A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott asks:
==============
But there is a national system of classifying medical conditions by
priority
is there not? If doctors are free to admit whomever they please
whenever
they please and do surgery on them, how is the system "socialized?"
===============

Just think about that for a moment will you. A "national" system, I
mean.

This is a HUGE country. How do you suppose that would work?!

Same way it works everywhere else...not very well at all.


Suppose I need heart surgery in Vancouver, and a surgeon happens to be
free in Toronto. Do you suppose that somehow a government bureaucrat
orders or directs me to Toronto to be serviced by this available
surgeon. Of course NOT!

No, he just tells you you can't have heart surgery in Vancouver till a bunch
of other people get surgery first. Nor can YOU simply board a bus and go to
Toronto and walk in to a hospital and be admitted, because Toronto has its
own government-mandated priority list, and you're not on it.


The whole notion of a "national" directory or system or whatever for
establishing medical priorities is ludicrous.

No, it's a necessary component of a "national health system." If it's not
controlled by the government, it can't be "nationalized." The government
MUST set priorities in such systems through policy directives binding on
government health care employees and contractors. That's why teenagers with
bad knees can't get surgery...they are too low on the priority list, the one
that's created by the government, and have to wait.

That's something even
Stalin would not have tried.

Stalin did try it, although he disposed of a lot of excess patients the easy
way...he sent them to the Gulags.

You're guessing about what happens in
Canada, and in this case your guess is so impractical no
central-planning communist would even dream of trying it.

Funny, that's *exactly* what "central-planning communists" do.


The experience of my father-in-law shows that he made the choice to be
operated on by a surgeon with a good reputation in a hospital which
specializes in heart surgeries. This meant he had to travel (including
taking a ferry) for his examinations and, eventually, for his surgery.
He could also have had it done in his local hospital. We have no way of
knowing what the differences in the relative waiting lists may have
been. Suffice to say, the surgeon he chose established the severity and
hence the priority of his case, and called him in, by helicopter, when
he could fit him in.

And the surgeon was operating under directives and guidelines promulgated by
the central planning bureaucracy. If your father had had bad knees, he'd
likely still be waiting.


Again, I suspect this is not different than for surgeons in high demand
in the USA. Waiting, I mean.

The difference is that unlike your father, I can go to any other hospital in
the nation at will and seek service.


And, Scott, it is YOU who calls our system "socialized", not us. We
talk about universal (insurance) coverage. What that means is, when my
father-in-law arrived at the hospital, he handed over his medical card
(like a cerdit card), it was swiped, the data was entered, and the
"billing" was taken care of, and he put the card back into his wallet.
End of story!

Not quite. His access to hospitalization and surgery was controlled by
government policy. He got lucky because he had a "critical" illness. The
teenager with a bad knee isn't quite so lucky, is she? Care to explain how
it is that she can't just walk in and have surgery and swipe a card?
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser