Foreign Health Care Systems

CANADA

CANADIAN PATIENTS SUE FOR CARE - Some Canadians have resorted to lawsuits to get the care they need in what they and their doctors believe is a reasonable time. In June 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Quebec could not ban private health insurance for services covered under the government-run system. The lawsuit was brought by a Canadian doctor, Jacques Chaoulli, and Montreal
businessman George Zeliotis, who waited a year for hip replacement surgery. "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," the Supreme Court said in its ruling striking down Quebec's ban.

A similar lawsuit was filed in Quebec on behalf of 10,000 women with breast cancer who were forced into long waits for radiation therapy. Anahit Cilinger was one such patient. After having a lymph node removed in October 1999, she was put on a waiting list for radiation therapy. Three months later and with no end to the waiting in sight, she traveled to her native Turkey and paid for the treatment. I don't want other sick people to have to go through the kind of suffering I did," Cilinger told Ingrid Peretz of The Globe and Mail in a March 10, 2004 interview.

The Canadian federal government pledged in 2004 to increase spending on health care by $41 billion (Canadian) over the next 10 years to address wait lists, but Esmail and Walker point to the fact that additional spending in the past has not led to reductions in wait times. "Provinces that spend more on health care are not rewarded with shorter waiting lists," Esmail and Walker write. They conclude that as long as Canada keeps a single-payer health care system, Canadian patients will continue to be forced into long waits for needed care.

"Many Americans look to Canada's Medicare program as a panacea for what they perceive to be the American health care system's failures," Esmail told Health Care News. "These wonderful visions of Canada's socialized health program tend to ignore the very real costs that system imposes on Canadians in need of medically necessary care: Long wait times that can stretch into months or even years of painful and detrimental delay. The reality is that Canada's program is a model for no one, not even Canada."

I suggest you go online and read these articles, scroll down the first page and listen to “A Short Course in Brain Surgery”

A Health Care Horror Story From Canada:

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2010/06/07/a-health-care-horror-story-from-canada/#more-1066

http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/commentary/the-cost-of-free-government-health-care/


The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care, visit:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html


Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams

'My heart, my choice,' Williams says, defending his decision for U.S. heart surgery.

An unapologetic Danny Williams told the Canadian people that he was aware his trip to the United States for heart surgery in February would spark an outcry, but he concluded his personal health trumped any public fallout over the controversial decision.

"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics" said Williams.

The 60-year-old Williams said doctors detected a heart murmur last spring and told him that one of his heart valves wasn't closing properly, creating a leakage. Eight months later, in December, his doctors told him the problem had become severe and urged him to get his valve repaired immediately or risk heart failure. His doctors in Newfoundland and Labrador presented him with two options - a full, or partial sternotomy, both of which would've required breaking bones. He provided his medical information to a leading cardiac surgeon in New Jersey who advised him to seek treatment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. There an incision was made under his arm that didn't require any bone breakage. Williams said “his decision to go to the U.S. did not reflect any lack of faith in his own province's health care system. I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador”.

It’s strange that he could have had “Free” treatment in Canada, (the procedure performed in Florida is also performed in other provinces of Canada), but instead he paid for treatment in Florida. By the way he sent the bill to the Canadian Government. It seems that hypocrisy is a common trait with politicians throughout the World!

FRANCE

Employees pay 20% of their gross salary, the self-employed pay even more. This discourages free enterprise!

That means a person grossing $4,000 per month would pay $800 per month for the basic health insurance.

The French share Americans' distaste for restrictions on patient choice and they insist on autonomous private practitioners rather than a British-style national health service, which the French dismiss as "socialized medicine."

Most physicians in France participate in the nation's public health insurance.

Malpractice liability is greatly diminished by a tort-averse legal system, and medical schools, although extremely competitive to enter, are tuition-free. Thus, French physicians enter their careers with little if any debt and pay much lower malpractice insurance premiums. Nor do France's doctors face the high non-medical personnel payroll expenses that burden American physicians. Sécurité Sociale has created a standardized and speedy system for physician billing and patient reimbursement using electronic funds. It's not uncommon to visit a French medical office and see no nonmedical personnel. Moreover, in contrast to Canada and Britain, there are no waiting lists for procedures and patients need not seek pre-authorizations. In other words, like in the United States, "rationing" is not a word that leaves the lips of hopeful politicians.

Note: The French system is one of the most costly in Europe.

National health insurance in France stands upon two grand historical bargains -- the first with doctors and a second with insurers. Doctors only agreed to participate in compulsory health insurance if the law protected a patient's choice of practitioner and guaranteed physicians' control over medical decision-making. French legislators also overcame insurance industry resistance by permitting the nation's already existing insurers to administer its new healthcare funds.

Private health insurers are also central to the system as supplemental insurers who cover patient expenses that are not paid for by Sécurité Sociale. Indeed, nearly 90 percent of the French population possesses such coverage, making France home to a booming private health insurance market.

Like all healthcare systems, the French confront ongoing problems. Today French reformers' number one priority is to move health insurance financing away from payroll and wage levies because they hamper employers' willingness to hire. Instead, France is turning toward broad taxes on earned and unearned income alike to pay for healthcare.

GERMANY

At the moment Germany has the best value in health care in Europe. It is not funded by taxes, and it is compulsory.

All German workers pay about 8 percent of their gross income to non-profit insurance companies called sickness funds. Their employers pay about the same amount. Workers can choose among 240 sickness funds. Everybody is in the system except the self employed, civil servants and people earning more than $72,000 per year. These people can buy private health insurance from for profit health insurance companies. This can create unexpected problems. A wife earning $40,000 a year working for a company and having two children would have to use a sickness fund while her self-employed husband could buy the best coverage possible from an insurance company.

Since the husband’s private coverage is better than his wife and children’s coverage, he gets his choice of top doctors — the chief of medicine if he wants. A  private room in hospital. When he goes to the doctor, he gets a free cup of coffee and goes to the head of the line. All this embarrasses him — and annoys his wife.

It's important to remember that the German government doesn't provide health care or finance it directly. It does regulate insurance companies closely, the nonprofits in the main system and the for-profits for people who want the best. The insurers can't raise rates if people get sick or raise premiums too much as you get older. The government also requires insurers to keep costs down so things don't get too expensive. Germany like most countries, has the problem of rising costs.

How is the German system different to the American? Premiums are based on how much you earn! 8% of an employees gross wage plus at least another 8% from the employer. You could have two people, same age on the same plan, working in the same company one earns $30,000 per year and one earns $60,000 per year. The one with the higher gross income would pay double what the lower income employee is paying! But the Germans like the system and it works.

Doctors are leaving Germany visit: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,399537,00.html

RUSSIA

Russia is socialized medicine at its worst.

Health care is supposed to be free in Russia, but Russians know that every hospital has its under-the-table price list.

That’s why the family of Khazerya Ziyayetdinova, a 70-year-old woman suffering from severe bedsores, brought cash every time they visited her at Hospital 67 in Moscow. To have Ziyayetdinova recover in a room instead of the hallway, relatives slipped an orderly $300. They paid nurses $20 to give injections, change bedpans and unclog catheters. Every chat with Ziyayetdinova’s doctor cost $40. “Our health-care system is still in the Middle Ages,” said Vera Pavlova, Ziyayetdinova’s daughter-in-law, sitting in her home in this small town 54 miles southwest of Moscow. “There’s low professionalism, corruption – it makes me very worried about finding myself in a situation where I might need medical treatment.” Russia is an unhealthy nation, and its health-care system is just as sick. Its hospitals are understaffed, poorly equipped and rife with corruption.

http://www.russiansabroad.com/russian_history_175.html

http://www.justlanded.com/english/Russia/Articles/Health/Healthcare-in-Russia

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/business/worldbusiness/28iht-russhealth.4.6394606.html

SWEDEN

Görann Persson had to wait eight months during 2003 and 2004 for a hip replacement operation. Persson was not a very pleasant person to begin with, and he became even grumpier due to the pain he endured while waiting for his operation. As a result, Persson walked with a limp, reportedly used strong pain medication and had to reduce his workload. What made Persson unique was not his wait for hip surgery.   

Persson stood out because he was Prime Minister of Sweden at the time!

Persson could surely have used his position in the government to gain access to private care, essentially jumping the waiting list. Yet Persson stated that he planned on waiting for his surgery like everyone else. Since that time Sweden’s health system has gone further downhill. I bet the President of The United States wouldn’t wait 8 months!

Sweden's Single-Payer Health System Provides a Warning to Other Nations

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA555_Sweden_Health_Care.html

SWITZERLAND

All Swiss insurance is private insurance. Insurance companies are mandated to offer the same “basic benefits package.” Some physicians operate outside the negotiated schedules and individuals can purchase supplemental insurance to cover the cost of these higher cost physicians. 60% of Swiss citizens only have a basic plan.

There is no waiting for treatment and everyone must buy health insurance. It is the best system in Europe, but expensive.

The World Health Organization ranks Switzerland as second only to America in terms of timely care.

Visit: http://healthcare-economist.com/2008/04/23/health-care-around-the-world-switzerland/