Canada Sees Boom in Private Health Care Business

by SamCogar Wed Jul 01, 2009 3:57 am

Private for-profit clinics are a booming business in Canada -- a country often touted as a successful example of a universal health system.

Facing long waits and substandard care, private clinics are proving that Canadians are willing to pay for treatment.

“Any wait time was an enormous frustration for me and also pain. I just couldn't live my life the way I wanted to,” says Canadian patient Christine Crossman, who was told she could wait up to a year for an MRI after injuring her hip during an exercise class. Warned she would have to wait for the scan, and then wait even longer for surgery, Crossman opted for a private clinic.

As the Obama administration prepares to launch its legislative effort to create a national health care system, many experts on both sides of the debate site Canada as a successful model.

But the Canadian system is not without its problems. Critics lament the shortage of doctors as patients flood the system, resulting in long waits for some treatment.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529561,00.html

by ziggy Wed Jul 01, 2009 10:27 pm

SamCogar wrote:
Private for-profit clinics are a booming business in Canada -- a country often touted as a successful example of a universal health system.

Facing long waits and substandard care, private clinics are proving that Canadians are willing to pay for treatment.

“Any wait time was an enormous frustration for me and also pain. I just couldn't live my life the way I wanted to,” says Canadian patient Christine Crossman, who was told she could wait up to a year for an MRI after injuring her hip during an exercise class. Warned she would have to wait for the scan, and then wait even longer for surgery, Crossman opted for a private clinic.

As the Obama administration prepares to launch its legislative effort to create a national health care system, many experts on both sides of the debate site Canada as a successful model.

But the Canadian system is not without its problems. Critics lament the shortage of doctors as patients flood the system, resulting in long waits for some treatment.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529561,00.html

So what is newsy about that?

Health care in Canada is funded and delivered through a publicly-funded health care system, with most services provided by private entities.[1]
Health care spending in Canada is projected to reach $160 billion, or 10.6% of GDP, in 2007. This is slightly above the average for OECD countries. In Canada, the various levels of government pay for about 71% of Canadians' health care costs, which is slightly below the OECD average. Under the terms of the Canada Health Act, the publicly funded insurance plans are required to pay for medically necessary care, but only if it is delivered in hospitals or by physicians. There is considerable variation across the provinces/territories as to the extent to which such costs as outpatient prescription drugs, physical therapy, long-term care, home care, dental care and even ambulance services are covered.[2]

Considerable attention has been focused on two issues: wait times and health human resources. There is also a debate about the appropriate 'public-private mix' for both financing and delivering services.

Canada's healthcare spending is expected to reach $171.9 billion, or $5,170 per person, in 2008. Health expenditures are expected to be 10.7% of the gross domestic product. Hospitals account for the largest segment in spending at $48.1 billion, however, this amount is declining. According to the OECD, spending was second amongst other countries, less than United States and more than Norway, Switzerland and Luxembourg[3].

Canada has a federally sponsored, publicly funded Medicare system, with most services provided by the private sector.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada

by SamCogar Thu Jul 02, 2009 7:17 am

So what is newsy about that?

If you have to ask at this point ....... then there is no point in anyone trying to explain it to you.

by Aaron Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:30 am

We don't have to look to other countries to see what a terrible idea government ran health care is. All we have to do is look at Medicare and Medicate, both of which are rampant with fraud, waste and mismanagement.

If that's not enough to convince you, do some research on hospitals where the majority patients are recipients of government health care.

What you’ll find is that those hospitals are failing, have poorly paid staff and the reason is the government doesn’t reimburse at rates required to provide the pay and infrastructure needed for the hospital to be successful.

When those hospitals become stable and the fraud and waste is eliminated, then supporters of government health care MIGHT have an argument.

Until then, all they're doing is blowing hot air.

by Aaron Thu Jul 02, 2009 2:20 pm

The White House made a big show last week about "turning the heat up" on Medicare fraud, as Jane Friday -- er, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius put it. The dragnet resulted in 53 indictments in Detroit for a $50 million scheme to submit bills for HIV drugs and physical therapy that were never provided, as well as busting up a Miami ring that used fake storefronts to steal some $100 million. As welcome as this is, the larger issue is what such plots say about President Obama's plans for a new government-run insurance program.

One of the purported benefits of nationalized health care is that it will be more efficient than private insurers since it would lack the profit motive and have lower administrative expenses, like Medicare. But one reason entitlement programs are so easy to defraud is precisely because they don't have those overhead costs -- they automatically pay whatever bills roll in with valid claims numbers.

By contrast, private insurers try to manage care, and that takes money. Not only does administrative spending go toward screening for waste and fraud -- logical, given the return-on-investment incentives -- they also go toward building networks of (honest) doctors and other providers. Medicare doesn't pay for this legwork, so it simply counts fraud losses as more spending. Generally private insurers also attempt to pay for other things that consumers find valuable, such as high quality, while Medicare and Medicaid are forbidden by law from excluding substandard providers, unless they're criminals.

Dead doctors, fake patients, high-school dropouts, fly-by-night businesses and the rest will continue to swindle our sclerotic entitlement system, no matter how far the government turns up the after-the-fact heat. The arrests in Detroit and Miami are another argument against importing to the rest of the health economy the model that enabled these scams.

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