Americans are not ready for socialized medicine

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by CardiacCoug

I'm glad your friend got treated, but since his was an emergency procedure for which you took him to the hospital, he's in a different class. It's the outpatient, elective stenting that could be denied in the future.

The last study I saw that compared practice patterns in Canada versus the US showed that around 70% of US patients who were having heart attacks underwent angiography while only 35% of Canadian patients who were having heart attacks underwent angiography. 31% of Americans had their coronary artery opened or bypassed while only 12% of Canadians had the artery opened or bypassed. This is an old study (1993), but I think the general difference in practice pattern still holds, although I would hope doctors in both countries are more aggressive with performing angiography and interventions these days since there is much more proof that it works.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/328/11/779

Why would Canada encourage expensive procedures to keep patients alive when keeping patients alive will just cost the system more money? It's just not economical. There is no incentive to make expensive procedures available in a socialized health care system.

The point is my friend got the treatment he needed without delay and the doctors were not prohibited by the system in prescribing treatment. Your argument that there is no incentive to make expensive procedures available is not valid. Just as the Journal of Medicine you quoted is careful in assessing the situation so should you be.

As I have stated many times the Canadian system is not perfect but it is very good and no, it will not work in the US.