PrintSeptember 5, 2009
Need an MRI Aided Diagnosis?
The Times Colonist, a newspaper in British Columbia, is reporting bad news from the Victorian Island Health Authority for residents seeking an MRI. Though already overwhelmed with demand, the health authority is looking to reduce usage of the expensive diagnostic device to make up a $45 million deficit:
The cuts likely mean patients will wait in pain even longer for treatment and surgery -- and already they are waiting twice as long as last year.
VIHA spokeswoman Shannon Marshall said patients are being booked for March, six months away, for elective MRI scans. Last year, wait times for MRI scans were only three months.
VIHA spokeswoman Shannon Marshall said patients are being booked for March, six months away, for elective MRI scans. Last year, wait times for MRI scans were only three months.
The Canadian government controls half the country’s GDP and still can’t find the money to adequately provide MRIs.
To give that failure perspective, it’s important to note that the British Columbian health care system carries a fraction of the complexity of a would-be Obamacare system. (The province has 12% the population of California and has a health budget of 1.6% of the CBO’s cost estimate of the health care overhaul.) Because America has one of the largest and most diverse populations on earth, Obama’s vision of health care “reform” has the potential for disaster on a scale beyond even the worst Canadian nightmare.
The Colonist report does have some good news. The wait times for elective surgeries are down about 50%. The bad news for Americans staring Obamacare in the face? The list of “elective” surgeries includes “things such as hips, knees and hearts.”
To comment on this or any other American Thinker article or blog, you must be a subscriber to our ad-free service. Login to your subscription to access the comments section. You can subscribe on a monthly basis for $6.79 a month or for a year at $69.99
Login
Subscribe / Change PwdAd Free / Commenting Login
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- The Danes and the Greenlanders: How They See Trump's America
- The USAID Case: Judge Amir Ali’s $2 Billion Defiance Escalates
- Terrifying Tariffs: Tax Policy as Back-Door Foreign Aid
- Dr. Marty Makary’s ‘Blind Spots’ Book Is At Odds With Established Findings
- Reforming the Kennedy Center
- Is ActBlue a Criminal Enterprise?
- America’s New Tough Love Foreign Policy
- Democrats Stand for Ukraine but Sit for America
- A Friend for Trump in Italy
- Trump’s Digital Fort Knox: Bitcoin, the Dollar, and America’s Financial Future
Blog Posts
- After blowing $9 billion on 'free' health care for illegals, California's Gov. Gavin Newsom asks for a bailout
- Trump throws down the gauntlet to the out-of-control federal district court judges *UPDATED*
- Ronald Reagan also had a slow economic start
- Getting the left out of the political wilderness
- Oregon selects a trans-turtle and a trans-meteor to sit on a ‘mental health advisory board’
- Fly the DEI skies...and hope that you land safely
- This 70-year-old woman is serving 9 years in prison
- Stacey Abrams really, really, wants 'her' $2 billion from Biden's EPA slush fund
- The (un)masked magician’s apprentice
- Schumer’s attempted shutdown will backfire bigly
- The Democrats are so passionate ...
- Biden and the U.S. Steel case
- Jay Bhattacharya's promise on vaccine safety
- MAGA moon over Greenland?
- Trump must designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization