You raised some interesting points. I'm glad that this topic finally caught some attention.
I've never lived in UK, so I get my knowledge of how the health care system works from newspapers. I'm not sure where you get your info from, but apparently the 2-tiered system works well in UK and other Enruopean countries. You can refer back to the article I quoted earlier in this topic.
You have to understand this: 2-tiered does not mean total privatization. It's not "our system vs. US system", there are other systems in this world that work well and worthy of our attention.
Now I'll answer each of your points:
1. With the current salary and shortage of medical staff, Canada has a difficulty of keeping our highly trained medical staff in Canada. With a 2-tiered system, more medical staff could stay in Canada while getting paid adequately, now that's ADDING resources to this country.
2. This is a typical scenario with the US system. The matter of fact is, in countries like UK, the private sector works WITH the public health care system in the sense that most private sectors concentrate on specialized medical treatment like MRI or cancer treatment. Take UK for example, the public sector even oursources patients to private sectors in case there is an overflow of patients in hospitals, but all expenses are paid by the public sector, hence free of all charges.
3. I'll follow your train of thoughts here: in a free-economy, in order to stay competitive, one must offer competitive price while providing quality goods and services. In fact, overcharging occurs even more frequently in public sectors, because they don't need to be fiscally responsibly for anything, this would not have been widely accepted in private sectors. Just look at what happened with all levels of governments and how they spend out money. Yes privatization sometimes means greed, but public services often result in bureaucracy and corruption which is even more damaging to our society. Private sectors are proven to be more efficient, which in the long run, could be more beneficial to taxpayers.
Again, I stress the difference between a 2-tiered system with US system. We have been pouring an enormous amount of money into health care, and it has only gotten worse. So the only conlusion is: it's not about money, it's the system, the system needs to be changed. Bottom line is: if I'm seriously ill and desperately need medical attention, I'll rather have that choice of seeking medical attention elsewhere, than waiting on deathrow.
Aside from your sarcastic tone, I'd really enjoyed discussing this issue with you.
最初由 rchland 发布
Funny you mentioned UK. UK has even longer waiting time for vast majority of its citizen partly because its two tier system takeing away medical resources from the public system.
"a small fee, which is probably covered by insurance": Oh, really ?are those insurance company private for profit organization, or charity organization ? And how can they only charge you a "small fee", money grows on trees ? Just check your car insurance bill in Ontario lately to know the true cost of a private for-profit insurance system.
Now something serious, although I doubt you and people upstair have the intellectual capacity to comprehend:
1. A private two-tier system will take resource away from the public system, which will result in a WORSE system for most of the citizen.
2. Insurance company always pick patients. They will refuse coverage for serious ill as they will lose money on them. So those really sick and old will be dumped to the public system, resulting in even more financial burden for the government.
3. Free market system works well when buyers have good knowledge about the product that they are going to purchase. Because sellers will always try to sell you things you don't need, at a price you don't have to pay. Private medical system WILL over-diagnose and over-charge, because as a patient you usually don't know better.
Bottom line with provite health insurance, You will end up enduring unnecessary operations and procedures when you are healthy -- and when you are really sick, you may have trouble finding insurance company stupid enough to cover you.
