Canada Healthcare : over 300 patients in the province died waiting for surgery from 2015 to 2016 because of a shortage of anesthesiologists

Sally Pipes dispels myths surrounding single-payer health care proposals

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/sally-pipes-sanders-warren-want-medicare-for-all-like-canada-but-canadian-health-care-is-awful

Health care

Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want you to believe Canada’s health care system is a dream come true. And they want to make the dream even better with their “Medicare-for-all” plans. Don’t believe them.

In truth, Canada’s system of socialized medicine is actually a nightmare. It has left hospitals overcrowded, understaffed and unable to treat some patients. Americans would face the same dismal reality if Canadian-style “Medicare-for-all” takes root here.

Canada’s health care system is the model for the “Medicare-for-all” plan that both Sanders, I-Vt., and Warren, D-Mass., embrace.

expert discusses the Affordable Care Act, rising prescription drug costs and the Trump administration’s plans for health care reform.

North of the border, all residents have taxpayer-funded, comprehensive health coverage. In theory, they can walk into any hospital or doctor’s office and get the care they need, without a co-pay or deductible.

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Sanders and Warren would one-up Canada by providing all Americans with free prescription drugs, free long-term care, free dental care, free vision care, and free care for people with hearing problems.

Who could possibly object to all that free care?

Well, politicians in Canada object. They say even their country can’t do what Sanders and Warren want because all this free care would cost too much and cause other problems.

But for Sanders and Warren, money is no object. They can just raise taxes as higher and higher and higher.

And the huge tax increases needed to fund “Medicare-for all” would hit us all – there aren’t enough millionaires and billionaires to foot the bill.

It’s true that everyone in Canada has health coverage. But that coverage doesn’t always secure care. According to the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, patients waited a median of nearly 20 weeks to receive specialist treatment after referral by a general practitioner in 2018. That’s more than double the wait patients faced 25 years ago.

In Nova Scotia, patients faced a median total wait time of 34 weeks. More than 6 percent of the province’s population was waiting for treatment in 2018.

Waiting for care is perhaps better than not being able to seek it at all. The hospital emergency department in Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia recently announced that it would simply close on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There aren’t enough doctors available to staff the facility.

Canadians can’t escape waits like these unless they leave the country and pay out of pocket for health care abroad. Private health insurance is illegal in Canada.

Private clinics in Canada are not allowed to charge patients for “medically necessary” services that the country’s single-payer plan covers. And the government has deemed just about every conceivable service “medically necessary.”

For the past decade, Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon who runs the private Cambie Surgery Centre in British Columbia, has tried to offer Canadians a way out of the waits by expanding patient access to private clinics. He’s been battling his home province in court for a decade to essentially grant patients the ability to pay providers directly for speedier care.

During closing arguments in Day’s trial before the British Columbia Supreme Court at the end of November, Dr. Roland Orfaly of the British Columbia Anesthesiologists’ Society testified that over 300 patients in the province died waiting for surgery from 2015 to 2016 because of a shortage of anesthesiologists. And that was in just one of the province’s five regional health authorities!

Shortages of crucial medical personnel and equipment are common throughout Canada. The country has fewer than three doctors for every 1,000 residents. That puts it 26th among 28 countries with universal health coverage schemes. If current trends continue, the country will be short 60,000 full-time nurses in just three years.

In 2018, Canada had less than 16 CT scanners for every million people. The United States, by comparison, had nearly 45 per million.

These shortages, combined with long waits, can lead to incredible suffering.

In 2017, one British Columbia woman who was struggling to breathe sought treatment in an overcrowded emergency room. She was given a shot of morphine and sent home. She died two days later.

That same year, a Halifax, Nova Scotia, man dying of pancreatic cancer was left in a cold hallway for six hours when doctors couldn’t find him a bed. Yes, people must sometimes be treated on hallway floors because of severe overcrowding.

In fact, some Canadian hospital emergency rooms look like they belong in poverty-stricken Third World countries.
WBUR Radio, Boston’s NPR station, documented these terrible conditions in a story about a hospital in Nova Scotia earlier this month.

Americans who find the promise of free health care difficult to resist would do well to take a hard look north.

Sure, “Medicare-for-all” as pitched by Sanders and Warren sounds good. But the reality is far from what these two far-left candidates are promising. Like a drug that helps you in one way but causes even more serious problems, “Medicare-for-all” has dangerous side effects that can be hazardous to your health.

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5 Responses

  1. People are being left in the hallways right here in America for DAYS because no beds are available…Yes, it is happening here. Vanderbilt in Nashville TN is one such hospital. My DIL was admitted to the ICU due to liver failure and NEVER MADE IT TO THE ICU!!!! She remained in the hallway for the entire week she was there….I believe in Medicare for All but think it is going to have to happen in increments. We have shortages of Doctors, Nurse Practitioners, Doctor Assistants, Registered Nurses, and LPN’s and CNA’s. We are having a major shortage of Neurologists and Psychiatrists in the U.S. We are headed to major trouble and it is already starting…there has to be way to have Medicare for all and be as happy and healthy as Norway is…Maybe see how they are doing it….

  2. America is rated dead last in civilized countries w/healthcare,,,DEAD LAST!!!!!!!SOO,,, either way,,,do we die from forced physical pain or waiting for a surgery????If universal care allows anyone w/cancer,pre-existing,chronic condition to NOT HAVE TO PAY 20 YEARS WORTH OF MEDICAL BILLS,,,OR NOT TO LOOSE A HOME OVER CANCER,,IM FOR IT,,,IF THEY DO IT RIGHT,,,at LEAST Canada AND OTHER UNIVERSAL CARE NATIONS PATIENT DIE FROM SO-CALLED WAIT TIMES OR LACK OF DOCTORS,,,ITS NOT ON PURPOSE THEIR KILLING THEIR PATIENTS LIKE AMERICA IS,,,,,,it is wrong for people to loose their homes,their lives over cancer,over any medical condition,,Its wrong for CEO’s of bc/bs,aetna,humana,etc to make over 17 million dollars as ceo’s of insurance companies,,its wrong to have anyone die from forced physical pain when we have the medicine to lessen their suffering,,and if universal care fixes that,,,im all for it,,I would love to see the ceos of bc.bs,aetna etc all be told,,your fired,,your service is no-longer needed,,see ya and your 17 million a year on the backs of the medically ill,,,jmo,,maryw

  3. What is really scary is the American healthcare system. We are paying almost 11 thousand a year per person. Americans are dying because they can’t afford healthcare, while we already pay more than any other developed nation for worse care. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2775760/

    They estimate 44 thousand Americans died last year due to a lack of insurance. Americans are dying younger due to the corruption and

    The Industry uses mass media to proliferate these scare stories, because they stand to lose billions.

    https://theintercept.com/2018/11/20/medicare-for-all-healthcare-industry/

    The very problems that we grouse about, are all due to our unregulated profit driven market based healthcare. Our politicians on both sides are too compromised with unlimited industry money to do anything.

  4. Too sad.

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