2/14    A few days ago there was a brief discussion about socialized health
        care.  Walter Williams has a column today that addresses existing
        problems of Canada and UK health care.  -emarkp
        http://csua.org/u/i1p
        \_ The Canadian statistics there are interesting.  They give numbers
           like "the median wait for a CT scan across Canada was 4.3 weeks,
           but in Prince Edward Island, it's 9 weeks".  PEI is the smallest
           and poorest province in Canada, though, so that's not really
           surprising.  All the above-the-median examples they give are from
           the small, poor provinces -- this suggests that wait times in the
           major provinces (Ontario, Quebec, BC) are significantly lower than
           the numbers in the article, which fits with what my friends and
           relatives have experienced.  --mconst
           \_ Wrong--not "significantly lower" than the median.  A little
              googling turned up the publication:
              http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=pb&id=863
              "Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia had the shortest wait
              for computed tomography (4.0 weeks)" -emarkp
           \_ Oh, and here's the Observer article from 2002:
              http://observer.guardian.co.uk/nhs/story/0,,661090,00.html
              "The number waiting a dangerously long time has doubled in two
              years, says a devastating official study obtained by The
              Observer." -emarkp
        \_ BORRRRRING
           \_ Not necessarily.  If the population on PEI and other poor regions
              is low than their numbers won't have a dramatic impact on the
              average across the country.  I don't have numbers for these
              places and honestly don't care enough to look them up but your
              basic logic is flawed.
        \_ I'd rather wait 9 weeks for a govt paid CT scan than 2 days for
           one that costs $15,000 out of pocket.
           \_ What if your condition becomes terminal in that 9 weeks?
              \_ There's no question that there's a trade off.  But in the
                 end I believe that more people would benefit from the service
                 who don't have healthcare than those who would suffer because
                 of wait times.
                 \_ So, it seems like the obvious solution here would be to
                    allow people to pay for fast service if they wish. (I
                    haven't read the article yet.) -jrleek
                    \_ Which is explicitly disallowed, at least in Canada.
                       -emarkp
        \_ There is a lot of room for debate on whether we should move to
           socialized medicine. However, I find http://TownHall.com to be distress-
           ingly partisan. Thank you for the article; please let us know if a
           more reliable source has something to say. --erikred
           \_ You attack the messenger because you don't like the message?
              How about we examine the message itself.  Is there a flaw in
              their data or reporting?
           \_ http://TownHall.com is a collection for opinions on the right.  If you
              reject a source of debate that you don't like, how can you have a
              debate?  Williams is an economist and from reading his columns, I
              think he's clearly libertarian (in philosophy if not in party
              registration).  I'm perfectly happy reading opinions from the
              left on (say) http://moveon.org, etc. and opinions from the right on a
              different site.  Why do you object to that? -emarkp
        \_ Of course, anytime you ration the use of something, you are going
           to cause a wait for it. In the US, we just ration by ability to
           pay, in Canada they do it by the severity of your problem. People
           die all the time in the US because they can't afford treatment,
           and Dr. Williams is being disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
           \_ Ah, but the difference is that when people bid up the cost of
              something, there is financial incentive to bring more players
              into the market.  The US system, while deeply flawed, does allow
              government (or charities) to subsidize the cost of care for
              people who can't afford it, and those who can afford it can get
              it by paying cash. -emarkp
              \_ Where do the blood sucking parasites, I mean, insurance
                 companies fit into this equation?
                 \_ Insurance simply spreads risk.  We pay them to manage risk
                    for us.  However, the current insurance/medical regime is
                    the problem with the system.  To some extent we *do* have
                    socialized care, since medical essentially determines
                    reimbursment amounts, and mandates care at emergency rooms.
                    -emarkp
                    \_ Tell me again how "no one dies" due to lack of
                       medical care in America:
                       http://www.csua.org/u/i26
                       But yes, in many ways we have both the worst of
                       socialism and the worst of capitalism all rolled up
                       in our terrible medical delivery system.
                       \_ I never said it in the first place. Can't you read?
                          -emarkp
                         \_ "I challenge anyone to show me people dying on
                             the streets because they don't have health
                             insurance." So you didn't say it, but your
                             source did.