pretty random

You know...I like most of the ideas of the NDP, and in all likelihood I'll vote NDP (for the first time ever!!!)

However:

- I am in favour of some health-care privitization. While I probably wouldn't use it myself, I'd rather people who can afford to "skip the line" so to speak be able to do so in their own country. Those people not waiting in line and going elsewhere for their surgical procedures shortens up the line for the rest of us. This isn't a system where more and more people start hurting themselves and requiring surgery. The NDP needs to realize that.

- I am so completely against more taxation in order to provide neccessary social services. Some tax increase is OK, but not when we have a surplus. When it comes to economic issues though, I tend to be a little more conservative, which is why the Liberals usually end up getting my vote.

- And although this isn't so much the case, I'm sort of anti-labour union to a point. I think unions are good for many industries - but I don't think retail is one of them. I also don't think unions should be running (or trying to run) governments. I think the NDP needs to work hard to seperate itself from labour unions while still trying to maintain their mandate to work for working families. If they're the government however - they need to work for everyone...not just the working class. But same goes for any party.

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1. I worry that if there's a parallel private system, it would end up paying more to Doctors and Nurses, and health professionals would not want to be in the public system. THerefore the quality of the staff in the public system would go down, and the quality of the health care would go down. All of a sudden, people with money get better health care.

2. Here's an example of people needing to read the platform. The NDP do not want to raise taxes. At all. CBC's Reality Check says that they are in fact offering larger tax cuts overall than the Liberals.

3. You may have too much exposure to provincial NDP politics, which is very union-focused still. The federal NDP is not very union-focused at all, and in fact Buzz Hargrove started the campaign telling his members to vote Liberal.

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jamincan.livejournal.com

One of these days I should really take a close look at the healthcare systems in Sweden and France. Neither is exclusively public, but both of them are highly ranked internationally. Of course, being immediately adjacent to the US causes a few problems of our own, but I do think healthcare reform has to be a bit more thorough than a cursory change here or there.

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I wonder how much the higher taxes play into the stability of their system? Because we would not be able to win that argument in North America...

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disasternat.livejournal.com

Can you come work for me :D as the MYTH BUSTER, cause those are absolutely correct answers to some regular questions.

In fact when you look at the NDP Budget, according to proposed spendings you get a balance budget... not a debt like the Conservatives will have and not outrageously huge surpluses like the Liberals and we do it all without raising taxes...

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The punchline is I haven't read the platform yet either!

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cap-hill-latte.livejournal.com

On (1), I've worked with (many, many) physicians in both the private and public US systems in treating my neuropathic pain issue and find that the quality between the doctors in each system isn't really any different. If anything, there are doctors I'm not so fond of, and doctors I'm more fond of in each system. Really, the most significant difference has been the lux factor of the waiting rooms.

One of the things slowing my move back to Canada is the lack of a private health care option. If I were to move back tomorrow I'd likely go up to Vancouver so I could continue to come down to Seattle for treatment - in effect, creating my own private health care option, without keeping any of my health care dollars in Canada to pay for better equipment, etc... for use by everyone.

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Apples to oranges. You are not viewing the real public system, you are viewing one tiny aspect of it. I'm worried about the large-scale long-term change, not what the upper-middle-class see in ER only. Think hip replacement for someone on food stamps.

It's a huge, tricky issue. I'm not claiming to know better than anybody of course. Surely if it were simple enough for me to fully grasp, we could have solved the issue and millions upon millions of Americans wouldn't be healthcare-free.

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cap-hill-latte.livejournal.com

I feel badly about starting a conversation only to call a time out, but think I'll have to recuse myself from this for now because I could spend all day arguing medical ethics – but should really spend at least one day this week developing software. :-).

I do want to have this conversation though, I need to work on my bioethics arguing skills in preparation for a time that I find myself being either strongly pro or strongly anti-transhumanist in the near future. (We had a chat about this on NYE, but I think you were drunk at the time so you may not remember. :-).)

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I remember only enough to confirm there was a conversation, not enough to actually remember the content. :)

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Hi Cam,

In regards to 1... a few things happen when there is a parallel system (depending on how closely it is regulated). Many Euro countries cap fees so that they are the same in the private and public system. (If a parallel system does develop, I'd hope we have these strict regulations. That said, int'lly our public system performs quite well.)

When fees aren't capped though, there is this dichotomy that occurs... you end up with cost-saving measures in most hospitals. This means that they hire RNA instead of RNs or people with less experience or lower on the salary scale. Also, they get rid of pensions and full-time status. Doctor-wise, the same thing happens. Of course, at the most expensive luxury hospitals, etc... doctors and nurses are paid considerably more.

3. I think Buzz said to vote Liberal, if there is no chance of the NDP winning in the riding ... otherwise, vote NDP.

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3. True. I also meant there's more when you read between the lines. Buzz was on stage with Paul Martin for his campaign launch. He was not on stage ever, anywhere, with Jack Layton. I suspect they don't get along too well, sometimes.

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True that.

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Sorry Brandon, I didn't mean for my comment to be so snarky. Too early in the morning here. :)

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A two-tier healthcare system would fail under its own contradictions: it creates a have/have not breakdown largely along class lines. It says, simultaneously, that we support healthcare for everyone and *better* healthcare for those who can afford it.

The first time there are two kids in the same hospital with the same problem and the rich one lives and the poor one dies, we've lost the moral underpinnings of our society.

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While I generally agree, I'd recommend de-Godwining your argument. It would escalate too fast, and free healthcare would lose because it has no money.

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Forgive my ignorance, but I'm missing the reference. De-Godwining?

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No worries. It was a bit of a leap. Godwin's Law = first mention of Nazis loses the argument.

Your argument uses the "little kids dying" card, which is similar. It's easier to win if you save the trump card for later when you really need its strength. Imagine you're in an election campaign, and it's you (universal single-payer single-tier healthcare) versus money. The campaign will last your entire lifetime, sadly. So pace yourself. :)

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Ah, OK, I would've got it had you mentioned Nazis, although I think Godwin's Law is that the first side to call the other side Nazis loses (or at least defaults :-). In the healthcare arguement, I don't think either side is evil per se, it's just that the two-tier people have a less cynical picture of human nature than I do.

Yeah, I could've stretched the argument out over a few posts, but I find lengthy debates in LiveJournal comments tiring. It's the out-of-order posts that throw me. I prefer to just drop a bomb and run :-)

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cap-hill-latte.livejournal.com

Perhaps. But the way I see it, in the current Canadian system neither kid has much of a chance. But in a two tier system the money spent to pay for the first kid's treatment can be used to buy a [insert name of a piece of expensive medical equipment] that treats the second kid as well.

I know that the argument isn't nearly that simple, but it's also nowhere near as simple as saying "two tier = bad because only the rich get treatment".

I think you should come out to Seattle in February, this would make a great conversation around a dinner table. :-).

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Why do you think neither kid has much of a chance? The Canadian health care system actually works, and for the most part very well. Yes, there are long waits for some things. Yes, there are hundreds of changes that could be made to improve the whole system. But it's *not* falling apart, despite what Republicans, Conservatives, and capitalists say. :)

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Well, I don't agree that the healthcare situation in Canada is as dire as you make it out to be, for one thing. But a two-tier healthcare system is less about healthcare than it is about the state-sactioned division of social classes in a society that is ideally supposed to be classless.

The rich are always the first to deny the existence of class warfare, while the poor can't do anything about it, and the (vanishing) middle-class finds itself increasingly marginalized.

Just like the case for equal marriage, "separate but equal" is neither.

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I think I should reclarify my point here.

I don't think that it's about "better" healthcare...here in BC we have private surgical centres, that are staffed by surgeons that also work in hospitals. Basically, it's just an alternative surgical ward that was built with private dollars where doctors can get more surgical hours that aren't neccesarily available to them in a hospital, for whatever reason (lack of funding, etc).

For a lot of people, it doesn't make sense to have to wait for 8 months to get knee surgery. It's not a life-threatening issue, and if you are willing to pay for it to have it done faster, then you should be able to. It says a lot about the current state of our health care system when you have to wait that long, but people shouldn't be punished by living in agony for months at a time. I know the BC government transfers patients to these private surgical clinics when there are surgeons in hospitals unable to work because there's no operating room available to them - they pay the surgical fee, and they send the patient to the clinic to have the procedure done. I think that's a MUCH better option than having to wait for one of two OR's in a hospital, for example.

As far as I know, Layton and the NDP is trying to curb that sort of thing, which I definitely do NOT agree with. If the resources are there, and willing to be privately funded - then do it. At least it gives people another option.

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I have no problem with patients having surgery anywhere as long as they don't need a credit card. If private hospitals can compete for government pay, that's OK in my mind. But the problem I see is when two hospitals can charge different prices, and have different levels of quality.

I think the NDP might be too dogmatic on health care, but the Tories and Liberals are simply lying when they talk about "protecting" it. Damned if we do, and damned if we don't.

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I think a lot of the problem however also has to do with people abusing the system. I know here in Vancouver, they're planning on building an emergency ward in the downtown eastside just to deal with all the "problems" that the vagrants seem to have. There's the mothers as well that'll take their kids to the hospital every time they have a little nosebleed. That pisses me off!!! People need to only go the hospital if they're having a procedure or if they have a medical EMERGENCY...such as if you've broken something, or need stiches, or are having chest pains or something. Don't go to the hospital for a cough, a runny nose or a small cut. Get some bandaids, some benadryl and some claritin, and deal with it at home. Even going to the doctor's office for those things is stupid.

Anyways, an aside to all this - my grandpa was having some "mini-strokes" a few years ago, and they weren't able to properly diagnose his condition up here. He kept having his episodes. He had to visit a specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix to be properly diagnosed, and treated. What does that say about our current system?? I don't think that people, and their families should have to go through such turmoil to get appropriate medical care in this country.

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I totally agree that people should not have to go through long waits, or travel 2000km to get diagnosed.

But on the flipside, imagine your grandfather were going through that same situation, but there were a bunch of rich people paying to butt in front of him in line? I fear that might happen in smaller centres, where there's not enough business to build a whole extra hospital.

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Perhaps the people are "abusing" the system because they don't have family doctors or don't have access to a primary health team? It's just a matter of reorganizing our resources a little. Ontario is currently in the process of creating these teams to cut down on more costly things like ER visits.

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The problem with sidestepping the system if you have the money is that it does nothing to help fix the existing system. It funnels money and expertise AWAY from the existing system and into the private system (cynically, I believe that even doctors will follow money if private healthcare pays better than public).

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None of the clinics in BC are staffed entirely by doctors that don't also work in the hospitals. Basically the clinics supplement the hospitals, in the sense that the doctors in the private clinics are just OR docs that can't get surgical time in the hospital, due to a lack of space.

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That's now, with private clinics being held in check. If the checks are removed, you'll see some of those doctors preferring to work in clincs because they're better funded, better staffed, and better equipped. The money flowing to them is less money that could flow into the public system. The public system weakens, the private system grows, and eventually we're in the same situation as the Americans.

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