[Newsbot]

Title: Opinion The Truth about BC Health Spending, Made Easy
Category: Health
Posted By: Scape
Date: 2010-06-06 21:00:03
Canadian

[andyt]

Very Interesting. I hope this gets taken up in the mainstream media, but don't hold my breath.

This is the neo-con agenda at work. Starve govt by cutting taxes to have an excuse to cut spending. But this is why we have lineups in emerg, traffic jams and so many more people on the street.

[herbie]

Our local hospital has 12 beds. After a 3 year review, they concluded thats ~4000 bed days, but they only used ~1000 bed days. So they closed 6. Next review they weren't occupied half the time so they closed two more.
Then they had a car accident and only had 4 beds so they ambulanced all 6 150 miles away to keep the group together. The flu hit and all 4 were filled with sick seniors, so everyone had to be ambulanced 150 miles.
Eventually someone pointed out the hospital was already built, the rooms already equipped and they were spending 3-4X as much on ambulances and helicopters as it cost to keep all 12 useable. All it took was cleaning, and there was only one cleaner that was still getting their salary and doing half the work to get it!
So they had a big public announcement so it looked like we were getting some new funding or great benefit and everyone slapped the same MLA on the back as a hero for getting us 'extra' beds.....
Same math used as in the article!

[Freakinoldguy]

The analogy to the family is completely fucked. He claims that since there were only 4 people left instead of 5 so they consumed 1/4 of the food budget vice 1/5.

Well, when it comes to BC and probably most other provinces in Canada the population is growing, so, since the food budget has remained pretty much static for the past decade each family member is now consuming about 1/8 of the food budget vice the 1/5 they consumed before.

So in theory we're doing more with less and unless they put more money up or stop population growth the system is going to fail.

As for this being a Neocon conspiracy, I seriously doubt it, since the problems really began when the Federal Liberal Government cut healthcare payments to the provinces in order to balance their budget.

$1:

Paul Martin's budget further threatens our universal health care system, already under intense pressure. The federal cuts in transfer payments will weaken a system of delivering health care which is integral to what defines us as Canadians.

These cuts will have an adverse effect on the health of Canadians.

First, the government has slashed the size of the transfer payments to the provinces. By 1998, the federal government will have cut these transfer payments over the preceding three years by $8.5 billion. The cuts in health care funding will squeeze public health care, fuel calls for an American-style two tiered system, and threaten our universal, equitable health care delivery system.

This was written in 1995 and strangely enough it's exactly what's happened to health care. So to crap all over the provincial goverments for not putting enough money into health care without investigating the original cause of the financial shortcommings isn't exactly accurate or fair.