The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.
"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."
That does NOT sound like anything I’d like to have for this country, thank you very much. She goes on to say that she thinks it is possible to maintain universal coverage while improving the rest of the system, but I think she’s wrong. We’ll see… but how much time is she going to waste trying before she acknowledges that single-payer is incompatible with “patient-centered care”?
Doig says there are some "very good things" about Canada's health-care system, but she points out that many people have stories about times when things didn't go well for them or their family.
"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable," said Doig.
"They have to look at the evidence that's being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada's doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you're getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it."
That “not sustainable” claim sounds VERY familiar, doesn’t it? Didn’t Obama say something similar about OUR system? Hmmm…
As to getting “better care than what you’re getting,” we get the best health care in the entire world here in the United States. Any plan that will decrease the quality of that health care, as the current plans will, is a bad plan that should NOT be passed.
The Canada situation presents an interesting scenario...how do you escape from universal health care? You can figure almost 25 percent of the public in Canada don't have the income or they have a prior-disease of sorts...which would preclude them from getting private health care. Even if the absolute answer was to move back to private health care...the public will go ballistic as they are left. It will present a number of problems which we ought to stand and observe. We might learn something out of this experience.
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