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Here I go with one of those I told you so moments.

A short while ago I posted an article on the pros and cons of the Canadian Healthcare model. (For those of you who do not know, Canada has government run, socialized medicine.) President Obama’s administration is in the process of building a similar model in the United States. 

One of the cons I mentioned in that post is that the Canadian model is not effective at controlling costs. That’s right, costs are spiraling out of control in Canada just like they are in the US. And on the other side of the ocean, healthcare costs are also rising sharply in most European nations with socialized medicine.

Funny thing is, the Democratic healthcare bill was passed largely to control spending. Apparently the current US administration didn’t look into what is happening to medical costs in socialized countries; if they had, they might have reconsidered. I suppose they think they can do socialized medicine better than the rest of the world.

Good luck!

And now I'll sign off with an amazing revelation:

Health care costs can only be controlled by reforming health care delivery, not by reforming healthcare insurance, which, unfortunately, is all the recent health care bill does.
 


Comments

Owen
06/02/2010 00:44

Just a clarification: Canada has a single-payer insurance model. The government does not run healthcare, just how it is paid for. The UK and e.g. Finland have true government-run systems where doctors are government employees. Each system has very different benefits and downsides. You are right though that all are under cost pressure. The new healthcare bill here won't do much about cost, but not passing it wouldn't have either. For the record, everywhere else has a long, long way to go to catch up with us on cost. Not exactly something to be patting ourselves on the back for.

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djinn
06/02/2010 01:47

Last time I heard, Canada didn't have 44,000 people dying per year because of no medical care. They take care of everyone. Let's wait and see if they can fix this.

Just another selfish mean person. You, I mean.

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djinn
06/02/2010 01:50

You are so wrong about health care insurance. It skims 15-20% right off the top (after the current bill, as I recall) as opposed to "socialized medicine" such as medicare, which has around 3% overhead. Let's see, 15% of the total medical costs (the low estimate) versus 3%. I assume you can do the math.

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djinn
06/02/2010 01:54

How many people do you think it's acceptable to die here in the US from inadequate medical care? Lots? Just as long as you don't personally know them? That's my guess, from the evidence given.

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S.Faux link
06/02/2010 02:21

Dave C:

Great observation. Reform of healthcare costs has yet to be achieved. To me, it will only be achieved when government removes itself from the process, as painful as that may sound.

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Jon
06/02/2010 13:04

You say Canada's healthcare costs are rising out of control. Please cite your sources. Then you say we are building a similar model here in the U.S., but you don't explain how. You might be on to something when you talk about the need to reform delivery, but then you stop. Please tell us exactly what and how. Otherwise, your post is nothing but empty nonsense.

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Dave C.
06/08/2010 11:46

My apologies to everyone for not approving your comments sooner. FOr some reason my 'send notification of comments to my email box' setting was turned off.

Thanks for the clarification Owen. The Canadian government does not run health care, just how it is paid. At the same time, if a clinic is not doing things the way the gov wants them done, then they won't get paid. Such is the case with private clinics. Last I heard, the gov will not pay to private clinics. In fact it has even threatened legal action against private clinics collecting fees from patients. Thanks again Owen for raising that important point.

djin,
"Just another selfish mean person. You, I mean."
-For some reason you ascribe a certain degree of callousness to my personality that is unwarranted. Perhaps you confuse my desire for critical debate with callousness.

Jon,
Sorry if this post did not satisfy. I try to keep my posts brief by covering one topic at a time. Generally my posts are meant to stimulate discussion and thought. I could go into how a focus on quality of delivery rather than profit-driven quantity of delivery would significantly reduce costs, for both the delivery organization and the patient, but this would probably be too much for the current post.

If you click on "costs" above it will take you to a link giving some evidence on rising costs. I have also reviewed data at healthcare conferences that say the same thing.

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