[BDA116]

This is where we are headed if hitlary and herr kerry get their way.
It doesn't work, period.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...wait_your_turn

[Cowboy1600]

Must be all the yanks jumping the border to get health care causing the problems.....

[Cowboy1600]

Of course the better alternative would be have healthcare only for those that can afford to pay for it.

[Baketech]

My prescription...?
Take 2 Arctic Grayling and call me in the morning...

[Mo Noyz]

Originally Posted by Cowboy1600

Must be all the yanks jumping the border to get health care causing the problems.....

What a completely clueless post.

Having worked in Ophthalmology for several years in Florida, I can tell you that no less than HALF of the patients who came in for cataract surgery were Canadian.

I wondered in silence for years but then got the courage to ask a few patients from Canada why they came down here to pay $2000 an eye for cataract surgery when they could get it for free in their home country?

Their answers, almost to the letter? Because the waiting list was 2 years.

I don't know if the rules are the same in Canada, but when you test for your drivers license here, you must have at least one eye with a corrected vision of 20/60. If not, no license. The average patient who has grade four cataracts can usually test no better than 20/100.

[Cowboy1600]

Originally Posted by Mo Noyz

What a completely clueless post.

Having worked in Ophthalmology for several years in Florida, I can tell you that no less than HALF of the patients who came in for cataract surgery were Canadian.

I wondered in silence for years but then got the courage to ask a few patients from Canada why they came down here to pay $2000 an eye for cataract surgery when they could get it for free in their home country?

Their answers, almost to the letter? Because the waiting list was 2 years.

I don't know if the rules are the same in Canada, but when you test for your drivers license here, you must have at least one eye with a corrected vision of 20/60. If not, no license. The average patient who has grade four cataracts can usually test no better than 20/100.

Then I guess you can refer to my second post.

If you can afford it great, go to where ever you can get fast, good treatment. For those many that cant afford it its nice to know, even if there is a bit of a wait, they can get the treatment they need without having to take out a second mortgage.

I think your the one that may need to find a clue to your post.

[luvtolean]

Originally Posted by Cowboy1600

Then I guess you can refer to my second post.

If you can afford it great, go to where ever you can get fast, good treatment. For those many that cant afford it its nice to know, even if there is a bit of a wait, they can get the treatment they need without having to take out a second mortgage.

I think your the one that may need to find a clue to your post.

Dude, you are so ****ing clueless...

[ConqSoft]

Princess has a lot of relatives in Canada, and they all complain about the poor healthcare, long waits, all the good doctors moving to the US where they can make a decent living, etc.

[ccwilli3]

Originally Posted by luvtolean

Dude, you are so ****ing clueless...

wow, I was thinking the same thing.

[Cowboy1600]

Originally Posted by luvtolean

Dude, you are so ****ing clueless...

Tell me why, oh wise one. When are you **** knuckles going to start playing the ball rather than the man. All any of you wankers ever do in an argument is resort to name calling.

[Kuss929]

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

Princess has a lot of relatives in Canada, and they all complain about the poor healthcare, long waits, all the good doctors moving to the US where they can make a decent living, etc.

I agree that there are long lines at times but when you need something done it gets done. My brother was sick years ago and it was urgent. He was where he had to be as quick as possible. Cataracts are not a high urgency thing for most people.

It is interesting how so many doctors leave to go to the states. I find it hard to buy the idea about a decent living as they all make mid to high 6 digits. I could live comfortably on that. The only reason that I am working in the states at the moment is because my job is not available in Canada which is due to Canada's healthcare system.

[luvtolean]

Originally Posted by Cowboy1600

Tell me why, oh wise one. When are you **** knuckles going to start playing the ball rather than the man. All any of you wankers ever do in an argument is resort to name calling.

I guess calling you "dude" was name calling? Calling you clueless isn't name calling, it is a statement of fact. You however did manage to call "us" names.

I don't know about Australian medicine, therefore I am clueless, ignorant, or whatever term you choose, and therefore, I would not choose to argue the point. And if you called me clueless on the topic of your healthcare, I'd simply agree. Not rant on...

Your argument is the same old rehashed crap from El Socialista magazine.

1) We do have the absolute best health care money can buy
2) Most Americans can buy it.
3) For those who can't, we have better healthcare than the government program I'm most familiar with, Canada's, where I've had family crippled since it took so long to goto an ortho (grandma), or drive their asses down here to the Mayo clinic since the "best" Canadian doctors couldn't figure out a serious debilitating ailment my uncle had. A friend of mine, who was a native born Brit, is an RN, spent several years working in what is considered one of the worst health care systems in my area, said it is FAR superior to the best Britain has to offer. Again, her words, not mine.

What we also have are HMO's. This is insurance with care sometimes dictated by finance people. Most healthcare people don't like this insurance as it does not allow them to do their best due to restrictions. This is NOTHING compared to healthcare dictated by some worthless government bureaucrat.

4) If you had intimiate knowledge of our system, you'd know anyone can drop into an ER an be seen. This is why our healthcare costs so much. Those who can afford to pay the hospital, also pay for those who couldn't

[abtech]

Well this "**** knuckle" was taught to "play the man" and not the puck as are all hockey players. Maybe your analogy is too "soccer centric" . . .

[Mo Noyz]

Cataracts are not a high urgency thing for most people.

Hey Kuss, when you are older and have to retest for your drivers license, try handing that line to them when they fail you due to the fact that you can't read 20/60 or better in either eye.

You may not not consider it "high urgency" at your age, but trust me, it does come into serious play later in life.

[Mo Noyz]

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

Princess has a lot of relatives in Canada, and they all complain about the poor healthcare, long waits, all the good doctors moving to the US where they can make a decent living, etc.

And this is the same thing that I heard in my line of work as well.

Personally, I don't want an angry doctor on a government salary doing surgery on me.

[ccwilli3]

Originally Posted by Mo Noyz

And this is the same thing that I heard in my line of work as well.

Personally, I don't want an angry doctor on a government salary doing surgery on me.

Exactly! And thats what the socialists just don't understand!!!! When I go down on my bike, I sure as hell don't wanna wait 3 weeks for them to work on my collarbone!

[phobiaphobe]

Canada's system doesn't work. Like all socialist concepts, it's great in principle, but never in practice.

In my experience, people ("new" Canadians) seem to want their money's worth and clog the emergency rooms whenever they get a little sniffle or ache. When someone with a legitimate emergency comes in, they're often made to wait.

The extreme left wing here think that there should be a hospital bed for every potential patient; I on the other hand, think we need a little scarcity in our system.

[Newfie TLR]

Any country (and there's many of 'em) trying to copy Canada's medical system are fo far out in left field that it's sad.

Here's personal experiences:

Some of you may remember my post about 2 months ago about my knee. I had spent 4 hours in Emergency with an ice pack on my knee, looking around at people who didn't seem to have a GD thing wrong with them. I finally got in to see an Ortho Surgeon yesterday (remember, after two months, but my original appt with the vet was aor April 2006) and he has me scheduled for surgery (Arthroscopy) on September the 8th. So people, that's like 7 months from injury to surgery. It's affected my work, my recreation (golfing and biking), my vacations (it hurts to go 30 Kms on my bikes, so thousands of Kms in a week are out), etc.

My daughter sat in Emergency for 9 hours and was sent for tests for a suspected ruptured appendix when she finally got in to see a vet. Nine f**king hours!!!! It turns out it wasn't an appendix, JUST a serious abdominal infection, so I guess she was lucky.

My father is a semi-retired GP and the main reason he retired from full-time medicine is because the system is so F'ED up.

Our system is a serious tax burden with no good end. Go into Family Practicians offices and see how many people are there with a cold, a pimple on their ass, or basically nothing wrong and creating waiting lists 4 hours long by being there.. Go to any Emergency and see how many people there can be classed the same way, and then complain they were there for 4 or 5 hours when they shouldn't have been there in the first place!!!

I won't speak for the whole US of A, but talking to people in the areas I was looking at moving to, yes, the medical system takes a little cash out of your pocket (if you have company paid insurance) but you don't have to spend that much time waiting, do you??

[abtech]

Nine hours with a ruptured appendix can be 5 hours past death . . .

Just to fuel the flames a bit, the current vogue in the US today is a competition between Emergency units to see and treat any patient within 1 hour or less from registration. I see billboards advertising money back guarantees that they will attend to all emergency cases within 1 hour or your money back. I even saw one recently advertising 30 minutes or less.

Not that this is necessarily a good thing, as it would seem obvious that things are probably being rushed more than a little to attain these times, especially during high traffic times (summer weekends, holidays etc.), but several of the local hospitals have tripled the size of their respective emergency units in order to provide these type of response times. Also in most emergency rooms that I have had the "pleasure" of visiting, injuries are prioritized by the triage unit so people with gluteus acne don't get treated before patients with potential life threatening symptoms.

[Newfie TLR]

Originally Posted by abtech

snip..., injuries are prioritized by the triage unit so people with gluteus acne don't get treated before patients with potential life threatening symptoms.

This IS very often the case, but also many times it's the "Squeaky wheel gets the grease" syndrome. You bitch enough and sooner or later you're gonna get on someone's nerves.

I have a co-worker whose wife is a nurse on the Emerg unit in one of the Detroit hospitals. She says the difference between Canada and Detroit is phenomenal.

[luvtolean]

Originally Posted by abtech

Also in most emergency rooms that I have had the "pleasure" of visiting, injuries are prioritized by the triage unit so people with gluteus acne don't get treated before patients with potential life threatening symptoms.

Originally Posted by Newfie TLR

This IS very often the case, but also many times it's the "Squeaky wheel gets the grease" syndrome. You bitch enough and sooner or later you're gonna get on someone's nerves.

I came in to the emergency room as a walk in with a dislocated shoulder. I carry my bad arm in with the good and calmly told the triage nurse my problem and asked to please see a doctor, quickly.

Now, a dislocated shoulder hurts like total hell, but I'd been through it several times and am pretty good at managing the emotion. Mainly because it will be over as soon as they get the morphine dripping. Usually with a dislocated shoulder they rush you right back and you do the paperwork in bed after your shoulder has been put back in joint.

Well this nurse slowly asks for my insurance card, tells me to sit down and fill out forms. I'm fuming, but manage to say OK, sure. I sit down and drop my dislocated arm on the desk making sure she can see the disgusting site of the head of my humerous through the skin. She didn't hesitate getting me back after that.