A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott replies:
================
Tell me about your waiting lists for non-emergent cases without
insurance, OK?

That would be, perhaps, a list used by a charitable organization.
However,
the point is that in the US, the teenager is not *prohibited* from
seeking
out and obtaining any medical care that she needs from a provider
willing to provide the service. In Canada, no matter how willing the
surgeon, no matter how ready the charity is to pay for it...or the
parents for that matter,
government bureaucrats decide who gets to be treated
====================

Bottom line: a teenager without insurance and without money is
"prohibited" insofar as her freedom to seek care is illusionary. Fine
in principle, nonexistant in practice.

Nope. She can seek out medical care wherever and whenever she likes. All she
has to do is find a provider willing to provide the care for what she can
(or cannot) pay in return. That she can't walk into her corner hospital and
*demand* service is not important. What's important is that she can choose
freely from among tens of thousands of hospitals and hundreds of thousands
to millions of doctors and specialty clinics and obtain immediate treatment
from any who are willing to serve her. In Canada, she isn't allowed to even
seek out a hospital or surgeon willing to treat her, perhaps pro bono,
because her position in the queue is dictated by the government.


And, can we establish somehow, some way, for the last time, there is no
"government bureaucrat" making these decisions.

Sure there is.

If there is such a guy,
please give me his title. Where does he reside in the bureaucracy? Is
he federal? Provincial? Local?

Well, there's the hospital Admissions Director, to begin with...

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

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© 2005 Scott Weiser