NationStates Jolt Archive

Canadians want 2-tier health: poll (http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=75f6cbe4-6da5-4c84-9e8a-17e447c651ca)
Think-tank finds 51% in favour, says 'taboo' private option should be an election issue

Ah, everyone's favourite bugbear at the moment. Let us rebut.

First, regarding this poll. A telephone poll of 2092 adults across Canada. Now, while I have not yet taken Statistics classes, this number seems rather low. Are twenty-one hundred people enough to determine the desires of the populations of thirty million people in ten provinces and three territories in the second-largest country on Earth?

Second, this article did not note whether or not the poll was random. While I usually would not doubt this to be the case, I do have my suspicions, mostly fueled by a healthy paranoia and oddities like thirty-nine per cent of New Democrats willing to happily turn their backs on essential party policy.

Simple logic ought to be enough to show that for-profit care is less than desirable. For one, in profit facilities, the needs of the patient must come second to pleasing the investors. These places are not devoted to healing, they are devoted to money. Should things come down to a contest between a patient and a profit, we should not be surprised when the latter wins.

The quality of service, thus, must also greatly suffer in such a facility. Private providers desire profit; profit requires cutting costs; ergo, private providers will cut costs, and quite likely in ways that are not beneficial to the patient.

And of course, I haven't even touched upon the effect on the public system. With so many private providers also clamouring for a spot at the government trough - and mark my words, they will! - public spending will actually increase, with the first tier being pushed aside. You will then be paying for services you cannot afford. Conservatives dread giving money to the poor; should Liberals not similarly hate signing over their paycheques to the rich?

Now, while I couldn't find the specific article I was searching for, I did dig up a few interesting ones.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/spec3/RTGAM/20021121/wctv2/SpecialEvents3/romanowBN/breakingnews - This speaks of a survey of dialysis that shows that for-profit facilities have lower service and more deaths than non-profit ones.

http://www.keepmedicarepublic.ca/romanow/devereaux.shtml - More from Dr Devereaux, above.

http://www.cupe.ca/updir/10morereasons.pdf - Reiterates many points I make here.


In short, I for one would rather my doctor be paying attention to my illness and not my credit rating.

In the famous words of Jack Layton:

"You shouldn't need a Visa to find out if you have cancer."

First, regarding this poll. A telephone poll of 2092 adults across Canada. Now, while I have not yet taken Statistics classes, this number seems rather low. Are twenty-one hundred people enough to determine the desires of the populations of thirty million people in ten provinces and three territories in the second-largest country on Earth?

2092 respondents on any poll will get the pollster a margin of error of plus or minus 2.15%. This means that that the mean results of this poll are a shade over 95% accurate or said another way if one were to redo the poll for that time period, one would expect to get the same numbers (not significantly different) 19 out of 20 times. Most political polling data has a 6% (+ or - 3%) margin of error. This poll used a larger sample size than most.


Second, this article did not note whether or not the poll was random. While I usually would not doubt this to be the case, I do have my suspicions, mostly fueled by a healthy paranoia and oddities like thirty-nine per cent of New Democrats willing to happily turn their backs on essential party policy.

Here then, don't take the article's word for it...go to its source (http://www.iedm.org/sondage0504_en.pdf).

Simple logic ought to be enough to show that for-profit care is less than desirable. For one, in profit facilities, the needs of the patient must come second to pleasing the investors. These places are not devoted to healing, they are devoted to money. Should things come down to a contest between a patient and a profit, we should not be surprised when the latter wins.

The quality of service, thus, must also greatly suffer in such a facility. Private providers desire profit; profit requires cutting costs; ergo, private providers will cut costs, and quite likely in ways that are not beneficial to the patient.

And of course, I haven't even touched upon the effect on the public system. With so many private providers also clamouring for a spot at the government trough - and mark my words, they will! - public spending will actually increase, with the first tier being pushed aside. You will then be paying for services you cannot afford.

Simple logic tells me that no good or service is immune from the laws and theories governing economics and very few people skirt theories regarding human behavior.



Conservatives dread giving money to the poor; should Liberals not similarly hate signing over their paycheques to the rich?

That's a great American myth too. In fact you should see this Generosity Index (http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org/cfp/db/generosity.php?year=2003). A little hint: southern states are generally regarding as leaning heavily conservative while northern states are generally lean liberal (today's version of liberal or progressive, which in my opinion is neither by terms laid out in their traditional meanings).

In short, I for one would rather my doctor be paying attention to my illness and not my credit rating.

Great, stay on the government plan but allow those who want off that plan to leave it. I thought the Left was pro-choice; what happened? I guess that only applies when getting rid of inconveniences in ones life is discussed before they manage to pass through the birth canal.

On that Generosity Index, I'd be curious to know whether donations to televangelists count. :wink:

Do you actually mean to say that some don't want to be treated at the whim of a socialist heathcare bureacracy? I'm shocked! :lol:

Now, now. The issue here is not whether or not people may go to private clinics. Last I checked, there already were private clinics, albiet not many. The debate here, as near as I can understand it, is that these clinics want government money. The Health Act states that the government cannot subsidise clinics that take money directly from the patient; this is what they want changed.

Also, regarding the Generosity Index: Very often, on these forums and elsewhere, I hear Conservatives puling away about how horridly unfair it is that their hard-earned money is being robbed from them so that those lazy bums can have food and shelter. Thus, I ask again - as a Liberal, should I not be similarly offended by regressive policies that take my paycheque and hand it over to the well-off?