ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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Interestingly, as my recent trip to Vancouver showed, Canada has no shortage of doctors who do various cosmetic work like plastic surgery, eye surgery, and others things-- all of which are not covered under the public health system. Apparently their waiting lists are fairly short, and their prices are quite cheap since they're generally paid in cash.
This is not quite true. A clever medical claim writer can produce an insurance claim that maximizes the proportion of the procedure covered by insurance. So we all pay for cosmetic surgery in higher medical insurance payments.
About 1% of all Canadian doctors move to the U. S. annually. Not a huge number in any given year. But over time it's a substantial (and IMO immoral) drain on their system.
Is there a reasonable way to distinguish discretionary care from acute care?
Only slightly jokingly: Care which is advertised in order to increase sales is generally discretionary care. (This especially applies to pharmaceuticals.) Care which does not need to be advertised, since everybody gets the condition treated if they have it, is acute care.
Acute Care is any course of treatment to forestall further deteroiation of the physical condition within the next year. So much for definitions which don't mean anthing.
The issue of Doctor supply can be answered by the award of State licenses to practice. All Doctors can be enjoined to maintain a diagnostic clinic for one-third of his practice--this means two days a week. We are talking GP work here. Oversupply of GPs by the practice, could include the alternative of ER substitution. lgl
Is there a difference between Canadian and US doctors servicing poor rural areas. I know poor rural areas in the US suffer from a significant shortages of medical care and doctors. Is that also true of Canada? Your young doctors coments certainly applies to the US -- does it apply to Canada more or less than it does in the US? Your question or comment implies that it only applies to Canada because of their medical system and that clearly is incorrect.