Quote:
Originally Posted by Cactus Jack
You are contradicting yourself here. Other than money, why would a doctor go to a country with more facilities and resources (obviously the US) to help people when he is only going to help a small elite percentage of the population? I don't think his oath was taken with that in mind. If you don't care about your fellow citizens fine, but that's what our system in Canada is based on.
Based on personal bankruptices and the unfathomable amount of debt terminally ill patients are expected to shoulder in the US are reason alone to have a single payer system.
And my horror stories are based on friends and family in the US. A girl getting hit by a car and waiting 6 hours for treatment at Columbia University hospital site, 8 hours waits in Manhattan to see a doctor for someone that is insured and friends that have been living in Canada for years that are afraid to move back to the US because they won't have health care coverage despite having been born and lived in the US for their first 30 years.
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If you care so much, agree to raise your taxes significantly so the Canadian system can be as efficient and wonderful as you make it out to be.
Look, neither system is perfect. Canadians feel very very passionately about socialized medicine (didn't Canadians vote the guy who introduced socialized medicine as the "greatest Canadian") and Americans feel very strongly about their system where people look out for themselves and the government stays out of their way.
I grew up in Canada and thought the system was awesome and Americans were crazy. Then I came down here, received access to the US medical system, became involved with insurance carriers for medical claims (from a legal perspective, on both sides) and talked to doctors who practiced in Canada. I like it down here.
Doctors took an oath, but the doctors that moved from Canada were very frustrated that their hands were tied by the wait times for tests and access to specialists/technology. Stories about diagnosing a patient with X-disease/injury, sending them off for an MRI/specialist and not being able to get answers for 6-8 months. After the patient finally gets access, the injury/disease is significantly worse. So they moved to the US where they won't be able to treat everyone, but those they do treat will have the best chance to get better.
It's a divisive issue - between countries, citizens and political parties (even within political parties). It comes down to the fundamentals of the countries. That said, if you and I have the same injury/disease, I like my chances for survival/recovery down here a lot better than yours.
