Right, a free market would control the demand by price (not the US or CA based system). Canada controls demand by putting patients on a waiting list. I can't really explain it to you further without going into an economics 101 class. I don't want to belittle you. Canada still treats healthcare as a commodity.
Then you have no idea how it works... They don't have waiting lists to control demand. In an ideal scenario, there is no waiting list and the goal is to have minimal to no waiting lists. Waiting lists only exist because there aren't enough medical staff to get them all in tomorrow.
We are trying to answer what is the best way to regulate the healthcare industry. I don't want to say "because firefighters are paid for by the government then healthcare should be!". Also, whether the state pays for a service and whether the service is a commodity or not have nothing in common. Again, you don't understand what you are saying when you state "US makes healthcare a commodity".
I still don't think you're understanding my point when I say that.
Okay thank you. The question is; what is the best way to regulate healthcare? You pay taxes and the state decides how much to spend where on healthcare. Canada sets the demand by putting people on waiting lists (an erroneous belief because demand for healthcare cannot be set).
Do some research. The government doesn't put anyone on a waiting list. Your entire concept of what a waiting list is and what it's for is completely inaccurate.
People who cannot afford healthcare should be given some type of welfare. I am not against that.
What level of care should they receive? Usually welfare cases would mean they'd wind up in a sub par hospital with sub par doctors. Kind of the equivalent of getting a public defender lawyer if they were charged with a crime. It's usually a brand new, or terrible lawyer that can't get into a more respectable firm.
Should poor people get medical care akin to getting a public defender, or should they have access to comparable health care to what the middle to upper class citizens get?
Yes, you have demonstrated that there is no monetary value that can be established for a human life. I totally agree, but we need to understand the mechanics of a true free market.
In a free market you would have insurance agencies that would bid out certain treatments to different hospitals (the in-network vs out of network doctors). This hasn't been able to occur in the US because there have been regulations on insurance companies crossing state boarders (less bids among hospitals to drive prices down).
The effect of removing those regulations may provide a short term relief, but ultimately you'll still be left with a far more expensive system. That's because your insurance companies and other industry players have to turn a healthy profit. Your system is fundamentally far more expensive and less efficient.
The problem I see with the Canadian system may not be apparent at the moment, but it should be a concern for you if you sincerely desire the best for Canadian people.
1) Government control of healthcare spending can thwart technological and biological developments in medicine. This is not apparent to the Canadian people because they feed off of the US and global industry that provides many of the advancements in modern medicine. If the US was to adopt a single payer system the world would be at serious risk to losing further advancement in healthcare
Population of United States in 2015: 320,090,857
Population of Canada in 2015: 36,286,378
Canada has 11.2% the population of the United States
From 1996-2015, the United States produced 2,973,705 citable medical research papers.
In that same span, Canada produced 396,416 citable medical research papers.
Canada produced 13.3% the number of research papers that the United States did, which taken on a per capita basis (correcting for the population difference) slightly outperforms the United States.
The United States had slightly more citations per document. 25.4 to Canada's 25.25, however that's a fairly negligible difference.
Of course, that isn't really relevant to the topic at hand though. Medical research isn't directly paid for by public health insurance plans. Do you have any idea how the Canadian health system works?
Regardless, on a per capita basis we at least hold even with the United States, if not slightly outperform you in medical research. Of course, with 10 times the population and lots more universities, you'll have a far higher overall output. That's not a testament to your health system, that's a testament to large population numbers.
2) Government control of healthcare spending can stagnate wages and cause top-industry workers to seek employment in other countries where they are paid more.
How do you think doctors get paid here? If you knew that, you'd see why your argument doesn't hold water. Since 2003 more doctors have been coming to Canada to practice medicine than have been leaving.
For there two reasons I believe the Canadian system is flawed and if it were adopted in the US it would not improve our quality of life. It would also have a significant impact on the rest of the world considering we are a primary contributor to the advancement of medicine.
Your numbers just don't stack up. Many European countries also produce a comparable amount of research per capita to the United States, for example the #2 country on the list for medical research (United Kingdom) has 20.6% of your population but produces 28.6% of the research papers that the States does.
If what you were claiming were true, the US would far outperform per capita with all the extra money, however it doesn't. The countries with universal health care per capita produce on average roughly the same amount that the United States does, some far better, some worse. Likewise, the US health system is generally ranked quite low among first world countries. Nobody denies you have great hospitals, however access to services is still a major problem for a significant percentage of your population.
