On 30-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

It's "national" in that the rules under which hospitals must operate are
promulgated by the federal government, which funds and regulates the system.

You are so ignorant. The federal government does not fund the sustem, nor
does it regulate it. It provides some funding and defines minimal standards.
However, health care is a provincial jurisdiction and most funding comes
from provincial governments.

Socialized medicine is, by definition, centrally-controlled, even
if no "central" list is kept.

Canada's must not be socialized, since there's no central control.

Any government. All government.

You sound very paranoid.

I doubt it. It's my guess that once you get assigned a priority, based on
the government-mandated priority criteria, you're stuck with it, and no
matter where you go, you end up behind others with higher priority.

You are making this up as you go along. Too bad you don't care about
facts - the discussion would be a lot shorter if you did.

There is no priority list!

Priorities are set by the doctors and hospitals. You can get a different
result by dealing with a different doctor. Not all referring physicians
have equal access to all surgeons - they are a good old boy network and
some have better access to some than others.

Example - Toronto's top ophthalmologist is very hard to see. He specializes
in difficult cases. A friend of mine (a doctor) had a problem with his
nephew and could not get an appointment with the specialist in a timely
manner - his nephew ended up getting treatment with another specialist.
My doctor had a concern about me and got me an appointment with the
same top ophthalmologist in a week. It all depends on who you know.
No government involved. No list involved.

However, this is a guess, and I could be wrong.

No kidding - you're wrong more often than you're right. That doesn't
stop you from posting your bull****.

Mike