Canada's broken no competition health care system is close to collapse

[Lokmar]

Old people suck.

There was like 15,000 of them at the walmart this morning when I went to pick up dog food for my three lovely animals

it was awful

Damn, dude. Stay the fuck outta Walmart! While I'll admit that the one by my son's place in Clermont isnt too bad, it's still a shithole! I'll gladly pay more just so I dont punish myself with the frustration.

[Brent]

Preston Manning warned in the 1990's that public health care would become unsustainable unless the Canada Health Act was reformed. The former PC party, the Liberals, and the NDP dismissed his warnings as trying to bring US style health care delivery to Canada. Now his warnings are reality and we still bury our heads in the sand and pretend Canadian health care is not on life support.

Tsunami of critical reports show Canadian health care is on life support

If every government in Canada — federal and provincial — is treating health care as a priority, then why is the system irretrievably broken, year after year?

Most of all, why does nothing ever get better, despite decades of studies documenting the same problems over and over again?

This week alone, four studies documented major problems with Canada's health-care system, all of which were made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, but all of which have been issues for decades.

A Fraser Institute study released Thursday reports that median wait times for medical treatment across 12 specialties in 10 provinces this year are the highest they've ever been in the three decades during which comparable records have been kept — 27.7 weeks from a referral by a general practitioner to treatment by a specialist.

That's up from 27.4 weeks last year and 198% longer than in 1993 when it was 9.3 weeks.

A report by SecondStreet.org released Wednesday found that, based on partial data from the provinces, at least 17,032 patients died in Canada while waiting for surgery or diagnostic tests between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2023 and that the total number could be as high as 31,397, a 64% increase over the past five years.

A report by the Ontario Auditor General on four aspects of the province's health care system also released Wednesday found:

* 200 unplanned emergency department closures in provincial hospitals between June 2022 and June 2023 because of a shortage of doctors and nurses in 23 hospitals, mainly in rural, remote and northern Ontario locations.

* wait times for treatment in emergency rooms are increasing, along with hallway medicine.
* staff in long-term care homes lack critical training, plus there aren't enough of them to ensure patient safety and quality care.
* Public Health Ontario is struggling with inefficiency in its labs and poor coordination of public health research in areas such as latent tuberculosis and wastewater testing for COVID-19.

A study released by the Ontario Health Coalition Tuesday reported 1,199 temporary or permanent closures of hospital services this year up to Nov. 24, resulting in the loss of 31,055 hours of patient care, the equivalent of 3.44 years.

A report by the Ontario College of Family Physicians last month said that last year, 2.3 million Ontarians didn't have a family doctor, which will increase to 4.4 million by 2026, a major reason hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed by patients who could be treated by a family doctor if they had one.

A report released by the Fraser Institute last month comparing Canada's health-care system to those of 29 other developed countries with universal health-care systems, who are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, (excluding the U.S. which doesn't have universal health care) found that in 2021:

Canada ranked 28th out of 30 countries for the number of doctors (2.8 per 1,000 people); 23rd out of 29 for the number of beds dedicated to physical care (2.3 per 1,000); 25th out of 29 for MRIs (10.3 per million people) and 26th out of 30 for CT scanners (14.9 per million).

Among 10 comparable universal health care systems that measure medical wait times, Canada's were the longest, with the lowest percentage of patients waiting four weeks or less to see a specialist (38%) and the lowest percentage waiting four months or less for elective surgery (62%).

While more money (which federal and provincial government claim they don't have) may be needed in some areas of health care, money alone isn't going to fix the problems.

Adjusted for age — the percentage of the population over 65 — Canada ranks highest for expenditures on health care as a percentage of GDP among 30 OECD nations, and ninth-highest per capita.

The public cost of Canadian health care last year was $331 billion or $8,563 per Canadian, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, with health care consuming about 40% of provincial budgets and accounting for 12.2% of Canada's GDP.

Given all this, it's painfully obvious that Canada's health care system, based on the myth of "free" health care, is broken and that we need to start seriously studying what other developed countries with universal health care are doing right that we're doing wrong.

Or nothing will ever change.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-tsunami-of-critical-reports-show-canadian-health-care-is-on-life-support

It is the same in every province. The opposition party claims health care is falling apart and they will fix it. Nothing changes and next election it is the other party cliaming they are the saviours of health care.

I don't know how we would save health care in Canada. I like how it is supposed to work in theory. I know I hate the US model. I want it to remain a single payer system.

[Brent]

Google says Calpine is a Texas based energy generator with power plants mostly based upon natural gas fired and a few geothermal powered.  I am not sure what they have to do with healthcare in Canada.

It doesn't. Seamoron can't follow a thread. In the Leftist Lounge thread, he asked me if I smoke. What an idiot.

[Seamajor1]

It doesn't. Seamoron can't follow a thread. In the Leftist Lounge thread, he asked me if I smoke. What an idiot.

You seem the type sonny.

[DKG]

I want it to remain a single payer system.

That is what got us to the edge of the cliff we are at now.

[Brent]

That is what got us to the edge of the cliff we are at now.

  Trusting our health care to big companies.

[JOE]

Health care is neither good nor free in JOE's province.

B.C. has the longest wait times for walk-in clinics compared to other provinces, new data finds
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-walk-in-clinic-wait-times-1.6428497#:~:text=Residents%20of%20British%20Columbia%20wait%20an%20average%20of,than%20double%20the%20national%20average%20of%2025%20minutes.

B.C. will spend $8,800 per person on health care in 2022: Report
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/bc-health-care-spending-8800-per-person-2022-cihi-data

I'm healthy so I don't notice, Fashionista.

Even when I need medical help, I try not to bother the doctors or nurses too much. Last time I went was when I had an infected thumb. They disinfected and that was it. Then I got outta there within a half hour. Pronto done. Now scram.

socialized medicine could work, but there's too many freeloaders.

They definitely need to ration the healthcare system here and elsewhere in Canada to limit its abuse by bums, drug addicts and hobos. Even where they have subsidized healthcare in the USA, they let those who get it know that it has its limits. I believe someone like a welfare recipient or disabilities person in the USA can't just keep seeing a doctor or ER continuously like they do in Canada. I would force rationing and the abusers by making them pay for unecessary visits. That's certainly one way to reduce the budgetary problems the health care system is facing in Canada.

Other than the elderly, the governments here should force repeat users to sign a waiver that there is a limit on how many demands they can make on the system.

I see bums come off the street and get free ER. They should throw those types in a trailer overnight and send them a paramedic, not a doctor. A lotta doctors got COVID because of bums like that. Maybe when they get robots up and running, that's all they get. Some automated dummy to attend to their drunken needs.

Our doctors are simply too precious to take care of the undeserving.

[Thiel]

Health care in Canada is almost in free fall.


Economic prosperity and quality of life are determined by a number of factors. Two of the most important are health and education.

So it was troubling to see several reports about deteriorating health in Canada. The first was a sort of canary in the coal mine warning: life expectancy in Canada is dropping. A report published by Statistics Canada showed that life expectancy for Canadians declined for the third straight year in 2022. In countries with high living standards, life expectancy goes up, not down.

The second sign of trouble was a report published last week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that showed Canada was falling behind other OECD countries in several key health indicators. According to the report, Canada was at or near the bottom with regard to the total number of physicians per capita, and was dead last when it came to receiving timely treatment in emergency care or access to a specialist.

But that's what happens when the economy doesn't function properly — when we import more and export less, when we stop making products here in Canada, and when a growing portion of the wealth we do produce gets gobbled up by our bureaucracy and interest payments on our mushrooming debt. There's less and less money for social programs like health.

We're also slipping when it comes to education. An education assessment report from the OECD published last week shows that the math scores of Canadian high school students continue to fall year after year — part of a steady downward slide that began about 20 years ago.

That doesn't bode well for our country's future prosperity in a world that is becoming increasingly tech driven, a world where math skills are critical.

The countries that scored highest in math were predominantly Asian and European. With poor math skills and a lack of technically skilled workers, how are we going to compete against these countries in the years ahead? And if we can't compete, do we really think we'll maintain our once-high standard of living?
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/frank-stronach-is-canadas-standard-of-living-starting-to-unravel

[TheProwler]

I see bums come off the street and get free ER. They should throw those types in a trailer overnight and send them a paramedic, not a doctor. A lotta doctors got COVID because of bums like that. Maybe when they get robots up and running, that's all they get. Some automated dummy to attend to their drunken needs.

Our doctors are simply too precious to take care of the undeserving.

Joe was one of those bums for years.

He only has some money now because his mother croaked.

[JOE]

Joe was one of those bums for years.

He only has some money now because his mother croaked.

No. I'm just currently a plain old renter, Prowler.

However, what I see going on in my city is alarming. Typical rents are $2500-3000 a month for new renters.

People in my city getting pushed out onto the streets because of greedy uncaring politicians and fucking developers. I know people like that - who were doing fine for years and now the high cost of rent is killng them. Homelessness and drug addiction is gettin worse. More and more people are living in Vans or their cars.

That's why I'd rather make plans now and get out while I can in order to avoid becoming a victim just like them. If it's becoming this bad now, I wager it'll be much worse in 10 even 5 years from now.

Our city is just run by a bunch of greedy pigs. And unfortunately Vancouver has become a reflection of it. They reward land hoarders when in reality they should be punishing them.

Incidentally - land hoarding is not a person or family merely owning a single home and a single vacation home. It's more like people or corporations ownig 10, 20 100 of these things, jacking up the prices or denying people affordable housing. And I think this practice should end in Canada. Especially Vancouver @The Prowler. Some countries area already doing this and have passed laws to combat land hoarding.

I have friends with families to support and they see their taxes/fees on their homes go up substantially. We should give those kind of people a break and hammer the land hoarders with taxes instead. Let them subsidize everybody else with their greed. Tax the land hoarder, not the single homeowner.

[DKG]

Joe was one of those bums for years.

He only has some money now because his mother croaked.

No, it's because his boyfriend Thiel has money. Joe mooches off of him.

[Seamajor1]

  Trusting our health care to big companies.

Ya left out insurance companies that drive the prices up. You do understand how this works, right?

[DKG]

Ya left out insurance companies that drive the prices up. You do understand how this works, right?

What? Insurance prices are a symptom of the disease, not a cause of it. Most countries have private health insurance and they do not pay the premiums Americans do. Most countries have a form of public health care, but it does not caost anywhere near as much as what Canadians pay and it delivers better results.

[Seamajor1]

Insurance and re insurance drive costs up in the USA. Drs visit here, $40. In California $460. Root canal $6000. Here $300. I visited an emergency room for Flu in Sonoma county community hospital. $2300. I would call insurance companies the exact reason for high pricing.

[DKG]

Insurance and re insurance drive costs up in the USA. Drs visit here, $40. In California $460. Root canal $6000. Here $300. I visited an emergency room for Flu in Sonoma county community hospital. $2300. I would call insurance companies the exact reason for high pricing.

I know American health care costs are expensive. Canada too.