Our Moderate/Liberal/Marxist/Socialist friends here

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

We need more sports teams owned by rich guys but with their own stadiums funded by sales taxes. I say this because light rail ridership is at its best when there are things going on in the stadiums. The suburbanites park their cars in the "Park & Ride" commuter lots at Tukwila and ride in, forcing those of us who use the light rail for our daily commute and who have the misfortune to live a hair closer to town than Tukwila to stand all the way. Seattle's light rail is an odd hybrid. The one line runs only between downtown and the airport, but it takes a detour through the Rainier Valley so it can do double duty as a commuter line.

I don't know what the predictions were, but I can assure you it is being constantly (and often over-)ridden.

Plus when the Anthropogenic Global Warming situation pushes our temps into the 100s, the light rail is the best AC-ed spot in town.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

Sandy,
Actually from what I can gather wait times for a typical doctor visit, specialist appointment, and elective surgery is worse in Canada than the US. But there are single payer systems whose wait times are less.





Now I could throw in the wait time my brother-in-Christ Howard Williams (see Prayer Requests) has experienced to get on a liver transplant list here in the US - over 2 years trying, frustrations getting testing appointments, boards to meet, etc. Now after being turned down about 10 days ago he has been told he only has 10-30 days to live. But that would be anecdotal and a special case.

Let’s try to be like Switzerland or Germany or Netherlands or New Zealand. However, one thing that is holding us back is the number of family practitioners. Why not nurse practitioners for routine matters (colds, flus, sinuses)?



This also points out our high costs internationally and is an interesting read.

[Haruo]

3 questions:

1) Why are the Canadians so much worse than us (on average according to those charts) in terms of waiting time (not necessarily a list)?
2) How did the UK achieve such sudden improvement in the second category? Or was it a stat anomaly?
3) Why does the US have so few family practitioners (and what can be done about it)?

Obviously, so far Sandy has had generally good anecdotal experience with Canada. But then he is within reach of Toronto, which may not be typical of the country as a whole?

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[ET]

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

The three closest hospitals to me are all "for profit" hospitals owned by the same company out of Tennessee. I am aware that management seeks to press every department every week to show a profit in what they do. That profit pressure runs up costs.

I have talked with two former CEO's of the local hospital about opening a clinic (as I have seen done in other places) where those with minor complaints can see a doctor on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. Neither said it was possible because it would take away from the profitability of the ER, which is the only treatment option on those times. In fact, staff physicians with this company sign contracts not to operate regular office hours after noon on Saturday or at all on Sunday. Without hospital privileges, the doctors would be out of business, so they go along. Before you propose that people can just go to free-standing clinics, the closest in VA is 47 miles, and there is no public transit. The closest in NC is 21 miles, but it does not accept VA Medicaid patients. So, the ER's have a weekend monopoly.

[Sandy]

That's an interesting article cited in Forbes. It's hard to tell whether such information was gathered and reported by a journalist, or whether it was fed to the publication by the lobby for the insurance industry and they paid to have it put in print. They've spent billions of dollars to derail the Affordable Healthcare Act, largely because the exchanges make their business more competitive and it bypasses some of the carefully built barricades around monopolies and territorial favoritism. A lot of paid advertising is designed to look like the real thing, and the disclaimers are harder to find. They are desperate, because they know that the tide of public opinion will become a cataract of favorability toward the Affordable Healthcare Act once millions of people start enjoying the benefits it will provide.

[Sandy]