Timothy Birdnow

Here is why socialized medicine is a monumental failure.

According to the Toronto Sun (in what can now be characterized as a People's Republic):

"Former Order of Canada recipient Dr. Ranjit Kumar Chandra was found guilty of unprofessional, disgraceful and dishonourable conduct for bilking OHIP out of more than $2 million, a College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario disciplinary panel decided."

[...]

"College prosecutor Elisabeth Widner said Chandra‘s passport and other documents placed him in India, Zurich, London or the United Arab Emirates while he continued to fleece taxpayers for $197,000 through his false billings scheme.

"He targeted OHIP in a calculated fraud in which he used and induced patients and staff members by furnishing them with money and cheques for improper use in a billing scheme,” said Widner.

"There was little to no medical services provided for the $2 million-plus paid to, in Chandra‘s words, ‘leaders’ and ‘extras,’” she said. More than half of the fraudulent billing was for patients without medical charts.

Chandra recruited and paid "leaders” extra to bring in additional OHIP card numbers — called "extras” — from relatives and co-workers to magnify the doctor’s illicit profits, the panel heard."

End excerpt.

What is to be learned by this?

First, with only one customer aka the Canadian Health system - the doctor was tempted with very low hanging fruit. He could never have gotten away with this had he been dealing with multiple insurance companies and patients who were watching the billing closely (as would happen in a free market). None of his patients cared if they were overbilled, because they weren't paying it anyway. And the Canadian governemetn is so thoroughly moribund with branches and bureaus and "civil servants" that nobody noticed - or cared - at that end either. Who cares if some taxpayer dollars are being misspent? Plenty more where that came from.

So the good doctor, who unquestionably was underpaid officially by the government, found a way to augment his income to a level more in line with what the market should bear. He was no doubt aware of what his counterparts in the United States were making. He sarted cheating and quickly learned there was absolutely no consequence. So he cheated more, and more.

Corruption is a given in any government run program. When that program is as large and comprehensive as sociialized medicine it is rampant.

Oh, and Canada only had this cheat bilkinbg the public there because of their socialistic policies. Immigration designed to promote "diversity" undoubtedly played a part in the good doctor's being there in the first place, and furthermore, the inability to make a market based income no doubt led to Canada recruiting this guy from India in the first place. Foreign doctors are common in nations with socialized medicine because the locals aren't going to spend the time and effort and money to become doctors and then make less money than their American counterparts. So these nations go to India or China or Africa to find "scab labor" to do the jobs "Canadians just won't do".

Is it any wonder that an Indian doctor would run such a swindle? He could always just go home.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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