
Originally Posted by
thegodfather
Canada has a two-tier system of healthcare. In Canada, you do have a national healthcare system, but doctors also have the ability to OPT OUT of that system, and take fee for services rendered. What this invariably creates, is a two-tiered healthcare system, whether the Canadian citizens realise it or not. The brightest, most talented Physicians tend to opt out of the public system and go on a fee for service system because they can make such a substantially higher amount of money than if they stay in the system. So, those who cannot afford to pay for their own care, or purchase private health insurance, are stuck using the national health care system, and seeing the 2nd tier doctors who are not talented and bright enough to offer their services for cash. This is a significant problem with the Canadian system. Involving government bureaucrats in the administration of healthcare is a disaster. Quota systems, and rationing of care is a substantial problem in the Canadian system. Members posting that they had good experiences with the system does not mean it is empirically good, it means they have had personal experiences (we call this ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE) as opposed to bad ones.
The United Kingdom's "NHS" is also plagued with its own set of problems. In the United Kingdom, their doctors do not have the ability to "OPT OUT" and they have attempted to eliminate the situation of two-tier healthcare. I beleive this to be a fundamental violation of the service persons RIGHT to collect a fee for their services, that THEY deem appropriate, not a set amount that the government decides to pay you for your services. This inevitably discourages the most intelligent and talented people from going into medicine, if they know that their income will essentially be fixed for life. It encourages them to go into more lucrative fields, where there is a higher earning potential. Of course, you will have altruists who will argue that people "should go into medicine because they care about helping people, not because they want big paychecks." Ok, you can say such things, and they might make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but that is not reality. Statistics prove that the brightest and most talented individuals gravitate to where there is a high earning potential. Two important aspects of the UK's NHS that you should be aware of (or afraid of)....
1) There are number of administrators in the NHS outnumbers the number of healthcare practioners. Yes, they have a system where there are more chiefs than indians.
2) There are more MRI machines in the state of Ohio, than in the entire country of Great Britain.
These two facts serve to show a few things. One, government bureaucracy has created a system of wastefulness where there are more administrators than practioners. That is scary if you think about it, imagine a police department, where there are more Lieutenants and Captains than there are Patrolman on the streets. The number of MRI machines serves to show the rationing of care and wait times that are inevitable in a "National Healthcare System."