Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Canadians still waiting on health care
["The Waiting Game," The Wall Street Journal, 29 August 2006.]
Unreasonable waits are widespread under the single-payer system to the north:
Last week Ottawa-based Decima Research released results of a poll designed to answer the ultimate question in Canada: "How many wait too long for health care?" The firm says its survey of 3,070 Canadians "reveals that more than one in three Canadian households has tried and failed to get timely access to at least one health service within the last three months."
Nearly half (46%) of those waiting to see a specialist said they experienced an "unreasonable" wait time, as did 30% of those waiting to confirm a diagnosis. Of those who sought emergency hospital treatment, 44% said their wait was too long.
The Vancouver-based Fraser Institute's "Waiting Your Turn" annual report has documented Canada's waiting-time crisis in health care for 15 years. In 2005 it found "total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces, was 17.7 weeks."
At issue here is whether it is better to ration a scarce good using prices, as a free-market system would do, or using time, as is inevitably the case with nationally financed systems.
[Charles W. Van Way, III, MD, "The Strength of a Really Bad Idea," The Flint Hills Center, 8 May 2004.]
Unreasonable waits are widespread under the single-payer system to the north:
Last week Ottawa-based Decima Research released results of a poll designed to answer the ultimate question in Canada: "How many wait too long for health care?" The firm says its survey of 3,070 Canadians "reveals that more than one in three Canadian households has tried and failed to get timely access to at least one health service within the last three months."
Nearly half (46%) of those waiting to see a specialist said they experienced an "unreasonable" wait time, as did 30% of those waiting to confirm a diagnosis. Of those who sought emergency hospital treatment, 44% said their wait was too long.
The Vancouver-based Fraser Institute's "Waiting Your Turn" annual report has documented Canada's waiting-time crisis in health care for 15 years. In 2005 it found "total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces, was 17.7 weeks."
At issue here is whether it is better to ration a scarce good using prices, as a free-market system would do, or using time, as is inevitably the case with nationally financed systems.
[Charles W. Van Way, III, MD, "The Strength of a Really Bad Idea," The Flint Hills Center, 8 May 2004.]
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