From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Subject: Re: The Accord and BC and Health Care
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: The Bates Motel
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 00:19:38 GMT

dbowman@shade (Don A. Bowman) writes in two different articles:
>
>it won't be long before someone says, "Hey, let these deadbeats look 
>after themselves. I've got Blue Cross". or something to that effect.

Actually, a fair number of people in the U.S. already take that stand
if you ever drop in on Talk.politics.misc whenever this comes up ...
that leads to some diatribes against a Canadian socialized medicine (a
la Britain or Ceaucescu's Roumainia) system that doesn't exist ... (-;

>There was a rather interesting program with Dan Rather on a couple of
>weeks ago that contrasted Canada and US health care.

I believe that was PBS's famous "Frontline" documentary "Borderline
Medicine".  One fault that I have had with that (besides the fact that
it's old!) and the recent Consumers Reports series is that they ignore
our population size and distribution (well, the American propagandists
do it too, but two wrongs do not make one right), which are factors
that work against us in many areas besides getting at health services
... which gets me to my second point, they both deemphasized the fact
that our doctors and many of our hospitals are private and chosen by
their patients.  The government can't control how people get sick and
spend their insurance benefits; for some reason, Americans can't seem
to get around the fact that our governments are in a passive role in
this area, even when they *like* our "system!" (-;

>In one area in LA, an obstetrician had 70% of all patients come in
>with NO previous consultation. Can you imagine being pregnant, and
>not being able to see a doctor? These women had medicare, but no
>hospital would accept it.

Okay, a technical note here ... "medicare" is a convenient Canadian
slang nickname for our universal basic health insurance (it is not
"socialized medicine" where doctors are civil servants working for a
central health bureaucracy like the National Health Service in Britain
-- that's the difference).  On the other hand, Medicare and Medicaid
are real names for American federal health insurance plans for the
poor/indigent and the elderly (respectively) with state equivalents
like Cal-Aid (as per the documentary).  Doctors who accept these plans
must take payment at their prescribed rates even if their own rate
scale is higher; no extra-billing and since this is for groups that
can't afford to eat the difference (which is a LOT more than the $5 to
$20 dollars that the Ontario doctors used to extra-bill as de facto
deductibles*, until Petersen's Liberals gave them a rate hike to hide
it and then banned the practice), these American doctors will turn
these patients away 'cos that's all they've got to offer ...

gld

* by the way, does anyone know if the extra-billing had any effect on
reducing hypochondriac harrassment?  I do know that my doctor friends
are massively insulted when confronting such people ...
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				
> gld@cunixB.cc.columbia.EDU		Oct 26/92: Just say "OUI!"
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			(Let's worry about the economy!)
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