The population of Ontario is just short of 13 times that of Saskatchewan, so on those grounds alone it’s already clear who here is engaging in the fallacy of generalization — and it’s not the Ontario resident.

Neither of my parents have had any choice as to which doctors cared for them. Their regular personal doctor, that they did choose, is merely consulted by the assigned doctors presently caring for them.

You’re obviously aware of the fallacy of generalization, so how can you be so sure that your experience is the case across the Canadian healthcare system?

As I have explained (note the principle!), I have lived with both private and collectivized (see below) medicine, I have family and friends in medicine, and I have long been concerned with the issues involved —I pay attention to events. I also have a relative who has worked in medicine in Britain & Canada, before their medical systems were collectivized, and New Zealand. She went to N.Z. on the belief that its collectivist medical system would be a fabulous opportunity for her to really make a difference. After only four years, she started writing about the system’s disappointments. Then Britain collectivized medicine, so she returned to Canada. Seeing that Canada was definitely going the same way, she left medicine and returned to Britain where she could receive a better pension. Always, she told of event after event of bureaucratic nonsense ruining care, of care workers who lived by the time clock hoping someone else would do the work, or union workers who refused to help in a situation because “it’s not my job”.

Indeed, at a large conference that some post communist Russian doctors attended, one of them remarked that they now had more freedom to function than did doctors in Ontario! Nonetheless, they confirmed, Russian health care remains abominable because most of it is still owned by the government which lacks the funds to bring it forward the 30+ years that would make it modern.

It has nothing to do with the rules of socialized medicine. There’s no such thing.

In common language it IS socialized medicine. The proper umbrella term is the Collectivization of medicine, which may involve a mixture of fascism and socialism. For example, Paulhus is correct that patients make private arrangements with their doctor, or their private long term care facility (LTCF) —there are government LTC facilities that undercut the market for private LTCFs. However, the doctor and the private LTCFs, are constrained and dictated to, by the state, the collective.

So, my family is wrestling with some socialization —since hospitals & their practices, in particular, are owned & controlled by the government) and with considerable fascism —doctors, LTC facilities etc. are private in name only, operating under economic rules and regulations imposed by the government.

Those who do not think in principles, and cannot grasp how concrete & abstract arguments integrate together, to form a principled view, will necessarily see those arguments as un-integrated ranting.

It has nothing to do with the rules of socialized medicine. There’s no such thing. Those kinds of policies are made by regional health authorities and at a more granular level by your doctor and you.

Also, you’re not assigned a doctor in Canada. I assume you meant the doctor (or doctors) working that area of the hospital (in which case you deal with who is on staff, yes), but you make it sound like the government assigns doctors to people in Canada. That’s false.

As I’ve said before, any system will have problems, and it sounds like you’ve been caught in a trouble spot. You’re obviously aware of the fallacy of generalization, so how can you be so sure that your experience is the case across the Canadian healthcare system? I’ve already demonstrated in other posts that my experience with healthcare in Canada is the opposite of yours.

Is it possible that other factors are at play in your case, that ‘the communists’ are not the root cause of the problems you are experiencing?

It might be more useful to analyze the differences between Ontario and Saskatchewan and see if that sheds any light on what the problems might be, rather than engage in dogmatic rants about communists.