Jesus the political pundit

[Pastaneta]

I will say again: I doubt that Wellington is a Canadian or has ever set foot in Canada; he has certainly never had any contact with the Canadian health care system

I did some consulting work for the Quebec health system in the past. So I would agree with you on that.

've told you twice that I am Canadian. Lived here 60 years.

Actually this affirmation is quite suspect.

Two Canadians here, Sen and Kool have properly spoken of their own provincial system, because in Canada health care is administered by the provinces. You like an American have only spoken of the "Canadian health system". You didn't answer to a specific question about Ontario and spelled Fraser as Frazier... I would say you haven't a clue about Canada or the Canadian health system.

[Wellington]

You too, Pasta, calling me a liar?

[Pastaneta]

The only time Canadians seem to have a significant wait time is for knee replacement surgery. These reports of long wait times for critical treatments are propaganda.

Not according to the Supreme court of Canada:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaoulli_v ... General%29

Deschamps begins by identifying the issue as being whether the prohibition is "justified by the need to preserve the integrity of the public system" and is not questioning the single-tier health system itself. In examining the legislative context of the case, she warns against politicizing the issue and against taking an emotional tone to the judgment.

The appeal court's characterization of the issue as an infringement of an economic right is rejected by Deschamps. She goes on to note that the long waits at hospitals can result in deaths and that private health care prohibited by the Quebec Acts would likely have saved those lives. The wait lists, she claims, are an implicit form of rationing, and it is the government's rationing policy that is being challenged here as a violation of the right to "security of person" (per Canadian Charter) and "personal inviolability" (per Quebec Charter):

"For many years, the government has failed to act; the situation continues to deteriorate. This is not a case in which missing scientific data would allow for a more informed decision to be made. The principle of prudence that is so popular in matters relating to the environment and to medical research cannot be transposed to this case. Under the Quebec plan, the government can control its human resources in various ways, whether by using the time of professionals who have already reached the maximum for payment by the state, by applying the provision that authorizes it to compel even non?participating physicians to provide services (s. 30 HEIA) or by implementing less restrictive measures, like those adopted in the four Canadian provinces that do not prohibit private insurance or in the other OECD countries. While the government has the power to decide what measures to adopt, it cannot choose to do nothing in the face of the violation of Quebeckers’ right to security. ".

[Sennacherib]

This is the sort of idiocy a government health care system delivers. Yet another patient who will die before making it onto the official waiting list:

Karen Owen, Patient denied liver transplant

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090706/CGY_liver_transplant_090706/20090706?hub=CalgaryHome

The family of a dying B.C. man says they are shocked he is being denied a place on the Liver Transplant List.

It is because the man has not taken a required addictions counseling course that his family says, they didn't know about.

55 year old James Powell is at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre suffering end-stage liver failure after years of drug and alcohol use. He also has Hepatitis C, Cirrhosis, and a cancerous tumour on his liver.

"We come here everyday and watch him get worse." said his daughter Shannon Powell.

Powell's wife Debbie says her husband has been clean and sober since 2004.

His only hope at survival is a new liver. But the Liver Transplant Program will not put Powell on the transplant list because he has not completed a two week addictions counseling program. It is an intense course, five days a week, eight hours a day.

Debbie Powell says no one told them about the course and now her husband is too sick to take it...

Alberta Health Services will not comment on the situation because of patient confidentiality. But a spokesman tells CTV everything involved in having a liver transplant is listed on the AHS website.

We looked and discovered the website mentions seeing an addictions counselor during an assessment. It does not say anything about a two week addictions counseling course...

[Nonc Hilare]

You too, Pasta, calling me a liar?

That's almost as funny as Pasta criticizing my spelling!

[Nonc Hilare]

This is the sort of idiocy a government health care system delivers. Yet another patient who will die before making it onto the official waiting list:

And he would have received the transplant in America? Roughly 30% of Americans under age 65 have no health insurance and there isn't even a list to miss. If Canada finds a way to exclude 30% of liver transplant cases you may have a point, Sennacherib. My guess is that this makes the news in Canada because it is a rare and shocking exception, where dying for lack of a liver transplant in the US is not news.

Overall, deaths from cirrhosis of the liver are 32% lower in Canada than in the U.S. See Java graphic:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mor_f ... per-capita

Considering that a transplant is the only cure for this disease, doesn't that mean Canadians in general are 32% more likely to get a transplant than an American?

[kool maudit]

the wait times here are completely unacceptable. the situation among the poor and uninsured in the united states is completely unacceptable.

it's not zero-sum here.

[Marcus]

. . the situation among the poor and uninsured in the united states is completely unacceptable.

it's not zero-sum here.

Some years back I worked as a Hospice Chaplain for hospital in Texas. I recall a patient, a middle-aged lady, dying for lack of a liver transplant . . seems they couldn't find one for her. The patient and her family were dirt-poor, no insurance, lived in a mobile home out on the prairie, and the husband worked as a farm hand for a dairy.

A couple-three months into her Hospice care, a social worker figured out some way to get some program to pay for a liver transplant for the lady. A liver became available within a month.

True story . . .

[Sennacherib]

And he would have received the transplant in America? Roughly 30% of Americans under age 65 have no health insurance and there isn't even a list to miss. If Canada finds a way to exclude 30% of liver transplant cases you may have a point, Sennacherib. My guess is that this makes the news in Canada because it is a rare and shocking exception, where dying for lack of a liver transplant in the US is not news.

He certainly won't get it here, even if AHS has to make up rules as it goes along in order to deny him even the chance of being listed for transplant. Death for want of a transplant is not rare or shocking here, nor will Mr. Powell's death do anything to change that. His death will be recorded as the result of cancer, or cirrhosis, and because he never made it on the list, he will not appear in the statistics of those who die while awaiting transplant. Thus there will have been no failure of the system, and Friends of Medicare will continue to compose panegyrics to St. Tommy Douglas and the glories of medicare.

[Wellington]

This is the sort of idiocy a government health care system delivers. Yet another patient who will die before making it onto the official waiting list:

...55 year old James Powell is at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre suffering end-stage liver failure after years of drug and alcohol use. He also has Hepatitis C, Cirrhosis, and a cancerous tumour on his liver....

His only hope at survival is a new liver. But the Liver Transplant Program will not put Powell on the transplant list because he has not completed a two week addictions counseling program. It is an intense course, five days a week, eight hours a day.

[/quote]

A sad story indeed! I thought the omniscient Sennacherib was going to tell us Mr. Powell got himself into this mess with years of drug (Strike One) and alcohol (Strike Two) abuse and for not following his healthcare providers' instructions (Strike Three). Certainly in the US, if he had insurance (unlikely given his substance-abuse history) Mr Powell's HMO would deny him based on pre-existing condition and substance abuse. But he could always sell his house and get treated. Perhaps there is more to the story - for example that a liver transplant would be a last-ditch meaningless effort because Mr Powell has so much else gone wrong.

That's one of the things wrong with using one-of anecdotal media stories as 'evidence' of healthcare system failure or inequity. Another example - Ms Holmes from Waterdown, ON in the now-famous video - gives partial and incorrect information and it seems lied outright. According to what I read, it was her own anxieties and distrust of her doctors that led her to the US for care. Even the Mayo clinic told her to go home and have her surgery when scheduled, in Canada. She didn't take the Mayo clinic's first advice either and they gladly accepted her cash.

I am fed up with partisan positions constructed out of lopsided anecdotal information and supported with specious arguments.

[Nonc Hilare]

I am fed up with partisan positions constructed out of lopsided anecdotal information and supported with specious arguments.

Amen, which was why I spent the time trying to pull some facts around it. I'm not sure if the link works, but it is a right useful little site and well worth a bookmark.

We still need the narratives, though. The emotional impact is important. It would be a bigger mistake to reduce the conversation to statistics and finance. The metric used must be people getting well and staying healthy. American health care will change, but we shouldn't use political or economic ideology to solve this problem.

As I read the story, Mr. Powell seemed upset at not being treated fairly or fully informed. I didn't read any displeasure at the way the system generally operates. He believes he wasn't told about the counseling and that screwed him on the transplant. In his eyes, it was human error and not a flawed health care system responsible for his predicament.

[Sennacherib]

I am fed up with partisan positions constructed out of lopsided anecdotal information and supported with specious arguments.

So stop making them!

You've said that my assertions are wrong, wrong, wrong. Show factual errors in them or retract your statements.

Since you won't be able to, I assume you'll take the coward's path and simply disappear from this site.

[Wellington]

I am fed up with partisan positions constructed out of lopsided anecdotal information and supported with specious arguments.

So stop making them!

You've said that my assertions are wrong, wrong, wrong. Show factual errors in them or retract your statements.

Since you won't be able to, I assume you'll take the coward's path and simply disappear from this site.

I addressed your assertions about me personally. I already gave you enough facts and that's all you're gonna get.

Once again I ask - are you calling me a liar?

[PatrickMurphy]

Are you actually arguing, Nonc Hilare, that the tens of millions of sneaky trespassers have been going without free medical care all these years? Try and sell that argument to the hospitals in California and Texas that are being bankrupted by the legal obligation.

[CognitiveDistoibance]

I've been lurking about for some time. So let me see if I have this correct...

1. Health care is a right, or if not a right, a moral obligation placed on all good Christians.

Matt 25:43-46 HCSB

2. To ration or withhold health care for financial reasons is un-Christian.

I don't think there is any way one can twist Scripture into denying health care for lack of funds.

3. To ration or withhold health care for a bureaucracy's financial reasons is, however, naturally unavoidable and essentially acceptable.

Canada's system is a good one and works well within its budget constraints.

4. Any oligopoly or monopoly in or on health care is un-Christian and evil, unless of course, the entity in question is indeed a full monopoly in the form of government, which is more noble and efficient than for-profit and non-profit organizations. (Evidently either because it has tax and police power, or because it buys off 51% of the voters. Whichever.)
5. Any system where 20% of the population gets far superior care because they alone can afford to participate is un-Christian and evil. Better that no one should get this care, so that all suffer equally--this is obviously more Christian.
6. The only proper Christian response to un-met health needs is to effect change through the monopoly + tax power + police power of the government. No other course of action is available. Government alone is ... able.
7. The obvious need for government involvement in any situation is the imperfections found in every other approach (health care, automotive business, credit markets, etc.). Government alone has established a stellar record of perfection in all its endeavors.

BTW, didn't someone (ostensible related to Matt 25:43-46) provide free health and exhaustive care? (Matt 4:24) Didn't he empower a small bureaucracy to offer these services? (Matt 10:1)

So naturally, this being highest and the most Christian thing possible to do, he continued these free health services in perpetuity. Right?

Oh, he didn't? How un-Christian. No wonder they crucified him.

Let that be a lesson to all Republicans and right-wingers.

EDIT: Removed a errant paste to perhaps reduce gibberish levels.