Comments for Cornell-Technion Plan Wins Bid for NYC Tech Campus at http://cornellalumnimagazine.com , comment 0 to 3 out of 3 comments http://cornellalumnimagazine.com Tue, 21 May 2013 14:20:24 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1270&Itemid=9#pc_949 I was hoping for an intelligent response to my specific questions about the relative efficiency of Canadian and US health care delivery. Unfortunately what I got was a diatribe and a fatuous description of HMOs as parasitic. The good professor ignored my specific questions. His characterization of HMOs is, ofcourse, nonsense. Many HMOs are in fact non-profit organizations, e.g. Kaiser, which I belong to. Furthermore Department of Commerce data on industry profit rates put the health insurance industry at the bottom of its profit rate list. And common sense indicates that government has to take a substantial cut for salaries and overhead whenever it funnels money from health care consumers to health care providers. As a retired Federal employee, I can assure the good professor that government intervention ain't cheap. Talk about parasitic! You wouldn't believe the "red tape" and regulations hard working government employees have to "dig through" to do the honest day's work they do. - Dr. Angelo Mirabella Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:59:07 +0100 http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1270&Itemid=9#pc_928 In answer to Dr. Mirabella's the costs of administration are somehow hidden in the Canadian accounting system, I would argue that the Canadian system that is more efficient. In the US the main purpose of HMOs is to divert healthcare money to investors, in part by finding ways to avoid paying for legitimate claims. This parasite on health care dollars doesn't exist in Canada. There are therefore far fewer administrative costs, which also make delivery of health care more expensive in the US. In Canada, a far higher percentage of health care costs actually go to delivering health care, not paying a dividend or hiring bureaucrats. I am an American, and had only very basic health coverage and during graduate school, so I avoided seeking health services I simply couldn't afford. When I took a faculty position in Canada, from the first day I arrived, I was covered. My wife and I have had 3 kids in the Canadian system over more than 20 years here, with various surgeries and other health issues. All we had to do was show our health card at the door. I have always been pleased with the quality of service and medical technology. Canadians pay for it in their taxes. Americans pay for it out of pocket. We spend less on administration, and never have to make life choices, such as whether where to work, based on health insurance. Again and again, people in countries which have nationalized health care say that are happy with it. - Prof. Brian Fristensky Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:15:24 +0100 http://cornellalumnimagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1270&Itemid=9#pc_924 I read with interest a news sidebar in the latest Cornell Alumni Magazine. It reported Cornell research showing that in the US, doctors spend an average of $83,000 per year on paperwork vs $22,000 in Ontario, Canada. Could this be because American phyiscians are in private practice and operate their own businesses while Canadian physicians are essentially employees of the Canadian government? And is it possible that much of the health administrative cost is buried in government budgets in Canada and that the per person, per unit of service in admin costs in Canada might actually be much higher because the quantity and quality of medical service is lower and/or less efficient. Maybe not, but I wonder if a few critical pieces of data and analysis might be missing here. Dr. Angelo Mirabella, Ph.D. Cornell AB, 1959 - Dr. Angelo Mirabella Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:41:46 +0100