<blockquote><cite>Posted By: cancelbot</cite><blockquote><cite>Posted By: DeanK</cite>Are you saying there is only one male age 23 in the province? you are not listing their name, you are not listing their address... just age and sex</blockquote>My mistake - I missed that. I see what you're getting at now - a general indication of how much an individual user can cost. Yeah, I can see the value in that.</blockquote>I agree with the value of education - give people an idea of how much it costs to treat some folks.
<blockquote><cite>Posted By: StBPegger</cite>I understand it is a fine balance, as I certainly wouldn't want to cut off someone with chronic and legitimate problems.
But let's phrase the question in another way, especially with the picture you paint driver (which I agree with). The situation is only going to get worse - there are a lot more people getting older, people are living longer, there are more complex health problems, etc.
How much are you willing to have your taxes go up to feed the system?</blockquote>
Well, people in every country have to pay for health care - privately or through taxes. So I'm more in favour of spending the tax dollars - where NEEDED. (ie lets look at how much our lousy management is costing us, WRHA is very top-heavy with highly paid execs, stuff like that).
Our tax-paid system costs us less overall and protects more people than a private system. I don't see how you could ethically make cost an issue in treatment, in a country that does have the resources to pay. If you do it that way, you reduce people's lives to a dollar value. I think our society might just be stuck paying the higher price.
Notice how we have switched the conversation from the cost of treating an individual to the cost of the whole system. The opposite occurs when arguments are presented by those with a vested interest in the system, they want to relate the treatment that you or a loved one will receive and that no expense (or increase) should be spared.
I agree with driver that WRHA is bloated, but have concerns about blindly funding the system (reference to Hydro). All of us should be concerned about the real costs of the health care system, the sources of revenue to cover that are a different thing, and we want to be sure that the actual costs don't bet obscured along the way.
So how do you go about limiting how much the system costs? Is cutting off treatment if it's deemed futile an acceptable cost measure? Make people pay privately if they want what the doctors don't want to give them?
<blockquote><cite>Posted By: Driver8</cite>So how do you go about limiting how much the system costs? Is cutting off treatment if it's deemed futile an acceptable cost measure? Make people pay privately if they want what the doctors don't want to give them?</blockquote>
THats the question thats difficult to answer. It is one of those things that is so emotional, it is difficult to argue from a practical perspective.
We're not running deficits in the province because the feds pour billions of $$$ in equalization funds into the NDP run bureaucracy. Then there is the hundreds of millions siphoned off Hydro. Now Hydro has to raise rates 5% because the PUB is concerned about Hydro's ability to fund their future developments. Perhaps if Doer kept his friggen mitts of Hydro that may not have been necessary.
This province needs to stand on it's own instead of begging the feds for ever increasing hand outs. It's friggen embarrassing.