From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Subject: Re: Canadian Health Insurance (was: health care industry woes)
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: The Bates Motel
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 09:26:36 GMT

starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare) writes:
>}starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>}>gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare) writes:
>}>}Canada has a public health insurance system ("PHI" in Americanese)
>}>}funding private doctors, and public and private hospitals.
>}>
>}>This "public" bit contradicts your claim that Canada has separation
>}>of medical service delivery and State.
>}
>}Getting around the "just one drop/just one penny" aspect for a moment,
>}is this better? (-;
>
>What are you talking about?  I meant the public hospitals.  You said that
>Canada didn't have them.  Then you said they do.  Which is it?

No, I never said that we didn't have public hospitals ... I didn't
quite understand what you were getting at.  We have public hospitals
just like every other country including the United States.  I didn't
think that was a big deal, but if it's a major point for you, I can
accept that.  I thought the point was that we have our own individual
insurance policy and rely on private doctors of our choice.  I drew
my threshold at the insurance aspect.

We also have a few community clinics for doctors who won't join a big
private practice or can't/won't capitalize their own nameplate.
However, I'll try to forestall a future question by saying that
private practice is the overwhelming way to go, and a glance at the
Yellow Pages directory from any Canadian city at your library (I'm
making an assumption here, but Columbia's library does have a phone
directory collection) can bear this out.  Look under "Physicians and
Surgeons". (-;

>}we never had Prohibition in Canada, by the way).
>
>Never had alcohol prohibition, that is.

Right.  Strange what Victorianism did to us, even 100 years later.  

By the way, I just wanted to let all of you know that while my family
is Tory, I've actually voted Liberal all my life so far because I
didn't care for some of the Victorian vestiges that remain in the
Conservative party, but I may go Tory for the next federal election
because they're the only one of the Big Three with a coherent economic
strategy.  The federal Liberals need one more term to get theirs back
on track to what it was, after 20 years of trying to build themselves
up with a stronger social democratic left flank and falling on their
butt in trying to do the splits.  Paul Martin, Jr. (son of the late
P.M.,Sr.  who drew up the Canada Health Act) now heads the policy
committee; he turned his back on his silver-spoon-in-mouth family
circumstances and went on to make his own fortune in Montreal, a
modern classical European liberal in his views (not a libertarian).
Sorry about this little Canadian politics session, but I wanted to
lead up to one more point; two other major defenders of the Canadian
system from Talk.politics.misc are also noted fiscal conservatives in
the Canadian newsgroups (but still socially liberal, by the American
definition).  Maybe they'll pop up at some point.

gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				Jesus Saves!
> gld@cunixd.cc.columbia.EDU 		Gretzky gets the rebound -
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			he shoots, he scores!
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine