I guess there isn't much to discuss, then. Let's increase health care spending by a factor of ten. No, by a factor of 100. Let's build a hospital in every backyard.
>
> Canadian health expenditures 1996-97 - 1, 189 million
>
??? Something doesn't jive here. I got my 12% from the Economist, which periodically publishes such figures.
> Canadian Federal revenue - 153, 769 million
>
> That's 7.75%. But who's counting?
>
> In the Canadian system hospitals and clinics are built and run by the government, octors are
> paid by the government, and busgets are allocated by government bureaucrats.
>
I stand corrected, then. I was under the impression that only health insurance had been nationalized.
>
> Enrique Diaz-Alvarez wrote:
> > Jessica wrote:
> > > Well, I would argue that cost should take a very low
> > > position on the priority list when it comes to evaluating "efficiency" in the public sector.
> > > No, on second thought I still think it has no place in that consideration whatsoever - at least
> > >in countries like the U.S. and Canada. There isplenty of wealth in these countries.
>
> > I completely disagree, Jessica. This 'regarless of cost' attittude is
> > one of the reasons why even socialized health care is grossly
> > inefficient in the US (although not nearly as much as private health
> > care, of course). Medicare spending, for example, is heavily skewed
> > towards the last few weeks of life. This leads to absurdities like the
> > US having the worst child inmunization record in the industrialized
> > world, while it pays for complicated surgery on 84-year-olds out of
> > taxpayer money.
>
> If I take your logic far enough I can make it suggest the way to improve health care - socialised
> health care - is to cut it further.
>
No. Decide democratically what fraction of available resources should be allocated to health care. then use them in a manner that maximizes the health and well being of the population.
>
> Jess
-- Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034 Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 758 8962 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565 Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique