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From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Canadian universal medicare works
Message-ID: <1074@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Sep-83 17:51:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1074
Posted: Fri Sep 16 17:51:19 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Sep-83 01:22:54 EDT
References: <2265@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 31

....but it doesn't work too well. There are several known problems.
First -- We have too many doctors. There are a lot of doctors that
send people to checkup and referal after checkup, just because their
patient level is too low to keep them in business. This is realted to
the practice of 'uneccesary surgery'. And we all pay for this. 

and hospitals are closing. Why? Well, it sure isn't because there are
too many hospital beds! Hospitals are closing because they are too
expensive to maintain because OHIP has not considered the cost in
simple things like heating and lighting when there is talk of rate
increases.

and pure medical research is not very well funded either. Why? well,
it may not pay off in immediate benefits, and the same government
minions in charge of how much money the hospitals get think that
research is best done by universities, which another group of
government minions gets to underfund because all that research should
be done in hospitals.

The current trend is to get fewer doctors by making the entrance requirements
more stringent -- say a 90 average rather than an 85. This cuts down the
numbers, but it makes for a lot of brilliant doctors who haven't got
a clue about how to deal with people being accepted, while lesser academics
with wonderful interpersonal skills being turned down.

A better solution would be to put those brillinat doctors into research
and to build more hospitals, but there simply isn't the cash flow in the 
system. And medicare contributes to the problem. 

laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura