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From a Canadian: Universal Health Care
Posted by cindalou • 10/17/07 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: clinton, health care, President, ron paul
My brother emailed this to me today. Doesn't hit everything I'd like to bring up about universal health coverage, but it's good nonetheless.
"Hey Guys; I saw on the news up here in Canada where Hillary Clinton introduced her new health care plan. Something similar to what we have in Canada . I also heard that Michael Moore was raving about the health care up here in Canada in his latest movie. As your friend and someone who lives with the Canada health care plan I thought I would give you some facts about this great medical plan that we have in Canada .
First of all:
1) The health care plan in Canada is not free. We pay a premium every month of $96. for Shirley and I to be covered. Sounds great eh. What they don't tell you is how much we pay in taxes to keep the health care system afloat. I am personally in the 55% tax bracket. Yes 55% of my earnings go to taxes. A large portion of that and I am not sure of the exact amount goes directly to health care our #1 expense.
2) I would not classify what we have as health care plan, it is more like a health diagnosis system. You can get into to see a doctor quick enough so he can tell you "yes indeed you are sick or you need an operation" but now the challenge becomes getting treated or operated on. We have waiting lists out the ying yang some as much as 2 years down the road.
3) Rather than fix what is wrong with you the usual tactic in Canada is to prescribe drugs. Have a pain, here is a drug to take, not what is causing the pain and why. No time for checking you out because it is more important to move as many patients thru as possible each hour for Government re-imbursement.
4) Many Canadians do not have a family Doctor.
5) Don't require emergency treatment as you may wait for hours in the emergency room waiting for treatment.
6) Shirley's dad cut his hand on a power saw a few weeks back and it required that his hand be put in a splint - to our surprise we had to pay $125. for a splint because it is not covered under health care plus we have to pay $60. for each visit for him to check it out each week.
7) Shirley's cousin was diagnosed with a heart blockage. Put on a waiting list. Died before he could get treatment.
8) Government allots so many operations per year. When that is done no more
operations, unless you go to your local newspaper and plead your case and embarrass the government then money suddenly appears.
9)The Government takes great pride in telling us how much more they are increasing the funding for health care but waiting lists never get shorter. Government just keeps throwing money at the problem but it never goes away. But they are good at finding new ways to tax us, but they don't call it a tax anymore it is now a user fee.
10) My mother needs an operation for a blockage in her leg but because she is a smoker they will not do it. Despite her and my father paying into the health care system all these years. My Mom is 80 years of age. Now there is talk that maybe we should not treat fat and obese people either because they are a drain on the health care system. Let me see now, what we want in Canada is a health care system for healthy people only. That should
reduce our health care costs.
11) Forget getting a second opinion, what you see is what you get.
12) I can spend what money I have left after taxes on booze, cigarettes, junk food and anything else that could kill me but I am not allowed by law to spend my money on getting an operation I need because that would be jumping the queue. I must wait my turn except if I am a hockey player or athlete then I can get looked at right away. Go figger. Where else in the world can you spend money to kill yourself but not allowed to spend money to
get healthy.
13) Oh did I mention that immigrants are covered automatically at tax payer expense having never contributed a dollar to the system and pay no premiums.
14) Oh yeh we now give free needles to drug users to try and keep them healthy. Wouldn't want a sickly druggie breaking into your house and stealing your things. But people with diabetes who pay into the health care system have to pay for their needles because it is not covered but the health care system.
I send this out not looking for sympathy but as the election looms in the states you will be hearing more and more about universal health care down there and the advocates will be pointing to Canada . I just want to make sure that you hear the truth about health care up here and have some food for thought and informed questions to ask when broached with this subject. Step wisely and don't make the same mistakes we have. "
User Comments
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Amen.
I live in Quebec and I couldn't be more appalled at our health care system. They give up on people SO easily and the hospital system is ridiculous. Don't even bother trying to get some help as an English person here.
The hospital my roommate's aunt is at only has signs in French and Italian. Riddle me that. In Canada... no English signs, but we do have Italian.
As a middle class income earner, I would rather pay for health care and actually get what I pay for. -
"Socialized Medicine" is primarily an ideology championed by the Democrats. However, contrary to popular belief, a nationalized health care system has never actually been on the agenda for President Elect Obama. His agenda has always been to assist those who are rendered uninsurable and or are in need of assistance in obtaining health care coverage due to low income.
Part of his plan is to expand the role of SCHIP and State Insurance Risk Pools so that those who are rendered "uninsurable" on the individual major medical market have guaranteed insurability through their respective State Risk Pools. Many states already have this option. However states such as Arizona and Florida do not. These states desperately need such Risk Pools. Unfortunately, until now they have not been able to receive enough Federal funding to expand this much needed role. States that do have risk pools are listed here: www.naschip.org/states_pools.htm
President Elect Obama wishes to provide more Federal funding to these existing risk pools to drive the premiums down, thereby making this option more affordable for those rendered uninsurable.
One of the reasons that a "nationalized" health care system has never been on Obama's agenda is most likely due to the terrible failure of such programs in countries such as France & Canada. A common example used to further the cause of "socialized medicine" in the United States is to point out how well it is working in Canada. However, those living in Canada know full well that their government run health care program is most certainly not working.
As a matter of fact, many Canadian citizens choose to hire high priced brokers to find them quality health care right here in the United States because of the terrible bureaucracy that controls all forms of health care in Canada. For more about what is really going on with the Canadian health care system please watch these short but very informative documentary videos:
www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php
www.freemarketcure.com/twowomen.php
www.freemarketcure.com/thelemon.php
The number of actual uninsured's in the US has been grossly inflated as well. For the real numbers watch: www.freemarketcure.com/uninsuredinamerica.php
The truth of the matter is we already have an enormous amount of entitlement programs available to those who find themselves unable to pay for their health care. Often times these entitlement programs are offered to those who are here legally and illegally as was the case in the State of Illinois: www.sbisvcs.com/healthinsuranceblog.htm
Most recently, the State of Hawaii tried to emulate the Medicaid Expansion programs that were enacted in Illinois. It took less than 7 months to render their program bankrupt: www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93SBEUG0&show_article=1
All things considered, the best way to offset the high cost of health care in the US is to adopt the initiatives set forth over a decade ago by Senator Bill Archer (R) of Texas. The Health Savings Account (commonly referred to as a "Medical IRA") is a unique option that maintains high quality health insurance coverage for the policy holder whilst also building a tax deductible, tax deferred interest bearing account for the insured to use for future medical expenses. Even if these expenses would not normally be covered by the policy holder's health insurance plan. -
Having a crappy health care system is better than NO health care system!
I know more than a few people who won't even visit the U.S as tourists because of the gold-digging extortionists who run hospitals... they're scared of getting a broken arm and having some moron charge them $3000 to set a cast! -
The best healthcare is pro-active...Diet, nutrition, exercise and a healthy lifestyle will help keep you away from the incompetent, lazy uncaring Canadian public health type systems or the vulturelike, heartless blood sucking, money carpetbagging American type health systems...
An apple a day keeps the doctor away... -
Part of his plan is to expand the role of SCHIP and State Insurance Risk Pools so that those who are rendered "uninsurable" on the individual major medical market have guaranteed insurability through their respective State Risk Pools
Haven't we heard this before? Namely, those who are rendered 'not credit worthy' on the individual major property market were guaranteed credit. That turned out well, don't you think? -
flamingpoodle, I wholeheartedly agree that the expansion of SCHIP and the State Insurance Risk Pools would be a fiscal impossibility. Nevertheless this is the President Elect's agenda. How he will do this has yet to be disclosed to his constituents. At the very least, with the State Risk Pools there is a significant premium required by those who are eligible to enroll. The SCHIP program is yet another entitlement that we will be forced to pay for as tax payers. After a $7 Trillion Bail Out and many more corporations with their hats in their hands, I do not have much faith in the expansion of the SCHIP programs. Once again, our government's incompetency and lack of priorities is self evident.
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In that regard, I think we are fortunate in South Africa. We have both public health and private health care systems. Public health care is more or less free (you have to pay a minimum fee for each visit, but a visit can be virtually anything in nature, from getting a cast to staying overnight getting heart surgery). Private health care is much, much better, but much more expensive. It's not really exorbitant, it's just more expensive and the quality of service is way better.
If America moves towards such a system, whereby certain clinics are denoted public health clinics, with the private health system being removed from the health insurance industry, it is quite workable to have the best of both worlds.
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