>The rich can still pay for private care if they feel like it. No one is
>stopping them.
Doesn't that kind of "opting out" then hopping back into the socialized system at whim strike you as a bit unfair and counter-productive to having a single-payer system? That's the kind of nonsense going on up here now; the right-wingers love to see this shit happen: it reinforces their argument for a US-style private system where "choice" is paramount.
>How "socialized" medicine plays out with pharmaceuticals continue to be
>private remains to be seen.
In Canada the pharmas continue to make their expensive drugs, market them to the public and doctors, who then overdemand or overprescribe (the new expensive stuff), respectively, when an older, cheaper, just-as-good alternative might be out there. Then, when drug prices shoot up, the right-wingers scream about how this is bankrupting the country and we need more "competition" ie privatized health-care.
>
>And then there the deeper layers: the very costly and often ineffective
>type of medicine practiced in the west, the effect of ill-making
>life/work/stress/environment on health... It's a lot more complicated than
>just "who pays."
The above and the pharma stuff is in this really neat book (out of date, but still a good primer, I think): "Strong Medicine: How to Save Canada's Health Care System" by Michael Rachlis and Carol Kushner.
Their basic argument is that the problem isn't the money (about which I have my doubts, but . . .) but rather how money, services, equipment, and education are allocated (from poorly to not at all).
Todd
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