What Happens When You Turn Health Care Into a Giant Bureaucracy? Canadian Edition

"The System" has a hard time reacting to changes in the environment. Why the AMA wants Alberta to declare a health-care crisis | CTV News

Something on the order of 10,000 people each month move into the province of Alberta. This results in more demand for medical services. In a free market someone would build a new hosptial or expand existing hospitals, more primary care physicians would move into the area and set up shop. There would be growing pains, but the system wouldn't collapse on itself. Except that health care in Canada isn't run by market forces, it is run by a government bureaucracy. So no hospitals are being built, they have been talking about expansion, and some construction has started, but it is years away. There aren't more doctors. They are even planning to cut back on nursing staff because overtime is bad. Or something.

UNA President Heather Smith says between the overtime and the staffing cuts, it's a prescription for driving nurses and other health-care workers out of the province and out of the profession.

"This is absolutely contrary to what the government says it intends to do to encourage front-line health care services in Alberta," she said.

There is more. Long-term care, or nursing homes, are overcrowded, so people stay in hospitals longer than they should, so the hospitals are crowded.

The bureaucrats are doing what bureaucrats do, and claiming that all is well, but a lot of people are opting to pay-out-of-pocket for treatments that should be covered by the wonderful Canadian Health Care service. That is the difference between health insurance and health care. Alberta will pay for care, but if you can't get access, you might as well not have insurance.

I can't wait until we have socialized medicine.