Win Lottery, Get Health Care

Some readers may recall newsreel footage of everyday life in the now-defunct Soviet Union and seeing images of the average citizen's existence. One memory is the picture of long lines of people waiting to get into stores and shops to buy their daily necessities. Another is the frustration of shoppers inside the stores and shops as they look at empty shelves. Life under Soviet socialism was life with everything in short supply. A bureaucrat determined what was available in the marketplace.

Leaping forward a couple of decades to Canada, we can see the law of socialist scarcity applied to health care. A bureaucrat decides who will have a doctor.

From CBC.ca:

The Ocean View Family Practice is scheduled to open in March with three family doctors and one mentoring physician. It won't be a walk-in clinic; patients will have to win a random draw.

That's right, a lottery. Win and you get a doctor who will see you.

The lottery is only open to people in the health district who don't currently have a family doctor. They have until March 15 to submit an application -- one per family.

Well, the results are in. Note that far fewer people applied than the 8,000 people surveyed to be in need of a family doctor.

From TheChronicleHerald.ca:

The South West Nova district health authority received 923 applications representing 1,542 people in southwest Nova Scotia who didn't have a family doctor. The clinic was going to accept 1,500 patients, but since the number of applicants was so close to that number, everyone was accepted.

Therefore, it appears that Canadian bureaucrats have figured out the way to make socialized health care work. Institute a lottery and plan on having only a small percentage of the total population enter.