Canadian Politiican Prefers American Medicine

[Arathena]

A note: The procedure that the gentleman in question had performed is available in Canada. It is also not reccomended when the work done exceeds a certain complexity, and it has, in general, a higher rate of complication. Its primary benefit over open chest surgery is a shorter recovery time, and a lack of major scarring on the chest.

Mr. Williams took the riskier (and likely medically contra-indicated) route then, in exchange for a shorter recovery. Wonder what he feels a pressing need to do?

[Taxious]

lol Embar...

So it turns out that doctors (in both Canada and the US) recommend that this guy get a different type of surgery. It turns out that the Canadian surgeons are actually more professional and renowned than the surgeon he ended up going to in the USA for his type of operation. And it turns out that he also owns a condo in warm Miami where his surgery was performed.

I have no idea why you started an "OMG CANADIAN HEALTHCARE SUXXORS" thread based off of this.

[Arathena]

Maybe he thinks that chest scarring will make him unattractive to his extramarital sex partners of choice?

[Partha]

Don't be silly, it won't be seen no matter who does the bending over.

[Embar Angylwrath]

lol Embar...

So it turns out that doctors (in both Canada and the US) recommend that this guy get a different type of surgery. It turns out that the Canadian surgeons are actually more professional and renowned than the surgeon he ended up going to in the USA for his type of operation. And it turns out that he also owns a condo in warm Miami where his surgery was performed.

I have no idea why you started an "OMG CANADIAN HEALTHCARE SUXXORS" thread based off of this.

Tax -

What Ara posted (if you read it) was from a guy who is an advocate of the single payer system, and who was worried about what the news of the Canadian pol might do to perceptions of the single payer system. its a skewed article with a goal of advocating for a single payer system, and its not an honest assessment of the procedure the Canadian received. If you do some research, you'll find that this type of procedure is VERY common, and is replacing the old procedure becuase it is safe and minimally invasive. And any doctor that recommends sawing through your chest cavity to repair your mitral valve when other, less invasive and similarly efficacious treatmetns are available, and then goes on to tsay that there's no reason to select the minimally invasive one other than for cosmetic reasosn.. well, that guy is a quack.

Explore his statement for a bit Tax, think about what he said. He said there's no reason to select the minimally invasive technique other than cosmetic. Let me ask you this... if a dentist said he has to polsh your teeth by opening up your skull, and that his technique is just as good as a dentist that just asks you to open your mouth.. which procedure would you take? How this guy can claim that a longer hospital say (dangerous in itself because of the supergerms that reside there), more a transfusion and sawing into your chest cavity is just as good as a small incision.. well... I know which procedure I'd be clamoring for.

[Lurker]

You're lying.

[Kulaf]

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/dis ... epair.aspx

Mitral Valve Repair at Nation's Number One Heart Hospital
Cleveland Clinic heart surgeons have the world’s largest experience with mitral valve repair, the best option for most patients with a leaking mitral valve (mitral regurgitation).

At Cleveland Clinic, nearly all leaking mitral valves are repaired rather than replaced, providing patients with ideal outcomes. The majority of these operations are performed minimally invasively, ensuring rapid recovery.

So what exactly is Embar lying about?

[Lurker]

The procedure is available in Canada and at a limited but growing number of U.S. hospitals.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Do a Google on it. I think you'll find more than just a "small" number of hospitals offering it. And you'll also find that the NIH says the procedure is safe and effective. Also, you'll find the NIH openly states that minimally invasive techniques are better.

Is that all you got Lurker? Just saying I lied and offering no other information other than your jaundiced statement?

[Lurker]

Gee, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings.

The minimally invasive procedure is available in Canada and there's no indication Williams wouldn't have gotten timely surgery in his own country. His statement about the appearance of jumping a queue was nothing but a deflection from his decision to get his surgery in the United States. Since he can afford it, I really don't care where he gets treated.

Your dishonesty in this thread has been... well... typical Embar. To claim that private insurance in the United States doesn't ration care is absurd. To claim that the uninsured don't have rationed care is beyond idiotic. I guess you think anyone off the street could walk into the ER and get minimally invasive mitral valve repair or that private insurance pays for flights to Miami to see the surgeon of your choice.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Gee, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings.

The minimally invasive procedure is available in Canada and there's no indication Williams wouldn't have gotten timely surgery in his own country. His statement about the appearance of jumping a queue was nothing but a deflection from his decision to get his surgery in the United States. Since he can afford it, I really don't care where he gets treated.

Your dishonesty in this thread has been... well... typical Embar. To claim that private insurance in the United States doesn't ration care is absurd. To claim that the uninsured don't have rationed care is beyond idiotic. I guess you think anyone off the street could walk into the ER and get minimally invasive mitral valve repair or that private insurance pays for flights to Miami to see the surgeon of your choice.

Your last sentence speaks volumes about your dishonesty on this issue. In one breath you pound your chest and claim that the Canadian could have received the same procedure in his own country under rationed care (without addressing the reasons why he didn't), and in the second breath insinuate the procedure was only available outside of rationed care.

Can't have it both ways, chimpy.

[Lurker]

My point was that the rationed care in Canada is better than the rationed care in the United States. Well, unless you're wealthy. Wasn't that obvious? I guess nothing is obvious to someone dishonest or dumb enough to say uninsured don't have rationed care because they can use the ER and private insurance has no limits.

[Embar Angylwrath]

That didn't seem to be the thrust of your opinion until now.

You first started by questioning the availability and efficacy of the procedure. Then you accused me of lying, Then you had to walk that back with some weak statement about limited and growing availability. Your participation in tis thread has been nothing less than a persoanl attack, which is fine, doesn't bother me, but let's not pretend it was an honest discussion of the event.

[Lurker]

Wrong. I started out saying I didn't care that Williams traveled to the U.S. to get a more advanced procedure if he could afford to do so, but that it didn't mean he wouldn't have gotten timely surgery in Canada with the same end result. Turns out the procedure is available in Canada, but whatever.

I also asked for a shred of honesty from you on facts so obvious I figured even you wouldn't lie. And yes, you have a history of lying to bolster your arguments.

Private insurance in the United States rations care. The uninsured in the United States face even worse care rationing.

After you proved to be either a liar or an idiot I stopped trying to engage you seriously.

[Harlowe]

I just feel like the whole thread is pointless. It's a non-event used to prop up a weak argument. Another "omg our health insurance is better here so we don't need no marxist-nazi-progressive-socialist-end-days-of-the-US healthcare reform because politicians from other counties want to come here!!

It has absolutely nothing to do with the issue. Preferring our medical professionals and facilities here over somewhere else, has nothing to do with US healthcare insurance. No more than people wanting to use a great mechanic, has jack squat to do with the quality of your car insurance.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I just feel like the whole thread is pointless. It's a non-event used to prop up a weak argument. Another "omg our health insurance is better here so we don't need no marxist-nazi-progressive-socialist-end-days-of-the-US healthcare reform because politicians from other counties want to come here!!

It has absolutely nothing to do with the issue. Preferring our medical professionals and facilities here over somewhere else, has nothing to do with US healthcare insurance. No more than people wanting to use a great mechanic, has jack squat to do with the quality of your car insurance.

I think you're missing the larger point Harlowe. This case is illustrative of what happens when people are forced into a system where governmental benchmarks drive healthcare decisions. The Canadian politician elected to punt on his own healthcare system to get the care he thought was best (and is best). You tell me Harlowe... why would a physician recommend sawing through your ribcage when other, equally efficacious and less invasive alternatives were available? Cost savings perhaps?

This is my point... single payer systems are driven by the "low-bid" mentality and politics, and have serious hurdles to access for alternative and equally effective procedures. There's areason why American medicine drives most of the new and improved techinques. We are a fraction of the world's population, yet we drive most of the pharmaceutical and procedural advances. We do it, because we have market forces driving the advances. When a country resorts to a single payer system, it relies on other sources for innovation... why? Because innovation requires risk, and no government hack is going to sign off on a new drug or new procedure if it increases risk to his/her job.

It's just not in thier political best interest. And thats the focal point, isn't it. Single payer governmentally run healthcare decisions are not healthcare driven.. they are politically driven... just as is every other governmental program. If you can get your head around that, you can see how detrimental that is to overall healthcare.

[Lurker]

Nice narrative. Too bad it's completely wrong.

He chose to go to a hospital in Florida and to re-cooperate at his vacation condo there, and he could afford to do so. That doesn't change the fact that he could have received timely surgery in Canada.

The minimally invasive mitral valve surgery he needed is not available in Newfoundland, he told his province's NTV News channel in the first part of an interview aired last night.

"Did some checking, of course, and what was ultimately done to me, the surgery I eventually got ... was not offered to me in Canada," he said.

But it is available in his home country, a point that cardiologists fervently made last night.

"It's his body, it's his money, hopefully, but don't tell us the operation cannot be done here. It can be done," said Arvind Koshal, director of cardiac surgery at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute in Edmonton.

Some of the best mitral valve surgeons are in Toronto and Montreal, he said, noting that some even use robots, commonly employed in minimally invasive surgery. The wait times for cardiac surgery in Canada are relatively short, he added, saying such surgery could have been done within weeks.

Despite this, research and consultation with doctors led Mr. Williams to seek treatment at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, where patients pay for care.

"I have the utmost confidence in our health-care system, I certainly do," the 60-year-old said, perched on a leather chair in his condominium in Sarasota, Fla. "It's a bum rap for someone to turn around and say, 'Oh, Williams does not have confidence in his own health-care system because he has to leave the province.' "

While Mr. Williams was clear that surgery in his home province was advised against, he was more ambiguous about the Canadian options he explored.

Virtually all heart surgery can be done in Canada, a chorus of cardiologists said earlier this month when they heard about Mr. Williams's cross-border surgery, a decision that launched a debate about private versus public health care.

Wilbert Keon, a heart surgery pioneer in Ottawa and a Conservative senator, said emergency surgery can happen within hours in Canada and urgent procedures done in a couple of days.

For example, the Ottawa Heart Institute offers minimally invasive mitral valve surgery and Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur in Montreal uses robots to repair mitral valves.

It's fundamentally dishonest to judge a system by how the wealthy and well connected operate while denying the reality of how the system works for everyone else. A wealthy person in Canada has more choices open to them just the same as a wealthy person in the United States does. So what? I guarantee the average Canadian needing surgery is better off medically and financially than the average American. Their system simply works better.

=====

Last chance to show a shred of honesty before I wash my hands of you except for open mockery and to correct your propaganda...

Does private insurance in the United States ration care? Is private insurance driven by profit or is care given without limits? Do the uninsured have rationed care?

[Embar Angylwrath]

Notice my response was directed towards Harlowe for her review and comment....

There's no discussion with you Lurker. If I disagree and provide other sources for consideration, you conveniently ignore the sources and claim that I'm lying. If I offer an opinion that differs from yours, you claim I'm dishonest. This is a pattern of yours (and not just directed at me). Sorry man... that's just not the way to engage in a robust exploration of a topic.

[Lurker]

You've provided no sources for consideration in this thread other than the original news article that didn't fully support your claims, and your own opinion. So what are you talking about?

You don't want to honestly respond to the questions because the answers cut against your screed. It's obvious. I gave you the chance to answer honestly and you took a pass. You aren't interested in "a robust exploration of a topic". You never are.

[Ddrak]

This is my point... single payer systems are driven by the "low-bid" mentality and politics, and have serious hurdles to access for alternative and equally effective procedures. There's areason why American medicine drives most of the new and improved techinques. We are a fraction of the world's population, yet we drive most of the pharmaceutical and procedural advances. We do it, because we have market forces driving the advances. When a country resorts to a single payer system, it relies on other sources for innovation... why? Because innovation requires risk, and no government hack is going to sign off on a new drug or new procedure if it increases risk to his/her job.

It's just not in thier political best interest. And thats the focal point, isn't it. Single payer governmentally run healthcare decisions are not healthcare driven.. they are politically driven... just as is every other governmental program. If you can get your head around that, you can see how detrimental that is to overall healthcare.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The "low bid" mentality is far more evident in the US than almost any other developed nation in the world. The reason for this is the consumer has no effective choice in their health insurance under the US system - your employer and the health insurance provider make all the choices for you, typically based on their own best financial interests. There is even less accountability to market forces in the US than in single payer systems elsewhere because at least you have government transparency to fall back on in the single payer case.

To suggest the US is a "fraction of the world's population" as some sort of argument is fairly obviously a delusion as well. The US is by far the most populous developed nation (Japan is 2nd at about 40% of the US population, and Germany third at less than 30%). It is the third most populous nation (behind China and India) and the most wealthy nation in the world, which makes it rather obvious why it has a good amount of innovation - because there's simply more money floating around in the US than in any other nation. Of course, the first heart transplant was done in South Africa, so go figure.

It should also be noted that governments tend to be much more loose with research funding than the average company. While "government hacks" don't mind spending money on open ended research, big company accountant drones want to see the risk/reward before signing off. That's the prime reason you see private industry focusing on treatments rather than cures for disease - there's far less money in a one-off cure than a long-term management.

Another reason the US is so lucrative for big pharma is their ability to twist patent law to gain exclusive sales of drugs at inflated prices for longer. In short, you're attracting the big pharmaceutical companies because you pay more, not less. Not only that but almost all drugs are manufactured in China or India anyway so they're just using you for profits and not really handing much back.

I don't have a problem with people being allowed to spend money for private medical treatment outside a single payer system (unlike the Canadian and UK system), in fact I think it's healthy for it to work that way as it results in more money entering the system, but I do think you need a single payer system as the base option. Insurance simply doesn't work for the consumer otherwise.

Dd