It’s enough to make the average Canadian cry. The decent folk up north fervently defend their health care system from attack. But, it turns out, the vast majority are willing to do most anything to jump the medical queue. If paying off their doctor would move them ahead, well, let the favors and money flow!
Read the rest. I just don’t think you can claim to like your health care system unless you’re willing to live with its provisions. By necessity that means not cheating. “Extra” payment to a doctor used to be allowed, but was specifically prohibited by about the late 70’s. The Feds withheld money from any Province that allowed “extra billing.”
On “extra billing” and my own experience, see also: Ob-Gyns with 10 Month Waiting Lists
Canadian Medical Association President-elect Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai, … disputed that the medical association is endorsing private health care, as critics have charged.
The primary concern of physicians of Canada is that patients have timely access to quality care based on need, not ability to pay, said Collins-Nakai, a pediatric cardiologist in Edmonton.
It’s those damn queue jumpers that are the problem, who are they to judge need OR ability to pay when we’ve got bureaucrats to do the job?
Heck,I can tell you all the ways my family “gamed” the system. My father was a CA who had many doctors as clients, and we lived in a neighbourhood with a lot of doctors. As a result, we had a lot of close contacts in the system. Seen it all first hand.The sad thing is, that it was the only to get care in a reasonable amount of time was to use this network. The hypocritical thing is the stories about doctors in Ottawa and Toronto getting calls from the public “defenders of Canada’s single payer system” asking to move up in line…Canada has a three tier system: those who can afford to go south of the border for treatment, those who can use their rolodex to move up, and everyone else.