hours untreated. Because Glen was brought in by ambulance, a doctor saw him right away. The doctor determined Glen was having a massive heart attack.

Glen's records at the hospital showed that he had previously signed a "DNR" so the doctor and the others at the hospital's trauma/emergency room DID NOT treat Glen and attended to other patients. Glen's violent heart attack continued with no treatment and Glen died with his friend the med student holding his hand.

After Glen died we talked to his friend the med student by phone. He apologized for Canada's health care system killing our cousin. He said that each province in Canada got to decide how much money it wanted to spend each year on the province's citizens health care. The med student said that as a result of the Quebec politicians decisions the hospitals are grossly understaffed in terms of doctors to treat very ill patients, and that's why Glen is dead.

Our cousin Glen had much to live for, including a new book which was coming out and a trip to the Super Bowl which he had paid for. Under those facts it's highly unlikely he knowingly and willingly signed a "Do Not Resuscitate Form". My entire family is convinced that the Quebec Health Insurance Plan is trying to save money and balance its budget by letting people die, untreated, at Quebec hospitals.

[Aquila]

No system is perfect. While people warn of the potential dangers of a system like that found in Canada (which are often full of myth and exaggerations)... they are ignoring that an estimated 45,000 Americans were dying every year from treatable conditions because they couldn't afford health insurance on the free market.

The internet is a wonderful thing. I challenge any who oppose Canada's healthcare system to find a Canadian forum and invite a debate on it. First, you'll be schooled by the very people who are in their system. A number of your facts will be debunked. A number of myths will be corrected. And a different perspective will emerge. You'll also get plenty of critique of our system from an outsider's observation. It can be eye opening.

[n david]

Originally Posted by Aquila

No system is perfect. While people warn of the potential dangers of a system like that found in Canada (which are often full of myth and exaggerations)... they are ignoring that an estimated 45,000 Americans were dying every year from treatable conditions because they couldn't afford health insurance on the free market.

The internet is a wonderful thing. I challenge any who oppose Canada's healthcare system to find a Canadian forum and invite a debate on it. First, you'll be schooled by the very people who are in their system. A number of your facts will be debunked. A number of myths will be corrected. And a different perspective will emerge. You'll also get plenty of critique of our system from an outsider's observation. It can be eye opening.

You keep using the 45,000 number, which is widely disputed and likely incorrect.

""Urban Institute senior fellow Stan Dorn, who studied the issue in 2008 and concluded 22,000 people died in 2006 because of a lack of health insurance.""

"It’s impossible to know precisely how many people die from having no insurance. There’s no national data for it."

"Richard Kronick, a University of California San Diego medical professor who now works for the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in 2009 that estimates are "almost certainly incorrect.""

"His paper, published in August 2009 in HSR: Health Services Research, found that uninsured participants had no different risk of dying than those were covered by employer-sponsored group insurance. The finding was surprising coming from Kronick, who told PolitiFact then it was "not the answer I wanted.""

"Henry Aaron, a senior fellow at the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution, told us in an interview that he, too, thinks the number of deaths is impossible to nail down. In addition to Kronick’s skepticism, he pointed to a study of Oregon’s Medicaid experiment (which Baicker co-authored and PolitiFact looked at here) that found no significant improvement in health outcomes, including conditions like blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, between a group of new Medicaid enrollees and uninsured Oregonians who could not get on the Medicaid rolls.

"Like Kronick, I am a strong advocate of measures to achieve universal insurance coverage and would rather that Kronick’s study and the Oregon project provided evidence in support of my policy preference," he said. "But, as far as mortality is concerned, they just don’t.""

Here's the kicker: the Harvard "study" which claimed 45,000 uninsured die was based on a guessing game.

""That 2009 report determined that people without insurance are 40 percent more likely to die without insurance""

There's no actual data on how many uninsured die. And why did they die? Was it truly because they couldn't get the care they needed, or was it do to an accident, homicide or other natural causes NOT related to inability to get medical care.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...year-because-/

[n david]

"""The basis for that statistic is this study that appeared in the American Journal of Public Health in 2009. The study is, in technical terms, garbage. The authors of the study noted insurance status of a group of people in 1993. They followed up in 2001, checking whether they were dead or alive. They found that the group who had been uninsured in 1993 had a higher mortality rate than those who were insured, and from that they calculated that 45,000 people die each year due to lack of insurance.

There was only on problem, which the authors noted near the end of the study:


Our study has several limitation. NHANES III assessed health insurance at a single point in time and did not validate self-reported insurance status. We were unable to measure the effect of gaining or losing coverage after the interview.

In other words the authors had no idea how many people uninsured in 1993 subsequently acquired health insurance. Someone who was uninsured in 1993, got insurance in, say, 1996, and then died in 2000—well, it would be pretty hard to attribute his death to being uninsured, wouldn’t it?

The authors try to pull a fast one with the very next sentence: “Point-in-time uninsurance is associated with subsequent uninsurance.6” In other words, they are suggesting that if a person was in uninsured in 1993, he was likely to be uninsured as well in 1996. And that’s what you would take away if you didn’t look at the study in the footnote.

That study was titled “Health insurance coverage and mortality among the near-elderly.” Here’s what it says:


Among adults who were uninsured in 1992, the proportion of respondents who reported being publicly or privately insured rose progressively in the ensuing four surveys (46.6 percent, 58.4 percent, 66.1 percent, and 74.5 percent), as nearly half reached age sixty-five and became eligible for Medicare by 2000.

Thus, people who are uninsured at one point in time are more likely to be insured in subsequent years. It would be more accurate to say: “Point-in-time uninsurance is associated with a subsequent increase in insurance coverage.”""

http://www.conservativeblog.org/amyr...e-uninsur.html

[Aquila]

Let's assume the number is only 22,000. Are you saying that this is acceptable?