🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jun30.213457.10010@oneb.almanac.bc.ca> kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca (Ken Mcvay) writes:

>	[Much stuff deleted]

>Ken McVay (who can't afford medical insurance)
>
	Can't afford medical insurance? It's like, $30 - 40 dollars a month?
	(I'm on my wife's plan; most large companies pay basic MSP fees,
	and many offer supplementary coverage for things like private
	rooms.) If you are "income-disadvantaged", you can get your MSP
	fees reduced by ~90% just by filling out a form, so I can't buy
	this "can't afford medical insurance". If you choose not to pay
	for it, that's your perogative, but don't whine that it's too
	expensive here.

	Yes, there are wastes in the the system, such as having to come in
	for a visit just to get negative test results. However, consider
	this: Far from having a "monopoly" on health care, as one poster
	put it, doctors are effectively forced to bill to MSP as the only
	health insurance 'company' in the province. On top of that, you
	can't even get a billing number, unless you live where they want
	you to. (That is, a doctor cannot just move into Vancouver and
	hang out her shingle; she has to get a billing number, which she
	will not get, unless it is according to a preference for 
	"home-grown" doctors.) 

	I'm not criticizing this system, but now the government is saying
	"You have to deal with us, you can't just work wherever you want
	to, and now, you can't make any more than $300,000/year, regardless
	of what your costs are." I do think this is unreasonable. Further,
	I don't think it's particularly effective. It might SOUND good
	to the public, ("Who needs to make more than $300,000 a year?")
	but in fact relatively few doctors bill that much, and those that
	do are frequently specialists with large costs in equipment and
	overheads.

	The government and the medical community have to work together to
	keep costs down. Slamming a cap on doctor's fees is not the
	"consultative" approach we elected the NDP for.

Troy Brooks
troy@cs.sfu.ca