More on healthcare funding and rationing, today.
It's important to remember that the Canadian government health system began rationing by limiting services years ago. The doctor in this article in the NYT is correct that it is easier to get desired and even necessary care for dogs than it is for humans.
More than ten years ago, there were complaints that the MRI's and CAT scans were limited to a certain number of tests and hours for use by human, State patients, but the machines would be available for veterinarians after hours. Entrepeneurs who were willing to risk censur by the State took a risk to offer needed care to human patients:
Dr. Day's hospital here opened in 1996 with 30 doctors and three operating rooms, treating mostly police officers, members of the military and worker's compensation clients, who are still allowed to seek treatment outside the public insurance system. It took several years to turn a profit.
Today the center is twice its original size and has yearly revenue of more than $8 million, mostly from perfectly legal procedures.
Over the last 18 months, the hospital has been under contract by overburdened local hospitals to perform knee, spine and gynecological operations on more than 1,000 patients. Since the Supreme Court ruling in June, it began treating patients unwilling to wait on waiting lists and willing to pay their own money.
To understand how this happened, here's information from a 1991 News article:
Greg Moulton of Guelph, Ontario, was in a three-month wait to get a CT scan "to learn the cause of his 'excruciating' headaches." Since York Central Hospital's radiology department was only open to the public at specified hours, the hospital decided to allow pet owners to bring in their animals in need of a CT scan after hours—for $300 a scan. "For dogs, a scan can be arranged within 24 hours," according to the Canadian Press ("Humans Wait in Pain, Dogs Don't," June 14, 1991).
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