Rationed Healthcare? You Don't Say....

A critique regarding my Blog, sent in an e-mail. I really look forward to these kinds of comments directly to my blog. I feel "storming" can help form trusting workable relationships for problem-solving. We can't expect to solve problems if we only look at one perspective, or have everyone with whom we share ideas, agree with us totally. There are several models we can look at to deliver healthcare more equitably, they all have problems... that's a plus for us when it comes to looking at that model, we can see , hopefully what went wrong, and how to fix it when applied to our working model.

From "Gil" and my response follows....(rw)

that is the biggest s h ! I have seen, I live down here in south florida where many many canadians spend their winters, and about 101% of them hate the health delivery system they are forced to use to get their medical attention, so many of them who have a little money come to not only south florida, but the fine clinics in Ohio and Minnesota for real tough illnesses...

I really don't know what "gil" is talking about. Problems with Rationed Healthcare?
Healthcare is Rationed in the US already. It's merely rationed differently.
In the US
healthcare is rationed based on "ability to pay" which is ok if we're talking the difference between a sirloin at dinner or chicken, but not in healthcare. In Canada healthcare is rationed on need and productive life years, a much more efficient system.
In the US, a bed ridden, senile (doesn't know up from down) 93 yr old will get bilateral knee replacement surgery, because medicare will pay for it. This person will never be able to begin, much less progress in, the rigorous rehab it takes to make those knees work ( a valid test of efficacy of the expense). Meanwhile, a vital, working 40 yr old, cant afford it even with insurance. In economics you learn about scarcity. You learn, demand is infinite but resources are scarce. How best to meet demand is the challenge. Rationing ? you bet, in everything from who wears Gucci and who doesn't, to who drives a Ferrari and who drives a second-hand Dodge, to who gets healthcare and who doesn't. The former are merely inconvenient.
With the latter, dire consequences follow. For the individual and our society.
People wait to see a doctor in Canada? here people go forever without the visit, until they are so sick they end up in the Emergency Room, utilizing resources in the most inefficient manner for our society, and our taxes end up picking up that tab of several thousands when we could have just covered these same people with a national health plan, for far fewer dollars and more efficient use of our resources.
SO they wait in canada? but they do get treatment. Not so here.