You have to be kidding saying that the American health system delivers health care more effectively than the Canadian system. It's enough to make you choke on your weetbix.

What else can you expect from american Intellectual Conservatives who promote Conservative and Libertarian Politics and Philosophy.

Where do the people who edit and compile this forum get such people as the writer of this rant?

The Romanow Commission on the Future of Health in Canada in 2003 is the most far reaching and important assessment of the health needs of a nation. It recognises the importance of keeping people well, of a multi-disciplinary primary health care centre as the heart of a health and wellness system. The author is talking rubbish in his references to the US health "system":for a dose of sanity, refer to the Commonwealth Funds 2006 Annual Report just out.

Lies, damn lies and statistics. The PDF you referred to refers to 5 year survival rates, yet you extrapolate these into survival rates.

They are substantially different and it is dishonest of you to use the two interchangably.

Comparing the USA with Europe is also not valid. Is Europe the UK or Poland? Your figures also relate to white americans when compared with black or hispanic rates the USA is well behind even Poland (the worst European country).

Why are people in low socio-economic groups almost twice as likely to die of cancer in the US? I suggest because they cannot afford decent health care.

"For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 per cent; the European rate 35 per cent" What a load of brown smelly stuff.

Given the the vast majority of leukaemia's (note correct spelling) are chronic by nature and the median survival at diagnosis is 10 years how are 5 year survival rates relevant? The vast majority of adult leukeamia's are incurable with a 100% death rate (unless you die of something else)

All in all a dishonest piece of "journalism".

Health Needs A Human Face. There is no equity in Canada nor Australia when it comes to "inclusiveness" community enagement or any other policy intiatives that fly under Alma Ata as Health for ALL or as prevention true mechanisms in Primary Health.

I know people in Canada and Australia entangled in the world of unemployment, disabities and mental health. They are exhausted in their efforts to engage. Many of these people suffer serious isolation, are genuinely dis-connected by social drift.

We need a human face put back into Health. We need the resources to engage productively with those who need assistance the most.

We need a socio-economic - culturally political approach to policys. A Political Will to Act for effectiveness through health intergration and a true linkage between other services.

We do not need more McCarthyism's.

I stand loud against anyone who uses 'socialism' or an 'anti-socialism' slang notation to fog the urgency for action on quality and merits of a human life-quality engagement, or on issues about how we ought to include people better within our society, through practical health policies.

Society is about people and it is time we understood that means dealing people from no matter where they try to engage.

We need a "No Wrong Door" policy (yesterday) to integrate health and other business, government and community services.

We need a whole of governement whole of community approach.

We need to criminalise the distractive SPIN!

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What a complete load! Even the introduction is idiotic. To assume that compassion comes before profit in a socialist system is rubbish, and anyone that can analyse a situation can come to the same conclusion. Even in a system that isnt trying to make a profit, they still have a finite resource with which to provide that service. If they were trying to squeeze out a profit based on the same funding, then the services provided HAVE to be worse.

To say that waiting lists would be shorter in a capitalist system is probably quite true - a certain percentage of the population would never MAKE the waiting list to start with as they wouldnt be able to pay for the procedure.

The Vancouver Island MRI machine is another silly point. 1 public MRI machine for 600,000. So those that can afford it, get private health cover and go to a private hospital with the access they need, I assume - its certainly what happens in Australia. Much better result to have say even 50% of the population unable to afford to seek assistance privately, and having to wait for the public machine, then not having that public machine there at all.

Absolutely we need more resources to go to our health system. That's why I am so opposed to the tax cuts that we have been getting every Budget day. The money amounts to little in the individual hand, but could help make inroads in many areas of public systems (not just health), that need serious attention.

yes, there a problems with the public system, but better to live with those problems, than die without being able to get private care.

"Addressing Market failure:- When conventional market structures fail then complex theoretical structures are constructed. These manipulate the market process to correct perceived deficiencies in the application of market principles and make it more competitive. These new structures are thrust onto noncomforming sectors of society. That market principles themselves are not applicable is never entertained by true believers. Good examples in health care are managed care and the model recently promoted to the World Bank."

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/health_reform.html

The above link is to an enormous website, and anyone proposing that corparate medicine is better than a public health care system is delusional.

A study of homeless men in Canada and America compared their mortality rate between 2 cities, one in Canada and the other in America, both cities had the same climate.

The homeless men in Canada had a higher survival rate than those who lived in the US.

Unfortunately for us in Australia the government hired American Consultants to tell us how to run our health care system. The American system is the most expensive in the world and an illness can drive you from being a comfortable middle-class to being very poor in a very short period of time.

Sure the public system has problems, mostly because governments have not wanted to spend money on it.

The biggest problem as I see it with health care here in Canada is how the current Doctors have shut out Doctors (fully qualified by their credentials earned in other lands) that come to practise here and end up driving taxi cabs by default.
The Nurses and their Unions that together work very hard at trying to convince us that they are overtired from overwork.
Suggestions to both by us the patients go like this. To the Doctors here that keep out other Doctors not from here: I'll decide whom I choose for a Doctor. You the ones from here that say they, those the ones from not here, should not be allowed to practice as certain standards as set out by Canada's Doctor Union(?) have not been met yet. Why don't you just give it up with that lame excuse that allows you to keep patients away from new Doctors and then use that as a bargaining chip when contract time comes around. "Oh we have too many patients so why doesn't the government appreciate us by giving us more money."

To the Nurses that say they are overworked: Why don't you try working an eight hour shift and then take the rest of the day off. Studies have shown that more than eight hours on one shift will indeed to lead to burnout. "Oh we are so tired and overworked we need more money." Well cry me a river. You want four 12 hour shifts (with then four days in a row off) all the while requireing that 16 of those hours be at time and half or double time.
And it is so sad that in Canada there is no avenue to make such points as here we are still now with no effective blogs on such a topic. And until this type of discourse is available here, sometime hopefully soon, we as patients will have to do with too few Doctors, and with them, Nurses that work too much as set out by their Union Demands.

The comedy festival has come to On Line Opinion. Last week it was “Cuba is a democracy”. Now it's the wonders of the health system in the USA, which spends a higher percenage of its GDP on health and has worse results than we do. I can't wait for next week and an article on Robert Mugabe - freedom fighter.

I have done some research, the mortality rates for: acute lymphocytic leukaemia, acute myelogeous leukaemia, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, chronic myelogeous leukaemia and the leukaemic phase of non hodgkins lymphoma are all higher in the USA than they are in Canada, Australia and the UK.

Note to editors, please check this authors facts in future :)

Don't know why OLO publishes this sort of preposterous nonsense.

Check here for a rundown on what's wrong with the US medical system http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18802 which points out, for example that "one study found that among Americans diagnosed with colorectal cancer, those without insurance were 70 percent more likely than those with insurance to die over the next three years."

Or check here http://www.emoryhealthcare.org/departments/transplant_kidney/patient_info/faqs.html for an estimate of $25,000 to $150,000 for a kidney transplant. Hopefully you'll find a "deceased or living donor transplant" (well Aunt Bess doesn't really need that extra kidney does she?) so the cost is at the lower end of the range. Don't forget the $700 to $2,000 per month for medications.

The American system delivers first-class care to those who have health insurance. The uninsured are left to their own devices. If such a system were introduced in Australia (God forbid) you'd better take out insurance, if you can afford it. Either that, or check that your spouse values you more highly than they value the house.

This is how you can tell The Simpsons aren't real. Marge and Homer are forever having trouble paying the bills, yet they're constantly at Dr Hibbert's.

Dr Nick is also a familiar enough cliche to make an appearance.

I'd love to see a South Park episode on the kid who died of a brain infection because his mum (mom) couldn't afford a dentist.

Hang on a minute, we can't afford the dentist either. Damn.

a mate of mine who requres dialysis recently changed from a private hospital to a public one, when I asked him why?

He said, "they look after me better in the public hospitals!"

He told me that in the private sector each time he presents for dialysis he has to be seen by a doctor, this cost his health fund about $79 three times a week or $237 a week. He said he sees the Nephrologist for about 5 seconds.

The nephrologist gets about $3,000 a week for roughly less than two hours work as he has to see each patient regardless as too whether they need to or not.

No wonder some Doctors LOVE the private sector.

Johnj,

I understand that the outcome for renal dialysis patients in America is very poor when compared to outcome for renal dialysis patients in Australia.

JamesH, you raise an interesting point re dialysis. According to this article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9075223&dopt=Abstract "End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is unique in that, in the United States, it is the only disease-specific condition covered by Medicare independently of the age of patients." In other words, dialysis is the ONLY treatment universally funded by Medicare, making it one of the few diseases where a direct comparison world-wide has much validity.

And guess what? According to this study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7922254&dopt=Abstract "the United States has the highest mortality rate for end-stage renal disease patients receiving dialysis among the industrialized nations." The reason? The "current reimbursement rate... is less than half that of Germany and one quarter that of Japan."

The American health system is a dismal debacle with an enormously bloated administrative system (dedicated largely to recovering debts). The US spends TWICE as much on health per capita as Australia http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm , for demonstrably inferior results. Beware snake-oil salesmen who would foist this disaster on us.

"To be fair, Europeans and Canadians are slowly waking up. "Socialism, after all, is a faith system with a bad track record."
You start off saying "to be fair," but there is much conscious deceit in your bombast and tirade. Surely it is obvious, that all of Europe and Canada, support the profit system. And here the profit ledger dictates profits before people and a lessening of health care. A big waiting list is deliberately created, and you pay up big time or go without, irrespective of life or limb. To maximise profits, the cost cutting of specialised staff, procedures, and materials is introduced and that undermines healthcare. In reality, a few people - one or two - literally hold the immense majority to ransom - this is what privatization means - private wealth - the individual, the profiteer.
Healthcare including medicine is actually the outcome of struggle and sacrifice from millions of people as a historical and social product. Healthcare belongs to no one person but is socially derived and won through big struggle of workers; nothing was given.

Socialists explain and fight for, that people have a basic human right for access to hospitals and the highest developments in health care. This is a foundation plank of genuine social equality and social justice. Instead of 'each for all' this capitalist system promotes 'each against all' or 'get out of my road.' Imagine the real human potential that could be unleashed through harnessing hundreds of millions of people to develop mankind in a myriad ways. But that does not happen because of a few profiteers. Because economic relations or profits dominate over human relations and considerations, then all relations get distorted, twisted and inverted. In consequence, the system itself makes millions of people ill.
I am not sure what you mean by "faith system" but we are not religious, nor idealists, nor Stalinists, nor do we have any faith in your reactionary selfish perspective, nor your right wing counterparts in parliament. No we say, behind every fortune lies a great crime - that is the workings of capitalism.

This story published in the SMH
"Sorry, now you've had cancer you have to pay to be screened"

Shows how "FREE" health care is a myth especially if you have cancer. People with cancer have significant out of pocket medical expenses.

There has often been talk about introducing a co-payment into the system.