>>I have learnt quite a bit reading your and Jim's posts. I was not aware of quite a few things. I see your point about a dual system of healthcare - public and private and how it might negatively impact the human resources in that field. However, isn't that the system in place in England right now? don't they have public healthcare and optional private healthcare? How does that manage to work?
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>Hopefully Terry will jump in on this one. I'm not only not an expert on the Canadian system, I'm also not an expert on the British one. A sort of non Jack of all trades. ;)
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i am sure that Terry will correct me but i think that the Health care system in England is the same as in Ireland. everyone in the country is entitled to health care, public. there will have to wait longer, at the moment here no one waits more that 12 months and that is soon going to be 6 as we have a treatment purchase fund that send public patents to private hospitals either in Ireland or abroad for operations so as to cut the waiting list. If you take out private insurance you will get seen more quickly and will also sometimes get non ward beds, either sharing a rom with one other person or with no one as opposed to sharing with 6-8 others. insurance premiums are fixed here so that a 20 year old pays the same as a 60 year old, the logic being that a younger person pays for older person and then as the younger person gets older the next generation pays for them and so on. this is currently a bone of contention here with court cases pending from insurance companies who do not want to compensate others with older clients. many doctors work for both, spending maybe 2-3 days in the public sector and the rest in the private making more money.
Slán
~M