HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - American Cancer Society advocates for government-run national health-care

mke · 09-27-2007, 10:43 PM

Actually I have had breast surgery in both the US and in Canada, have spent roughly half my adult life in each county. Treatment was fine in every case, no complaints.

We were poor when I was growing up in the US and going to to doctor was something to be avoided if at all possible. There were public clinics at school for polio shots and the like. Our family doctor was a kindly man and apparently was always willing to wait for payment. I don't know that I really felt deprived, but I think my parents worried about bills. I grew up, married well and was covered by my husband's insurance.

I never worried about taking my kids to the doctor or the ER in Canada, of course by now both my husband and I were white collar employees so we wouldn't have worried anyway, but the same right was enjoyed by the welfare moms in the co-op housing around the corner and I liked that. My kids were rather healthy so didn't need much care, contrary to popular opinion running off to the doctor because "it's free" is not common in countries with universal health care.

There are some things that I just don't understand about the attitude, and I would almost call it fear, of US citizens to universal health care. There are benchmarks of population health, things like infant mortality and life expectancy. The US which spends way more per capita than any other country is like 35th or 40th for these. How does this compute?

Sure there are lots of factors, but the most obvious one is the layers of beaurocracy that need to deal with the costs. Government is worth complaining about but insurance companies are not better. Unless you have a bottonless purse there is a gate-keeper in both cases.

I worked in management in a 450 bed community hospital in Ontario. We had a 3-4 person perchasing department, billing was done by one of the secretaries that I shared with another manager. We did not count things by patient. The province funded the hospital based on its patient base. We did have to worry about overspending our budget on expensive items or expensive elective procedures.
I watched a program about a similar sized community hospital in with Oregon or Washington which had a separate building with 250 people doing billing. That is where your money is going - billing clerks and insurance companies.

09-27-2007, 10:43 PM	#6
mke Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Toronto Posts: 64	Actually I have had breast surgery in both the US and in Canada, have spent roughly half my adult life in each county. Treatment was fine in every case, no complaints. We were poor when I was growing up in the US and going to to doctor was something to be avoided if at all possible. There were public clinics at school for polio shots and the like. Our family doctor was a kindly man and apparently was always willing to wait for payment. I don't know that I really felt deprived, but I think my parents worried about bills. I grew up, married well and was covered by my husband's insurance. I never worried about taking my kids to the doctor or the ER in Canada, of course by now both my husband and I were white collar employees so we wouldn't have worried anyway, but the same right was enjoyed by the welfare moms in the co-op housing around the corner and I liked that. My kids were rather healthy so didn't need much care, contrary to popular opinion running off to the doctor because "it's free" is not common in countries with universal health care. There are some things that I just don't understand about the attitude, and I would almost call it fear, of US citizens to universal health care. There are benchmarks of population health, things like infant mortality and life expectancy. The US which spends way more per capita than any other country is like 35th or 40th for these. How does this compute? Sure there are lots of factors, but the most obvious one is the layers of beaurocracy that need to deal with the costs. Government is worth complaining about but insurance companies are not better. Unless you have a bottonless purse there is a gate-keeper in both cases. I worked in management in a 450 bed community hospital in Ontario. We had a 3-4 person perchasing department, billing was done by one of the secretaries that I shared with another manager. We did not count things by patient. The province funded the hospital based on its patient base. We did have to worry about overspending our budget on expensive items or expensive elective procedures. I watched a program about a similar sized community hospital in with Oregon or Washington which had a separate building with 250 people doing billing. That is where your money is going - billing clerks and insurance companies.