But Mike, their profits are only 3%. They're suffering man.

In our quarterly meeting where I used to work, the CEO would tell us that if their annual profit was at least seven cents left of every dollar of sales before taxes, they were having a good year. A fantastic year was having profits of ten cents of every dollar of sales left. And this was a manufacturing plant where the overhead was a much greater percentage than in the insurance industry.

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): I’ve missed the last couple of days of back-and-forth on this, but to help stir the pot on the discussion, I’d like to share some experiences with the Canadian Medicare System, both personal and professional. (For those who don’t know, I lived the first 30 years of my life in Edmonton, Alberta and return regularly to visit family. For the last decade-plus, I’ve lived in California. My wife, a doctor, has practiced under both systems.)

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal):

 

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): I not going to dump everything into one post or a series of back-to-back posts, but I’ll work some of these thoughts up over the next couple of days.

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): The Personal Story

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): Back in 1991 I broke my collar bone and separated my shoulder -- ripping all the ligaments -- in a ball hockey accident. Ball hockey is essentially organized street hockey played during the summer in an ice-less rink. And I know, you’re supposed to either break your collar bone OR rip your ligaments. Doing both is rare. What can I say: I’m an over-achiever when it comes to self-harm.

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): Not to be overly dramatic, but in retrospect it was a Chris Reeve-like accident. After being taken out at the knees (in a non-contact game, no less!), I launched into the air at speed and came down hard on my helmet (breaking it), neck and shoulder. Landing an inch to the right, I likely would have got up with little more than a bruise and either chased after the puck or pounded the guy who tripped me. Landing an inch to the left, I likely would have broken my neck. Life truly is a game of inches at times…

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): I held my arm in place for the remainder of the game – we came back from being down 4-1 to tie the game 4-4 – and then elected to head off to the emergency room at the nearby University of Alberta Hospital. At that time U of A was the best and most up-to-date facility in Edmonton, if not the whole province. A chum went off to fetch my medical resident girlfriend (now wife) and she met me at ER.

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): It was your typical busy night at ER, but thanks to professional courtesy extended to my sweetheart I got moved up the food chain a little faster. Although I’d been in pain for a few hours by that point, I didn’t cry until they had to cut the hockey sweater off me. (My dear girlfriend cut it down the seam and later stitched it back together. That’s when I knew she was the one!)

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): We got x-rays and reading the film the ER doctor concluded there wasn’t much to be done, that I should wear a sling and let everything knit itself back together. How long would that take, I asked. About 18 months would do the trick, he opined. And he wasn’t joking.

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): My girlfriend, looking at the same film, drew a different conclusion.

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): The next day, as I spent the morning trying to get used to my sling and learning how to use my left hand for daily living, she called in some favours and squeezed me in for an end-of-day appointment with Dr. Boucher, the U of A orthopedic surgeon who worked on the Edmonton Oilers. Boucher looked me over, looked at the film and decided I wasn’t going home that night. I was going to surgery. He got me a bed at the U and the procedure was scheduled for the next day, Saturday. I didn’t have the surgery until Sunday – got bumped by a bad highway accident – which involved stitching all my ligaments back together and putting a bolt in my shoulder so the collar bone would heal. I was released Monday, and went back to work on Tuesday. (Why? I was young and stupid. I’d had my first major injury and wanted to prove I wasn’t a cripple.)

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): So, what lesson do we draw from my story? Well, I got great treatment for my tax dollars, operated on by one of the best surgeons available just three days after my injury, enjoyed a full recovery after only six weeks in a sling, and do not suffer from frozen shoulder today two decades later. The system works fine, right?

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): But if I hadn’t had an advocate looking over the ER doctor’s shoulder, the system would have been happy for me to wear a sling for a year and a half and then endure limited mobility in my right shoulder for the rest of my days. And, of course, being right-handed, 18 months in a sling would have made work and school somewhat difficult. The system is broken, right?

INVISO TEXT (Click or highlight to reveal): Personally, I consider myself very fortunate to have been dating a woman with the right talents and the right connections in my time of need. However, I don’t think that’s a workable solution for resolving the healthcare crisis in both countries.

So,what lesson do we draw from my story? Well, I got great treatment formy tax dollars, operated on by one of the best surgeons available justthree days after my injury, enjoyed a full recovery after only sixweeks in a sling, and do not suffer from frozen shoulder today twodecades later. The system works fine, right?

its more sad that we live in a country where people pay their cellphone, internet, cable bills before their medical bills.

Prioritze