A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott objects:
=============
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.
===============

OK, Scott, you need to decide, is it a "national" waiting list, or a
"city" list (obviously, in your mind, the provinces play no role in
this: or do they? What say you?)?

It's "national" in that the rules under which hospitals must operate are
promulgated by the federal government, which funds and regulates the system.
That it may be administered at the provincial or local level changes
nothing. Socialized medicine is, by definition, centrally-controlled, even
if no "central" list is kept.


And, in Toronto, this "government-mandated" priority list: which
government are we talking about?

Any government. All government.


From your analysis, could I, however, walk from one hospital in Toronto
to another to improve my position?

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. That a
different facility may not have the same number of people in line before you
is irrelevant. Moreover, I have my doubts that you would be allowed, once
assigned a priority at a hospital in your local community, to simply "venue
shop" in another city, thereby jumping the queue of those above you in your
original community. However, this is a guess, and I could be wrong. That
doesn't change the fundamental nature of the system, which is a
centrally-controlled, socialistic, rationed health care system.


Further, within one hospital, once I'm there, can I walk from one
surgeon's office to another to try to improve my position or exercise
some choice over who actually does my surgery?

I don¹t know. Nor do I care. The key question is who determines when you get
to go to the hospital in the first place. In Canada, it's the government.
Down here, it's the patient, or at worst the individual, free-market
hospital.

We need answers Scott. These are very real, practical, dilemmas.

--
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