There are two tiers of men with advanced prostate cancer in Ontario: Those who get access to a remarkable drug through private insurance, and those who get a death sentence. The grim news is often delivered at the London Regional Cancer Program to men whose shoulders sag and jaws drop when told Ontario's Health Ministry has for 15 months refused to pay for a medication covered by every other Canadian province. "There's shock, fury and dismay," said oncologist Kylea Potvin. "Everyone thinks we have this wonderful universal health care system, but this is absolutely not the case. We've increasingly become a two-tier health care system where if you have money, you have access." Go To Site

In the private Wellington Hospital, near Lord's Cricket Ground in northwest London, hospital rooms are like hotel rooms, with one patient per room, mini-refrigerators, armchairs and couches. Nurses offer cups of tea in china cups and saucers. In the lobby, newspapers are in English and in Arabic: Many Arabs, living in London and abroad, come to the Wellington for private care. America already has concierge medical services for the rich and walk-in clinics at drugstores for everyone else. Americans will seek a way out of Obamacare's lengthy waits for doctors and specialists. The invisible hand will come to the rescue, just as it has in Britain. -Diana Furchtgott-Roth Go To Site

Even in Canada, wealth influences treatment: study

Liberal, Government, Narrative, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Poorer people have a harder time getting a doctor's appointment in Canada, a new study suggests - even though the country's universal health insurance pays doctors the same amount regardless of the type of patient they see. Researchers who called primary care practices pretending to be a bank employee or on welfare were 80 percent more likely to be offered an appointment when taking on the wealthier persona.

Hirschfeld: Re-examining the Cuban Health Care System

Editorial, Government, Incompetence, Politics, Socialism, Healthcare, Communism

As a result of this devaluation of autonomy and individuality, the health care system in
Cuba is often quite paternalistic and authoritarian, and politics intrude into medical practice in a number of subtle and overt ways. The eradication of the private sphere means that all activities, whether in the household, community, or clinic become the object of medical-political scrutiny.

CBC News - Nfld. & Labrador - 'My heart, my choice,' Williams says

Politics, Socialism, Healthcare

"I would've been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list .… I accept that. That's public life," he said.

Queue jumping a fact of muddled system

Editorial, Politics, Socialism, Healthcare

So Alberta Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky doesn’t think politically connected or influential people ever pull strings to jump to the head of the health-care queue. Does he think we were born yesterday? Whenever there is rationing (like in the old Soviet Union and in Canada’s current dysfunctional Canadian medicare system), people are going to try to vault to the top of the list. Sometimes it works. “The evidence indicates that rationing by waiting is often a facade for a system of personal privilege,” says Nadeem Esmail, a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute.