American nurse says Canadian health care far from ‘broken’

The Ontario Health Coalition has shared an excellent letter that appeared in the Windsor Star.
It’s from an american nurse sharing his experiences:

Save Public Medicare! Information
“Recently married to a Canadian citizen, I am an American citizen newly living in Ontario. As a nurse and a nurse practitioner student, I have been fascinated at discussions I have encountered since moving here, regarding beliefs within Canada that your health care system is “broken” and that the way to fix it is via privatization.

Think that privatizing your system will improve your access to care? Just try getting access to acute psychiatric care, or access to an endocrine specialist with a run-of-themill, all-American managed care plan that’s cost effective. For example, it doesn’t cost you over $1,200 a month to purchase health care.

If you really believe that private corporations or managed care entities are going to give away visits and costly procedures in a shared-risk financial arrangement/contract, you’d be wrong. They could care less whether you live to see the next day or not.

Ever wonder what a privatized, unregulated market would do to the cost of your pharmaceuticals? Are there any people out there with hypertension? Possibly taking a newer antihypertensive? Try this on for size.

Call any pharmacy in Michigan and cost out a month supply if you had to pay out of pocket. Then do the same at any pharmacy here.

I guarantee you’ll actually feel the blood draining out of your face. And, to boot, introducing private entities will erode one of the best things your system has going for it — administrative simplicity.

There are no real magic bullets in health care. If you have heart failure, you have heart failure. Depending on its severity, the treatment is going to be the same (diuretics, betablockers, ACE inhibitors, mild exercise, and removal of the offending lifestyle contributor).

It’ll be the same no matter if you get whatever you want on demand or not. It’ll be the same whether or not you see the best cardiologist in the country today, tomorrow, or in six months.

In fact, getting exactly what you want on demand will do nothing but drive up the cost of your care. I guarantee it.

What I marvel at every day is the fact that you have actually achieved universal coverage. You should get out of bed every day and thank your leaders for valuing and maintaining your health-care system.

And you should do whatever it takes to protect it — including increased contribution, if that’s what it takes. Your system isn’t broken. Trust me. I’ll show you broken.”

-MIKE HOGLE, Windsor