Socialized Medicine: Quebec's former health minister is tacitly admitting that the system he helped create is not sustainable. It has, as Claude Castonguay has succinctly noted, reached "a crisis point."
Actually, when 40% of the province's $60 billion budget is spent on health care, or when public health care costs in Canada are growing at twice the rate of the economy as a whole, we'd say the crisis point was reached long ago.
But better late than never. And Castonguay, known as the father of the Quebec public health care system that was copied by the rest of Canada, should be commended for acknowledging that the province's health care costs are unbearable.
He should also be applauded for proposing further privatization. A report issued last week recommends that Quebec move toward a mixed-delivery system that includes more private care.
The report, "Getting Our Money's Worth," also calls for user and access fees that will cut the incentives to make those "free" doctor visits for minor ailments that have clogged the system and sent costs soaring. It also suggests eliminating the rule that prevents doctors from practicing in both the public and private sectors.
These are mere details, though. Of greater significance is the admission that state health care doesn't work. Perhaps most revealing is Castonguay's statement that "patients, instead of being seen as an expenditure for the hospital, become a source of revenue."
In nations that have the blessing of a liberalized economy, people are looked upon as sources of revenue in every facet of life. It's a formula that works well for both seller and consumer.
Even the poor in this nation, where we allegedly have a crisis of the uninsured, benefit from the arrangement: They have color TVs, microwave ovens, cell phones, multiple cars, VCRs and DVD players, air conditioning and plenty of food, enough for obesity to be among the top health problems for those below the poverty line.
"People can choose what car they want to buy, what suit they want to wear, what house they want to live in," Castonguay says. "But when it comes to their health, they don't have a choice. That's what I'm against. We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise a freedom of choice."
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=288921903474479
Originally posted by MerkInvestor's Business Daily...now there's an impartial voice on the matter of socialized medicine, if ever there was one.
Socialized Medicine: Quebec's former health minister is tacitly admitting that the system he helped create is not sustainable. It has, as Claude Castonguay has succinctly noted, reached "a crisis point."
Actually, when 40% of the province's $60 billion budget is spent on health care, or when public health care costs in Canada are growing at twice the rate of ...[text shortened]... e."
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=288921903474479
Originally posted by rwingettHaven't there been threads devoted to this subject? There is no unbiased reporting every news agency and reporter no matter how they try will let some bias through.
Investor's Business Daily...now there's an impartial voice on the matter of socialized medicine, if ever there was one.
This is exactly as it should be, how else could it be? Try to regulate it? When the press is no longer free then you would see ultra partiality to the controllers.
So why not read the article with your red bias sun glasses on, recognise the bias, filter out the facts and get some info from it anyway.
Just watch Sicko and see your health getting flushed down the drain by big companies.
Socialised medicine would work even better if we nationalised (or globalised) the companies which "make" medicine.
Instead of medicine being made to rake in profits... how bizarre...
No wonder you're all screwed up.