Best way to find a doctor in Canada - don’t be sick

My wife, Kathy, and I have a running argument about that bulbous lightning rod of public opinion - Michael Moore. I used to be a Moore fan (when I knew less about his methods - get it Moore and Less… ha, ha, ha I slay me), but a few years ago I gave up on him and simply cannot stomach his (and those of his fans) attempts to portray his work as honest. Perhaps the term “Shmock-unmentary” (mock documentary made for its shock value) might be a better way to describe his work.

In any case, yesterday Kathy and I were having one of our first cup of coffee/thank God for caffiene-infused debates about Michael Moore and his new shmock-umentary ‘Sicko’. In this case Moore’s ‘Sicko’ focuses on what he portrays as the United States’ failing health care system and the much better alternatives available in country’s like France and our neighbors to the north, Canada. It is Moore’s contention that the French and Canadian versions of socialized medicine are superior to ours. I don’t think Kathy necessarily agrees with Moore on this issue, and I certainly do not, but then I heard a story on the BBC today that absolutely confirmed for me why Canada’s system is a failure.

While I cannot yet find a link for the story (here’s another that tells pretty much the same), it described how doctors in Canada are now interviewing their patients prior to accepting them into their practices. Apparently the workload has become too severe for some doctors and they would prefer not to see patients that require too much work (you know, the folks that are sicka nd really need a doctor). What I thought was most telling was the statement from one recently licensed doctor who said he was performing these interviews so that he could limit his daily schedule of patients to between 30-40 per day. Otherwise he said it was just too much work. The story went on to say that there is now a shortfall of doctors in Canada, and they can afford to be choosey when it comes to patients. There is now a glut of ‘orphan’ patients in Canada who have been forced to apply 30-40 times for care from a doctor and in some cases have been ‘let go’ by their current physicians because of their recurring ailments.

Gee, I wonder if this is a result of the miracle of socialized medicine?

Could it be that the medical profession in Canada is becoming more blue collar instead of white collar and because of that it no longer attracts the industrious, the intelligent, or the hard-working?

What’s even more concerning about this report is that the people that typically are strong proponents of a nationalized health care system are those that are chronically ill. Last year I participated in a forum on health care where person after person offered testimony about their ailments and how great it would if our system was more like Canada’s.

I don’t think so. And neither do those Canadians who need to see a doctor the most.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 9:32 am and is filed under Democrats, Society, International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Best way to find a doctor in Canada - don’t be sick”

kyle says:
LOL there are bad in everything, but that doesn’t mean that the whole system is horrible because of one minor addition to the socialized care that canadians get. You know maybe you are right article writer…maybe we should just keep our awful extremely expensive barely or not affordable health care system that we have…(lots of adjectives) anyway i think we should let the millions of people who cannot afford health care in this country die; yeah that sounds great does it not, screw them they are not the middle class people like i’m assuming that you are of that class or higher. Canadians are still better off than our pathetic pharmaceutical companies and their ridiculous prices on everything. Let me tell you something, my mother was sick for 20 years and repeatedly went to the hospital at least 30 times a year. We had Kaiser and Kaiser employees get bonuses for not treating patients (according to my current doctor who used to work for kaiser), treating as in doing scans or using basically any equipment. My mother would have died if she didn’t finally change her insurance over to health net and see a different doctor. The first appointment with her new doctor was life changing, her doctor ordered a scan on her heart (I think a cat scan can’t remember) and found that her mitrol valve was leaking. The leak was deducted to have existed for 20 years or less. Now she’s fine but there are many horror stories about patients not being treated because they can’t get approved or well like with the kaiser case the pharmaceutical companies are too greedy so they will skate around a solution instead of executing it. Again there is no doubt that we desperately need to do something to clean this mess up and by creating a socialized health care system IS the answer. It might piss off the greedy pharmaceutical companies and MANY politicians who are getting paid by pharma companies but regardless. Michael Moores movies are amazing he simply just tells the truth and people in the US don’t want to hear it because they don’t want to believe that their precious United States has faults. Don’t get me wrong I love this country, but for the past seven years it’s been heading in the very wrong direction.
“The people shouldn’t be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of their people.”

July 24th, 2007 at 5:05 am