{Sorry, Harel et al, but our doctors and most hospitals are still
private in Canada as well as in much of Western Europe.}


Wrong.  In better EC countries that use pure (but public) health
insurance (like we use in Canada) rather than self-enclosed HMO-like
socialized medicine, 30% of our costs comes from private supplementary
insurance and/or copayments.  France Magazine's Summer 1992 edition
has a fantastic presentation of their basic insurance coverage,
including a sample chart of copayment percentages.  For 1-30 days,
you're covered for 80% of the public hospital rate, 100% afterward.
With extra private insurance, you can get into a private hospital and
be covered for any differences beyond the public hospital rate.  The
public insurance covers 100% beyond 30 days, or the same cash amount
for a private hospital and the difference is paid out-of-pocket or
according to your supplementary private insurance.  Over 2/3rds of
French have some form of extra private insurance.  So, 30% of health
costs in Europe are out of private funds and not gleaned from other
taxes.  The GDP figures are combined public and private expenditures
for total outlay using the same methods that yield the 13-14% figure
for the U.S.

That the French had deductibles and copayments in their insurance fund
is to their credit ... I am in the minority for advocating such back
in Canada (to make the Canadian insurance look more like real health
insurance -- which actually it is).  The new Reform Party, a breakoff
of traditionalists from the Conservatives with a mildly "libertarian"
faction, hold our public health insurance as an untouchable but that
just a few people have to be reminded that it's not free (the average
Canadian/European is more fiscally naive than their American
counterparts on issues like these).

I'm one of the few people who favour copayments (forget about
leftists, even our conservatives attack me for it on the Canadian
newsgroups) to make it look more like real insurance, 'cos the 100%
insurance payment is hidden (unlike in France) and if you didn't know
it, you'd believe it actually is socialized medicine (American
conservatives/libertarians and Canadian leftists are the only ones who
seriously call it that).  Canadians aren't worried about the
Americans, who spend 14%; we're worried about the French and Germans
who spend 7% to our 9% ... so the insurance is looking at things that
shouldn't be paid for out of general funds like physicals for
insurance policies, sick notes, electrolysis, etc.  The reason that
the Canadian health insurance hasn't spiralled out of control despite
being open and universal is that unlike Americans, there is no urge to
spend all of your benefits' worth, and more if you can ... we're a
different culture.


"Managed Care" relies on HMO's, which are unknown in most western
nations that use only public health insurance like Canada, France
and Germany (I'm Canadian, and my German father-in-law-to-be says
of HMO/NHS approaches, "We left that behind with East Germany!").
Sure, HMO/NHS controls costs because you have managers strangling
doctors with budget strings.

In Canada, we use the public health insurance approach as in France
and Germany, with all private doctors and both private and public
hospitals.  It is all pure insurance without HMO's.  The divisions
are different, with the Germans using a couple hundred interlinked
"sickness funds" over a century old while Canada divides by their
provinces (who run the insurance fund and set local fees with the
doctors monopoly; federal funds cover the fees disbursed.)

With such an open-ended system, it's no surprise that Canada is #2 to
the U.S. in costs; all-insurance is the most expensive way to go. The
French and Germans use the same approach but have larger populations
in more compact geography to improve scales of economy.

gld