Hosercare
by Lee
Canada’s top court has ruled that people who can afford to pay for their own health care cannot be prohibited from doing so by the state.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that the Quebec government cannot prevent people from paying for private insurance for health-care procedures covered under medicare.
Four of the seven justices ruled Thursday that the provincial policy violates the Quebec charter. But they split 3-3 on whether it violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, meaning there is no immediate impact on the Canadian health-care system as a whole.
One justice gave no opinion on whether the laws violate the charter.
And what brought about this lawsuit?
In 1996, Montreal businessman George Zeliotis waited a year for hip replacement surgery. While waiting, he asked whether he could purchase insurance that would allow him to skip the public queue and pay directly for the surgery.
When he learned it was against the law, he took his case to court.
Canadians can buy private health insurance for things outside of public medicare such as prescriptions, physiotherapy or private hospital rooms.
The 73-year-old Zeliotis argued the year-long wait for surgery was unreasonable, endangered his life and infringed on the charter’s guarantee of right to life, liberty and security.
The Canadians are so proud of their “free” universal health care. But is it really all that great if you have to wait A YEAR to get a routine operation like a hip replacement? “That’s right, you don’t have to pay for it, but you can’t have it for a year. So get used to that agonizing pain. Hoser.”
Comments
I’m just amazed that you can’t even get a higher level of care by paying for it yourself. This concept is foreign to me.
This concept is foreign to me.
It will be domestic before too long.
12 months! Pretty good. In the UK some have to wait as long as 16 months.
Poosh- I have an aunt who lives in Birmingham and she waited nearly 2 years for her hip replacement. Sad.
You have to understand the Canadian mind set. People will be horrified by this ruling. It is taboo to even think that someone would be able to skip the line if they had private insurance. No one wants to reform the system, they are all afraid of “Americanizing” our health care (sidenote: the only racism tolerated in this country is anti-Americanism). The only answer to any medical problems is throwing more money into our “free” health care. No one needs to innovate, or be efficient. Just cry for more money.
I agree with Lee’s earlier assessment. Neither of our countries health care systems are perfect. But to reflexively turn down any reform because it is “American” is completly absurd.
This poor old man could’ve crossed the border into New York and been in surgery by the following Tuesday.
The worst part is, is that the Health Care Act was not implemented to destroy private health care in Canada ONLY to guarantee that all people would have access to free public health care, if they needed it… it is the Liberals that have determined that this means NO PRIVATE health care. Which is total garbage!!!
Look, people, can we PLEASE drop the word “free” when discussing Canadian Health Care?
It isn’t “free”, it’s pre-paid, with deductions taken out of every paycheck whether or not the person actually needs it.
Which, that kinda makes the increasingly longer waits and rationing even worse.
There are currently lawsuits going that argue the ability of the Government to charge premiums under the Health Care Act… but I don’t see those going anywhere… But Drumwaster is right… it’s not free… cost me $44 a month, not being allowed to buy insurance to cover this myself, I can’t say whether or not this is cheap, but the service sure does suck!
This poor old man could’ve crossed the border into New York and been in surgery by the following Tuesday.
If he would have bumped into that do toting the chainsaw the other day, he could had it done then.
It isn’t “free”, it’s pre-paid, with deductions taken out of every paycheck whether or not the person actually needs it.
Its free on delivery; and that is whats relevant. UK/Canada health care are essentially large, progressive insurance systems with no payments, no “you are not covered for x” etc.
But this example is on the money, these type of “elective” surgery treatments are the worst parts of UK/Canada/New Zealand etc health care systems. I know the UK is trying to target it now with special clinics that do one particular operation efficiently and cheaply to get the wait down on these sort of things - we will see if it makes a difference.
Not being allowed to have private insurance or pay for health care as well as rediculous however. That really is socialism at work.
Its free on delivery;
Because it has already been paid. What happens to all those payments if you never get sick enough to need to go to a doctor? Do you get a refund?
{crickets chirping}
Yeah, I thought so.
Socialized health care sounds like my car insurance policy. I’ve never had a car accident yet if I don’t pay my policy I can be fined or jailed. It pisses me off!
I want a refund! /rarr
Government that is not specifically limited naturally expands. The result is increased socialism. We may have a nightmare of a system like Canada’s one day.
Because it has already been paid. What happens to all those payments if you never get sick enough to need to go to a doctor? Do you get a refund?
{crickets chirping}
Yeah, I thought so.
Look up the word insurance in a dictionary; if you are still stuck, ask and I will try and explain the concept to you.
Oh, so it isn’t “free” it’s just “insured”.
Or does “free” mean something other than “having no cost”?
One thing I do know - “free” doesn’t mean “having already made all the layaway payments”....
Drum, its really very very simple. Its free at the point of delivery. There is the ecnomic term for it. It means you don’t pay anything when you get the healthcare. You don’t have co-pays etc. The one exception to this in the UK is the standardised fee for filling a prescription, which is about $13 (free for kids, students, OAPs) whatever drug it is.
The point of this type of system, as I see it, is the acceptance that it is not someone’s fault they are born with certain diseases, or with our new genetic understanding, proposentity to diseases. Its based on John Rawls “Original Position” philosophy, you can read it about it here and for me this gives one of the best reasons behind a government managed health care system.
Sure, a private insurance system could handle this problem if insurance companies where banned from asking any information about customers. The problem with that type of system is the pricing wouldn’t work because of assymetric information and moral hazard. More economics terms that if you don’t know you can go look up.
Either way, no health care system is perfect and none ever will be. Its a damn expensive business and everyone wants 100% supply which is clearly impossible. Whatever system you have, people will die early because of the system choosen. I guess each society has to make a decision about whats important, balancing that with efficiency, freedom and other aspects and coming to a conclusion. Personally I quite like the UK system which provides reliable health care of adequate standard, and if you want to pay more and get better service you can. I would be interested to see the comparison between private health care costs + tax in the UK and insurance costs in the US. Having a free on demand system certainly forces insurance companies to remain competitive.
Oh, so it isn’t “free” it’s just “insured”.
Yes, of course its not free in the sense of no cost. All these systems are are involuntary insurance systems. They have to be involunatary if you want to cover the Original Position stuff.
Its pretty simple socail justice stuff. I am sure you will poo poo it as liberal crazies, but before you do you might want to look up John Rawls; you will see he was a champion of individial rights.
No doubt our system has some problems and it will take some creative solutions and cash injections to fix them. No system is perfect and the Canuck system, thankfully, works far more than it fails.
I totally agree on a mixed public/private system
My son needed to be circumsized (a medical reason). It wasnt an emergency, just unpleasent, annoying and uncomfortable.
As I am insured I was able to have a choice, wait in line (about 3-4 months) or go private and have it done in two days.
If it WAS an emergency he wouldve been seen straight away in the public system.
And the beauty of the system is the facilities are shared, my son was a private patient in a public hospital. So the level of care is no different, just the timimg.
Is it my imagination or is storied of public funded health care appearing more and more in the MSM? Gee, I wonder what’s up with that .... ????
I’m not even at work and I’m too drunk to tip...er...type ...
Is it my imagination or is storied of public funded health care appearing more and more in the MSM? Gee, I wonder what’s up with that .... ????
Maybe because any comparison with the US system is either a public funded system, or well no system. I guess the MSM looks at the failures in the US system and compares it with others, just like in the UK when there is a failure we look at the US system, cringe, and get back to fixing ours.
The article below was written before the ruling was delivered, but makes some excellent points. I’m repasting it in full because the Canada.com site only has a diddlysquat 7-day archive which means it’ll be gone from there in no time (what, they can’t afford a bigger hard drive on their servers?? CNN’s archive goes back nearly a decade! Anyway, here’s the piece; emphasis mine...)
THE RIGHT TO LIVE
A year ago, supporters of Canada’s government-run health care monopoly stood aghast as a Quebec doctor named Jacques Chaoulli and a hip-surgery patient named George Zeliotis presented the Supreme Court of Canada with an original argument. Medicare’s waiting lists have become so dangerously long, they asserted, that legally banning people from paying for their own health care or purchasing private insurance violates the Charter of Rights’ guarantee of life, liberty and security of the person. The justices responded with questions that implied some sympathy to the notion that patients should be able to select between private and public care.
We have stated previously that the Chaoulli/Zeliotis arguments make eminent sense. Canada is alone in the world, save for the communist states of Cuba and North Korea, in punitively preventing its citizens from paying for core medical services through private insurance if they so choose. The price of maintaining such dubious company is that an untold number of Canadians die each year as a consequence of not receiving timely treatment, and many more suffer unnecessarily. It is difficult to see how such a dire predicament could be anything but an an infringement of Canadians’ rights to life, liberty and security of the person.
We will soon find out whether or not the Supreme Court agrees: The Chaoulli decision is expected today. In preparation, activists have already sounded the alarm about the possibility that the court might rule, to some degree, in the Quebec doctor’s favour. Mike McBane, spokesman for the Canadian Health Coalition lobby group, went on record yesterday complaining that decision could “destroy” the public health system.
What nonsense. The most extreme change one could realistically imagine resulting from the decision is the formation of a dual health care system with both a public and a private stream. While Canadian politicians tend to speak of such a possibility as though it would represent the end of civilization, most European countries already handle their health care needs in precisely this manner.
The two things that are said to define Canada are its Charter of Rights and its public monopoly on health care. It is becoming increasingly clear that it is not possible for the two to comfortably co-exist. One of them has to give way. Surely, it should be our dangerously flawed health care system, whose survival till now is owed entirely to the sentimental belief that it somehow makes us morally superior to the United States. To persist in this belief—despite long waiting lists, and the fact that every other Western nation has permitted private care—would be to extend a nationalistic sentiment to a sort of doctrinal pathology.
Having said that, we do not actually expect Dr. Chaoulli and Mr. Zeliotis to win their case today. The makeup of the court and its recent record suggest a rigid adherence to the medicare party line. We would only hope that Dr. Chaoulli and Mr. Zeliotis have, with their persuasive arguments to the court, provided an impetus for politicians to start making changes that would permit a measure of private competition and for-profit health care and insurance.
If my health care is “free”, then why does Alberta Health & Wellness charge me $50 a month in premiums? Why did Ontario ding me for $150 on top of al my income taxes for it (thank god I’m back out West, I don’t get nearly as sick now)
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Holy crap, I did not know that. That’s freaking messed up - it basically says they care more about their wonderful “system” than about the health of the people it’s supposed to be protecting. That’s just wrong.