Re: How many jobs depend on the Detroit Three?

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The Fraser Institute is conservative and libertarian think tank based in Canada that espouses free market principles. Its stated mandate is to advocate for freedom and competitive markets.

It generally opposes public policy solutions based on government spending, taxes, deficits, and regulation. Some of the public policy stands taken by the Institute include: greater free trade throughout the world, privatization of various government services, the freedom to own and acquire firearms without controls, marijuana legalization, competition in primary schooling, and greater private sector involvement in the delivery of healthcare insurance and services.

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--------------- WAITING YOUR TURN 17th EDITION Hospital Waiting Lists In Canada (2007)

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Ontario represents 36% (12 million) of Canada's total population (33 million), so looking at Ontario's health care performance is representative of 1 out of every 3 Canadians.

According to the above Fraser Institute document, the first segment of waiting: between referral by general practitioner and visit to a specialist for consultation in Ontario in 2007 was 7.6 weeks across an average of 12 medical specialties. The second segment of waiting: between the specialist?s decision that treatment is required and treatment in Ontario was 7.3 weeks. Therefore in Ontario, the average time between referral to a specialist and eventual treatment was

14.9 weeks.

Note that there is high variablity based on speciality. As one would hope, the total wait time for ELECTIVE cardiac surgery (Canadian average) was 8.4 weeks, for radiation oncology was 5.7 weeks, medical oncology 4.2 weeks. The longest wait times was for othopedic surgery (38 weeks) and neurosurgery (27 weeks).

My indirect personal experience with orthopedic surgery is that the people that eventually undergo elective orthopedic surgery aren't bothered by the wait time, and indeed they need coaxing and convincing to begin the process to see a specialist in the first place. Note that accident cases where a hip is broken almost always requires surgery with a few days of the accident, so don't get any ideas that those patients are waiting 38 weeks for their treatment. The same is true of emergent cardiac care.

I don't know why neurosurgery has 27 weeks, except that again it's probably not a life-threatening situation, and perhaps if it's a brain cancer then maybe brain cancers are slow growing. You might also need lots of pre-surgical planning and tests for brain surgery.

The report details that the time between seeing a specialist and being treated in Ontario in 2007 was 16.9 weeks for orthopaedic surgery, 2.8 weeks for elective cardiovascular surgery, and 7.7 weeks for ophthalmology procedures. The wait to see an orthopaedic specialist was

12.0 weeks and the wait to receive hip or knee surgery was 20.0 weeks. The median waiting times for angiography / angioplasty was 3 weeks, and for elective cardiac bypass surgery was 2.5 weeks.

The report says this about wait times in other countries:

------------------------ Moreover, academic studies of waiting time have found that Canadians wait longer than Americans, Germans, and Swedes (sometimes) for cardiac care, although not as long as New Zealanders or the British.

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But no details about how much longer (days? weeks?). Further into the report, some details about the above statement indicate that it was based on data from the early 1990's. There seems to be absolutely no recent US data in that report to make a US - Canada comparison.

The tone of the report is definately slanted towards portraying the data in a negative light, even though in many cases the wait times have been reduced from recent years. The report relies heavily on making conclusions on aggregate Canadian data, where some provinces (with relatively low population) tend to skew the wait-time results upward.

So, can anyone identify US wait-time studies?

Reply to
MoPar Man
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That's what needed to be said. There's an ever-growing socialist mind-set that as long as anyone is better off than someone else, that's bad, and "good" means everyone is equal, even if everyone is extremely miserable, the important thing is that every one is the same. IOW, the mind set continues, having a very good average standard of living with some better off than others is not acceptable. Better that all incentive for people bettering themselves and their families individually be destroyed so that everyone can be equal.

The U.S. is lagging all or most all countries in that sentiment, but unfortunately we are traveling down that road at an ever-increasing pace.

Reply to
Bill Putney

You have some good arguments and information. However, I don't trust the numbers that show the percentages of GDP without seeing what went into the calculations. Remember how everything was "absolutely proven" about global warming by the UN and NASA (which by the way is still cooking its data books on that as recently as last month). So again, unless I see how the information was gathered and the calculations were made to support such conclusions, I take them with a huge grain of salt.

Reply to
Bill Putney

The other countries have rationed care, so it's not surprising.

Look - you just got nailed on half truths (the one about no one being able to negotiate on drug costs, and that private insurers look for ways not to pay claims - ignoring the fact that a gov't-run plan not only looks for ways to deny claims, but dictates such without recourse). So I guess one more lie won't be too surprising. How do you consider that our competing with non-free-market countries equates to our competing in a free market?

Reply to
Bill Putney

Look up "socialism", then apply the concept to medicine.

Reply to
Bill Putney

Please explain why you can't compare tax rates of different countries.

Reply to
Bill Putney

WOW! I knew their system was bad, but I had no idea it was that bad.

Reply to
Bill Putney

Oh please! There are too many agendas, hidden and otherwise, for anything that comes out of the UN to be believable. I've looked at their indices on this type of thing. Total b.s.

Reply to
Bill Putney

So IOW, with the single possible exception of the legalization of m.j., they are clear thinkers .

You denigrate their evenhandedness, yet you present information from the Canadian government to compare it's own medical system to that of the U.S. that we are supposed to accept at face value.

Reply to
Bill Putney

Well you can but it doesn't really mean anything. For instance, why would you compare tax rates between Canada and the US? Canada has a balanced budget, the US does not. Anyone can reduce their taxes by running huge deficits year after year. We did it for a long time too.

Also, different countries provide different services for those taxes. As you may have noticed, Canada provides universal health care as one of those services where the US does not. So in this case, it would make more sense to compare taxes + health care insurance premiums between the two countries. Then you can come up with all of the other extras and, as I said, it really becomes a complicated mish-mash and irrelevant.

The fact that some people have to have this explained to them makes me wonder about the simplistic evaluation that some people use to formulate their opinions.

Reply to
Tim

And your the U.N. is a good source?

So if the Frasier Institute said that the stop sign down the street was octagonally shaped and red, then it must be some other shape and color. Why not dispute the stated facts with ones that you think are more realistic.

Reply to
Bill Putney

Also look up "Medicaid".

Reply to
Bill Putney

I didn't need it explained - I just wanted to know *your* reasons. On the other hand, you've got people who *do* the comparisons of other aspects (of different countries) that you mentioned without looking at such things as how much their people are paying in taxes to pay for it. That's the other side of your "can't compare taxes of different countries" coin. The right answer is that you look at all aspects

*including* taxes.

BTW - I highly agree with what you said about running deficits.

Reply to
Bill Putney

Ever heard of Medicaid?

Reply to
Bill Putney

Oops - sorry Kurt. Didn't meant to make it look like that was your quote.

Reply to
Bill Putney

Typical UN bashing. If they had an agenda, they'd put the US at the bottom of the list. Instead they put the US higher than most European countries.

Why don't you find a similar list, but compiled by some US organization, and then tell me why I would find it more credible.

Reply to
MoPar Man

Your statement above needs to unravelled or sorted out.

I posted the information about the Frasier Institute and quoted some stats from one of their reports (that you seem to have ignored or are otherwise not commenting on).

I did not make any comments previously about the Frasier Institute. That was done by someone else.

Reply to
MoPar Man

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The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. Through CIHR, the Government of Canada invested approximately $25.5 million in 2006-07 in research on Canada's health-care system.

The Facts

In 2006, Canada was forecast to spend $148 billion on health care, an average of $4,548 per Canadian and a 5.8% increase over 2005. Of this, private-sector health spending (insurance and out-of-pocket expenditures) was expected to increase to $44 billion in 2006, accounting for 30% of total spending on health care.

In 2006, health-care spending was expected to amount to 10.3% of the gross domestic product.

Hospitals remain the single largest category of spending, accounting for almost 30% of total spending. In 2006, hospital spending was forecast at $44 billion.

Drug expenditures were forecast to grow by 6% over 2006, accounting for

17% of total health-care spending.

In 2006, Canada was forecast to spend $19.4 billion on physician services, up 7.1% from 2005.

Most private-sector spending was expected to go to drugs and dentistry.

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As of 2006, Canada has a total gross domestic product (GDP) of C$1.439 trillion ranking 8th in the world or (at purchasing power parity (PPP) roughly US$1.164 trillion, ranking 12th in the world. GDP per capita ? essentially total GDP divided by population ? for Canada is C$44,109 or US$35,778, ranking 7th worldwide.

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In nominal terms, the value of all goods and services produced in Canada in 2006 was $1.45 trillion?or just over $44,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

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Using the figure of $1.44 trillion as Canada's GDP for 2006, and using $148 billion for Canada's total healthcare cost for 2006, then 148/1440 = 10.28% (or 10.3%)

This includes hospitals, doctors, drugs, even dental costs. Note: Only reconstructive jaw or mouth surgery is covered by OHIP. Practically all other dental work is either paid out-of-pocket (unless you're on welfare aka social assistance) or you have private dental coverage as provided by your employer.

I wouldn't think that the $148 billion figure would include OTC products such as pain relievers, allergy pills, cold remedies, chicken soup, etc.

Regarding US health care spending:

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Health spending in the United States averaged $7,026 per person in 2006, totaling $2.1 trillion, or 16% of our nation's economy, up from 7.2% of GDP in 1970 and 12.3% of GDP in 1990

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As a percentage of GDP, healthcare spending in the US seems to be rising at the rate of somewhere between 0.5% and 1% per year for the past 3 or

4 years. From the above sources, it currently sits somewhere between 14% and 17%.
Reply to
MoPar Man

You must have a vastly different education system then us Ontarian's do. My

6 year old is being taught things that I wasn't taught until grade 7.
Reply to
80Knight

No, it isn't funny, it's sad. It's sad that a high school graduate can't figure out simple math in their heads, that they have to find a calculator to figure it out. It's sad that cashiers in fast food chains can't read the menu, so there has to be a picture of a Big Mac on the register keys. It's sad that a lot of posters have no idea that spelling, grammar, and sentence structure would help them out immensely in getting an answer to there question. But that's the American way now, isn't it? It's the dumbing of America. God forbid that we should ever make anyone feel bad about themselves. Soccer games with no scores kept because "there are no losers here." I'm sure their first job will take all this into account (he said with dripping cynicism).

Reply to
SC Tom

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