Author
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Topic: How accurate is this (healthcare)
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Smith
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3192
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posted 12 December 2002 11:15 PM
BS. But then, you should have known that as soon as the guy insisted Canada was a socialist country. quote: My mother's experience is not a horror story, nor the exception, but the norm up there.
No, it is not. Waiting lists are a problem up here, but are you going to tell me they're not a problem in public hospitals in the States? A hell of a lot of money was cut from health care over the last decade. Now we're hoping to use the federal surplus (we no longer run on a deficit) to put it back. quote: For people who think that socialize health care means we all have access to Cedar Sinai are being mislead. What it means is that we all have access to County USC. It also means that all hospitals will be reduced to county USC service and standard, including Cedar Sinai.
Yes to the first part, no to the second. We certainly have our Cedar Sinais. Unfortunately, they tend to be in the cities alone. Small-town care isn't what it should be. quote:
In a socialist country doctors have to go and practice medicine wherever the government sees fit.
Not true. If it were, small towns wouldn't be facing doctor shortages. quote:
Doctors who have refused assignments have been subpoena and brought to justice. Three doctors in the province of Quebec have pending cases, because they refused to do double shift.
That's Quebec, and I can't comment on it. In the rest of Canada, this is not generally true. The system IS overtaxed; the cutbacks made in the 1990s have taken a toll. quote:
For people who think that socialized health care means FREE health care, I've got some news for you. It cost money, and you pay for it.
Well, duh. You will ALWAYS pay for your health care. It is NEVER free. You cannot get it cheaper - it will always be costly; you'll always have to shell out for it; the only question is HOW. quote:
First of all the income tax rates are much higher than what we pay here in the US, on top of it everybody has to pay a 15.5% sales tax whenever they shop for goods and services.
15.5%? He should check his facts. In Alberta it's 7%; in the areas of Canada I've lived in it's 15%, not 15.5%. In PEI, it's 17%, in other words, equal to VAT in the UK. quote:
Beside the taxes on gasoline is through the roof.
Gas prices in the US are artificially low; gas prices in Canada are slightly less so. In Europe, gas is much more expensive, and vehicles are made to use less of it. quote: Canadians have almost no disposable income at all, that compare to Americans people.
Nonsense. This guy should come over to my house and check out my CD collection. Trust me, we love shopping just as much as the next guy, and we do it LOTS. quote:
Sometime it is as much as 70% cheaper to buy medicine in Canada than it is in the US The reason for it is explained by the fact that Americans people pay for it. We pay an extra 70% here, so that the Pharmaceutical companies can sell their products to Canadian for 70% less.
Nonsense again. Do you really think, if the government of America pressured the drug companies to lower their prices, that they would stand firm? If we can do it, so can you. You just don't. quote:
In order words American people subsidize the cheap medicine for Canadians, otherwise Canadians would not have access to cheap medicine. We also do it with the European countries, because in Europe they wont pay more than a certain amount for a specific medicine, so the cost is passed on to the consumers in the US.
Write your Congressman about that, not me. There's NO reason for drugs to be as expensive as they are in the US. No, sorry, none. Drug companies are ripping you off, and then you complain because we don't let them rip US off. Well, boo hoo. quote:
Let in more young immigrants so they can bring more revenue for the Federal government, and pay for the retired baby boomers. Not only that at the moment they are talking about raise the goods and services tax to 16%.
I haven't heard about that. In what province? The GST, by the way, is only 7%. The provincial sales tax is what brings it (in some provinces) up to 15%. This guy obviously doesn't pay much attention. quote:
Are Canadians fed up with this? Some are. After 30 years of socialized health care, parties like the Canadian Alliance, and the Action Democratique du Quebec are becoming very popular.
In some areas, yes, but they're nowhere near winning elections. quote:
First item on their agenda privatizing the health care system.
Again, nope. Not true. Most Canadians emphatically want to keep this system. We are committed to egalitarianism. The ADQ wouldn't be able to privatize the system anyway, since the Canada Health Act is federal and they're a provincial party. quote:
If there was a provincial race today in Quebec The ADQ (Action Democratique du Quebec), would get between 60% and 70% of the vote in a three party race.
You know, those people say they'd vote ADQ, but they also freely admit that most of them don't have any idea what ADQ stands for. How's the support for the ADQ these days? quote:
I know they'll get my mother's vote. I know that here in the US we do have problems with our health care system
Such as the fact that several million people don't get to use it at all? You spend a larger percentage of your government money on health care than we do, by the way. You spend 14% of revenues to our 9%. quote: but it not going to be solve by having less choice, and by surrendering the power of choice to the government.
I've got lots of choice. More than a person on a HMO, at any rate. I can go to any doctor in my province. Any one I want, assuming s/he is taking patients. Can you go to any doctor in your state? quote:
Maybe one day they'll tell us that we should all drive the same car, all wear the same clothes, all watch the same TV station.
Silly argument. We don't all get the same health care in Canada, do we? We choose our doctors and our treatments. quote:
Socialism doesn't happen through a revolution or a coup. It creeps up on you little by little.
The Red Menace... quote:
The more the government gets involve in private enterprises, the more you become socialist. One day you wake up and it too late, the bureaucrats control most of your money therefore most of your choices, most of your life. Only the well connected make it, because so much goes through the government that contracts are awarded to friends, and large contributors.
The more the corporations get involved in public enterprises, the more you become corporatist. One day you wake up and it (sic) too late, the corporations control most of your money [and] therefore most of your choices, most of your life. Only the well-connected make it, because so much goes through the corporations that contracts are awarded to friends, and large investors, and nephews. Two can play at this game. quote: Strangely enough, in a socialist country, the rich get richer.
Yeah, so unlike in the US, where the top 1% of the population owns 18% of the nation's wealth. I don't understand his logic. If you tax the rich, they'll get richer? What the hell? [ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Smith ]
From: Muddy York | Registered: Oct 2002
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feerit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3293
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posted 13 December 2002 12:52 AM
His logic at the end there is the notion that the current people who are wealthy, if "socialism" is instituted, would still be well connected and therefore able to afford and have access to more than the average person, and that "socialism" would institutionalize it to make it permanent privledge for the burecrats over the average person.Of course, if you want to say that, it's completely true to reverse it and apply it to Corporations. Give them total control of society, and whoa, guess what, corporations are even wealthier and you're even more screwed. Not that I agree with the first statement, of course.
From: Outside of Atlanta, otherwise known as loonyland | Registered: Nov 2002
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Sisyphus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1425
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posted 13 December 2002 01:39 AM
feerit, I have just come through an experience with our (Soviet Canukistan) healthcare system that may be instructive. My father (>80 yrs old) put off getting a knee replacement operation to treat advanced joint degeneration caused by arthritis. He was put on a 16-18 month waiting list for surgery. He then had a fall and the knee joint began to shift out of alignment gradually until the femur and tibia began to make an angle of 110 to 120 degrees when viewed from the front. I dragged him back his orthopedic surgeon who put him on a cancellation list (~ 2-3 month wait on average). His sole caregiver, my mother is also about 80 and her judgement is a little skewed so she didn't appreciate the seriousness of the sitch. He fell down the stairs. miraculously he suffered nothing more than severe bruising. EMS showed up 20 min. after the 911 call. I put up barriers in the house. Over the next 3 weeks, I went over in the morning to dress him and over at night to get him ready for bed. We kept him as sedentary as possible ( not easy, he has dementia). I noticed the leg was swelling. At 3x the normal size, I took him to emergency. We waited 12 hr, but they took him and he had the surgery 1 week later. After 3 wks in the hospital, he's off to rehab for 1 month. From the paperwork I've seen, total cost up to now, about $70,000. The waits were long, but not life-threatening. Through rich-guy tax cuts and financial mismanagement, both my Federal and Provincial government have wasted at least $3 billion in the last 8 years. The medicare system has seen tens of millions in funding cuts, enough to put a few nurse-pratitioners in every ER. The system was imconvenient but it worked. My father's got a chance to see his grandchildren get a little older, and they to spend some time getting to know their grandfather who was a war hero and who can teach them more about old humans than any book or movie. And I'm not bankrupt. If we don't continue our fight to resist the fucking selfish, ignorant, misleading bullshit wafting up from South of here, people will suffer and die to line the pockets of some already super-rich corporate parasites. These parasites and their mouth pieces want to profit from the suffering of decent people by trying to make us ashamed of the concern for the vulnerable that Jesus, in whose name they want to slaughter Iraqis, told us was part of our end of the new Covenant. Christians my ass! Compassionate conservatives; fucking oxymoron these days. And where are all the Canadian liberals? Can't see them for all the goddamn Liberals, I reckon. There is no good reason to privatize health care, except to make rich folks richer.
From: Never Never Land | Registered: Sep 2001
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radiorahim
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2777
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posted 13 December 2002 02:00 AM
Smith has done an excellent job of tearing apart this "letter".Bottom line...the American healthcare system is a wonderful system if you happen to have alot of money. But, the Canadian system covers everybody from the homeless person living on the street to the wealthiest gazillionaire. Most of the problems in the Canadian system have been caused by right-wing politicians who never really believed in universal medicare to begin with. They can't actually "say" that to the electorate because they'd never get elected. Medicare is by far the most popular social programme in Canada. So what Canadian right-wingers (Canadian Alliance, Conservatives, ADQ etc.) do is try to hack the system apart piece by piece and then their right-wing counterparts in the U.S. use the results of this chopping as "proof" that the Canadian healthcare system doesn't work.
From: a Micro$oft-free computer | Registered: Jun 2002
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Smith
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3192
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posted 13 December 2002 11:17 AM
A link, with a focus on Nova Scotia - but you can fax your MP from wherever.Also, since we're on the subject, I'm kind of confused about the public/private divide. The Romanow report comes out firmly in favour of public rather than private health care, and while I understand that when we're talking about clinics that aren't government-funded, I get confused about clinics and services that are. For example, the Nova Scotian government refuses to fund the Morgentaler abortion clinics (they'll pay for the doctors, but not the facility fees) because they are private. But in this context, what does "private" mean? If I were pregnant and needing an abortion (God forbid, knock wood) and went to a Morgentaler clinic in Toronto, the government would pay for it - but despite the fact that the government funds it, this is "private" health care. How? I mean, it's run by private citizens rather than public servants, but is it a for-profit enterprise? I'm confused. And if pushing the private sector out of health care means no more little clinics, I'm not sure it's exactly what I want. Edited to add: Oh, and TheLib, as you will see from another thread, the ADQ are now behind in the polls. [ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: Smith ]
From: Muddy York | Registered: Oct 2002
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 13 December 2002 12:06 PM
Essentially, Smith, the defining nature of our system is that it is single-payer. The government is the sole payer of listed medical services, and this monopsony (economics lingo for a sole buyer from many sellers) gives the government the ability to fix the price it will pay for anything, and the medical providers who sell their services to taxpayers (for which the government pays on their behalf) cannot directly bill those people unless, in the rare instance it happens, the person is an American, or a newly landed immigrant who doesn't yet have a health card. Even in such cases if a person later provides proof of insurance through the government, that person is repaid.So costs are held down because the government controls the key "choke point" in the entire system, which is who pays. You can be the biggest nonprofit hospital or the smallest for-profit doctor, but you have to accept what the government will pay you. Boom. End of story.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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feerit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3293
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posted 13 December 2002 08:05 PM
Maybe the Government won't pay some clinics "enough" (ie, enough to satisfy their profit margins) and they'll complain, and then you'll be in the same boat again, with all the small clinics refusing to accept non-out-of-pocket payers.You could FORCE them to accept the payments, but that would cause the same mess, with the clinics yelling and screaming to privatize the system this very minute because they can't make their God-given bucks. It would also create a problem that is occuring here more and more often; doctors refuse to accept Medicare/caid patients because what the system pays them is inadequate to the point that even if they wanted to in good-faith accept these patients, they'd be out of business due to all the other costs (ie, administrative work and the insane costs of drugs/supplies for US doctors and hospitals) incurred in doing so. That has more to do with the "break one toe, blame the person for not being able to walk right, and then use that to just sever the whole foot" problem with the Medicare payments getting CUT quite savagely in recent years. Being a Marxist of course I'd rather have a state-run (and worker controled, oh dear) hospital SYSTEM, ranging from drug/medical supply manufacturers, to the hospitals and clinics themselves. That way, hopefully costs would be fairly streamlined by such huge purchasing/producing power and there would be no profit in the system whatsoever. But I'd take what I can get, whatever it might be at the moment. I think even Gore on TV last week (saying that he was for single-payer of some sort, but making sure to say OMG NOT THE CANADIAN MODEL, BUT AN AMERICAN MODEL THAT REFLECTS OUR ECONOMY or something similar) and if this is true, said that over 1/3 of all health care dollars spent in the US are for administrative fees. Just for filing out paperwork, running review comitties (times however many HMOs there are) , auditors, appeals boards, etc. etc. And that there wouldn't even need to be a tax increase most likely, as all that crap would be tossed into a single agency to handle it.
From: Outside of Atlanta, otherwise known as loonyland | Registered: Nov 2002
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paxamillion
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2836
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posted 13 December 2002 08:37 PM
quote: No, it is not. Waiting lists are a problem up here, but are you going to tell me they're not a problem in public hospitals in the States?
In Amerika, people die without even entering a system they can't afford. So, they never get on the lists. I have a friend who can't afford to pay for the medication he needs to address the mental health issues he has. So, he's at the mercy of what drug companies are prepared to give away for free. Unfortunately, this seems to be making him worse. Fuck the notion of free-market health care. What kind of society treats it citizens this way? Answer: an uncivilized one.
From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002
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Smith
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3192
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posted 13 December 2002 09:17 PM
quote: and what sor tof nation allows Sadam to co-exist with places like Canada?
Huh? quote:
dont call America un-civilized. its like calling American Indians un-civilized.
No it's not. America is not a race, nor is it a single culture - it is a country with a political system that pax finds uncivilised. [ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: Smith ]
From: Muddy York | Registered: Oct 2002
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Smith
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3192
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posted 13 December 2002 11:31 PM
quote: And the Saddam comment....a civilized nation would be sure that such a rogue state did not exist to threaten or harm other Civilized nations.
As opposed to, say, giving money and weapons to that rogue state for most of the '80s? quote:
maybe its Canada that is uncivilized, afterall your government seems to support Saddam far more than he deserves.
We're not the ones who funded him, my friend. At best, your country is just cleaning up its own mess. Anyway, this has nothing to do with healthcare. You are very clearly grasping at straws. [ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: Smith ]
From: Muddy York | Registered: Oct 2002
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