Scott Chisholm Lamont, RN.

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)O( Green Man

Pissy about the whole Medicare thing.

The long knives have come out for Medicare back home. The majority of people who wrote into the Calgary Herald's "Sound Off" forum on-line were way too pleased with the ruling for my taste, but the ones comparing Canada to North Korea and Cuba were more that I could tolerate. You know you're going to be snarky when you start quoting the indominable Officer Ripley, but that is how I started my post:

"I'm sorry, did IQ's just drop sharply while I was away?"
There is no way to shorten waits without increasing capacity (people providing care or amount of time they spend). Private payment means either people jump the queue or some professionals leave one system to create another, so someone is going to wait longer. The overall cost of the system will go up with multi-payer care, as insurance co's are bureaucracies that also take a profit. The private sector in the US has proven that point amply. Most Canadian businesses are happy with single-payer as it makes them competitive. Wages are not driving costs up, it is new drugs, technology, and a population that needs more care. US & CDN RN wages have been flat for decades in terms of purchasing power. Unions aren't the problem, in the US wages between union & non-union facilities are comparable, as they compete for the same limited staff pool. So be honest - do you want a system that is fair, or provides great care to those with cash?

The headline I was reacting to was this one: "Medicare setback delights Alberta: Supreme Court endorses right to private care" (sorry, no link, they don't keep stuff up long). The "delights Alberta" part was refering to the Klein government, of course, which is always eager to commodify health care. Strangely enough, no one replied to my post.

Category: health care, politics, Canada