this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023

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[Canada] This is the reason your ER doctors are leaving (www.thestar.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In some provinces there is a somewhat obvious scheme driven by those who deliberately underfund and sabotage the health authority so they can have the excuse to say " Public healthcare doesn't work. We need to privitize." It is a scam.

Public healthcare in the rest of the country is doing poorly too, but it didn't used to be this way. Canadian healthcare used to be top tier, but it hasn't kept pace. I don't believe this is because of any inherent flaw in the original healthcare system. Population growth in some areas without concurrent infrastructure investment is a factor, as well as other political issues not related to socialism have played a part. Covid of course put a strain on the already stretched system that hasn't ever really recovered.

I am convinced the Canadian healthcare system could be restored to its previous functional state, if it were made a priority. Unfortunately for Canadians, the liberal (federal) government can't be relied on to do anything, nor the provinces as far as I can tell.

[+] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Slow course correction is definitely an issue, but it's not the whole problem, and privitization is certainly not the solution to Canada's healthcare woes.

There's two points I want to make about this: 1. The belief that absolutely everything should be made a commodity and put up for sale because absolutely free market capitalism make everything better is not a conservative position. Conservative ideals are permanence, reliability, and not fixing things when they ain't broke, as the Americans say. Conservatism is about maintaining the practices and institutions that have proven over time to serve the common good. A lot of people conflate neoliberalism with conservative ideas but they are not the same. Neoliberalism and it's deranged stepchild libertarianism can fuck right off.

Privitization of natural monopolies has been shown over and over to not work. I assert healthcare is a natural monopoly in the same way as water. When you need water, there is no choice but to bargain with whomever has control of the water pipes. Similarly, If you have a burst appendix, you can not shop around for the best priced surgery. The similarity between hospitals and woterworks doesn't stop there. The both require a lot of infrastructure to build, maintain and operate.

So keeping water as our example, the world bank through the IFC has pushed for water privitization all over the world since the 80's. In Africa, in Asia, in Europe and south America, it has been bad news everywhere.I challenge anyone to come up with a successful example. You can't.

In Canada, another kind of water service has not benefited from privatisation: BC ferries. The results have been 50% higher fares with reduced service. Imagine: a reliable service at a fair price that operates for years, until 2003 when it is decided to transform the crown corporation into a private one for higher cost and less reliability. Same story with Atlantic ferries. There are plenty more examples. If you know any American Servicemen, ask them about private corporate contracts servicing military bases. You will hear some stories of the absurd.

My conclusion: "The private system" is great for a lot of things, but not for the things that people rely on to keep society as a whole going; Like roads and ferries, like police and fire service, like our armed forces, like healthcare.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The private system for its faults is not constrained by a monolithic bureaucratic system.

Corporations are just as bureaucratic. But it's worse because a corporation's only goal is profit, at the cost of your health.

Government is not bound by such a flaw.

[+] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are literally not for profit corporations

Non-profit corps make up a minority of all corps.

many corporations have primary goals that are not maximizing profits.

Talk is cheap.

Family doctors don’t have to work for giant corporations

But they are beholden to them through insurance, one of the most bureaucratic parts of american life.

[+] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just about every restaurant, coffee shop, hardware store, mechanic shop is a corporation, many of them have goals other than profit.

Sure they can have those, but the only real goal is profit. Those things would exist if they were not profitable.

Please explain how Family doctors are beholden to insurance companies.

Are you joking?

[+] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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[+] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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[+] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If it was their only goal than every corporation would raise prices as much as they could.

That's what they do though. Basically all corporations raise prices as much as they can. That's how they profit.

It’s clear you don’t know what beholden means.

Maybe it's a regional difference in how it's used. I really don't fucking care. But I'm glad to see you managed to find a way to be condescending.

Its against the law for doctors to refuse treatment based on insurance.

That only really applies for emergencies. And youre forgetting my original claim, going on some unrelated tangent. Like i said, basically no medical examination or procedure ever happens unless a medical professional gets the go-ahead from a health insurance company. If the insurance company says no, then tough luck, no cancer screening for you. If the insurance company says no, then tough luck, no blood work for you, etc.

Also:

https://www.baizlaw.com/can-doctor-deny-treatment-options/

"The doctor does not have a working relationship with the patient’s healthcare insurance provider".

I never said anything about doctors refusing treatment based on insurance. That's a strawman, and not even one that works in your favor.

Further family doctors treat patients all the time without insurance or out of network.

You sure love to point to exceptions when people are talking about the general trend.

[+] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They could raise prices and make more money but they didn’t.

It is extremely illegal to price gouge during an emergency. Corporations following basic decency due to regulation isn't a valid argument.

It’s not a regional difference, you misuse words you don’t know the meaning of then get mad when you get called out.

Glad to know we have somebody omniscient on our hands.

your new claim that most medical procedures require insurance approval.

I made the claim 2 comments into this thread. It was the original claim.

Do you know what many Canadians do when they can’t see a doctor or the wait for cancer surgery is too long. They come to the U.S. without insurance and get treated.

Correction, 0.0001% of Canadians do this per year. So basically they just don't. They use their own medical system.

And if I had to guess, I'd say nearly all of the Canadians that do so are rich. So this is an even weaker point than it initially seems.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2016-08-03/canadians-increasingly-come-to-us-for-health-care

And the conservative party in Canada has been defunding their healthcare system so they could later point to their single payer system being a failure in need of privatization (read exploitation).

Almost everyone in the US has insurance so the small groups/edge cases are all that is left.

But as I've already pointed out, having insurance doesn't mean jack shit. If you go out if network you're fucked. If you have terrible insurance that doesn't cover anything you're fucked. If your health insurance deductible is high then you're fucked. If your insurance company says no, then you're effectively never going to get the procedure. That means they're shit out of luck because usually the cost of paying out of pocket is ridiculously high.

Health insurance companies have an ingrained motivation to deny health coverage and pay as little as possible at all times. Otherwise their CEO won't be able to afford a new yaht for the month.

Lastly the number of PT sessions covered by insurance is woefully low, it is common for patients to pay for extra PT sessions.

Without actually breaking down how many people recieve physical therapy, how many get denied, and how many pay, you're just talking out of your ass.

The uninsured are able to see family doctors.

Prove it. Show me what percentage of uninsured Americans regularly go to a family doctor.

The bottom line is with a public system government approval is required, in a private system insurance approval is not required.

This is incredibly out of touch with reality. Have you ever had a health insurance company deny you coverage? What about them denying coverage after the fact? Have you ever been uninsured?

Either way you need approval from a 3rd party either government or insurance. And insurance is profit motivated. They will happily deny you coverage even if it kills you so they make a profit.