I'm not surprised by this, if you do some serious research on medicare its pretty unsettling. I've written before about the lousy care I recieved, MRI's are par for the course in the states, Washington state has more with a quarter of our population than in all of canada. This is where its obvious that the system is being bled of resources. I have no doubt there are enormous bureaucratic problems, but here's an issue where it is simply money. The sponsorship scandal alone would have bought a bunch of MRI's, so there's no point in pretending 'the resources aren't there'. But I see no way for canadians to effect any change in this, just as we have no way to affect any other government decision.

   

[QUOTE BY= Brother Jonathan]Are Canadian physicians under any sort of pressure to rein in the cost of treatment for their patients?[/QUOTE]<br /> Absolutely. However it is not the kind of direct pressure you would imagine. Here in Québec, hospital administrators are under such immense pressure to rein in expenses they resort to staff cuts or threats of staff cuts. It is truely frightning because all this happens in the background and so the carnage goes mostly unnoticed.<br /> <br /> Combine this with the fact Paul Martin Liberals have introduced a new threat of increasing the production line through so-called benchmarks or risk losing the meager funding already in place and you've got a recipe for disaster.<br /> <br /> Liberals have plenty of money to bring in the <u>elderly</u> relatives of recent immigrants though...

   

Could you elaborate on the 'benchmarks'? or provide a link?

   

<b>Minister Dosjanh:</b><br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.liberal.ca/news_e.aspx?id=1037">"The bottom line is this: the deadline must be met, the benchmarks must be delivered and Canadians must see wait times in their health care system shrink. There is no other option."</a><br /> <br /> These incompetent Liberals are threatening cash strapped, under staffed and overworked health care professionals saying "there is no other option" but to perform while increasing their burden by bringing in more elderly people through immigration:<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/montreal/story/qc-immig20050418.html">Citizenship and Immigration Minister Joe Volpe announced a $72-million strategy Monday to help immigrants bring their relatives to Canada.</a>