[DrCaleb]

Bodah Bodah:

If anyone needs an MRI done quick, go to Gatineau, Quebec. There's already a clinic set-up. Cash only. Blood work extra.

Ahh shit... looks like the two-tier system is already here.

That's what people don't get. It's always been a 2 tiered system. Doctors clinics are privately owned by the Doctors. The are only allowed to bill the provincial health plans for covered services, but after that the sky is the limit!

If the Doctors want to buy an MRI machine and sell time on it, mor epower to them. But many don't because there is no money in it. Ones that tried go bankrupt. Even with the Province renting time on the MRI to reduce wait times, the volumes just aren't there.

All these guys want is the right to get insurance for services covered by the Canada Health Act. Currently that is illegal, and I think if we open that door, under NAFTA we will never be able to close it again.

[andyt]

Exactly. We're a single payer system. The British National Health Service is socialized medicine, as is the US military one.

And what you say identifies the problem. If we weren't part of NAFTA, we could copy European systems have have both government and private payers. But as soon as we open that door here, the US insurers will try to create the same expensive mess they have in the US.

[martin14]

Brenda Brenda:

Again, it is pretty common in (at least Western) Europe to go abroad. Germans come to The Netherlands, Dutchies go to Belgium, Belgians go to Germany (and all other ways of versa) and insurance pays. I don't see why I couldn't go to Spokane or Vancouverites to Seattle if the wait time is shorter there. Especially if it turns out to be cheaper too, all costs considered.
My neighbour had to go to Kelowna for radiation therapy for breast cancer for 5 weeks. Just because the hospital here does not offer that. It's a 3 hour drive one way. Spokane is just as far away, so if the hospital here wouldn't offer a (non-life threatening) surgery, or wait times would be ridiculously long, why not go cross border?

I can now clearly state that the border between the US and Canada is now
much more serious than anything in Europe, including the borders around
Switzerland, which are still officially up.
They should stop wasting the money to pay the guards.

All I have heard since being back is how messed up the US border is now,
with lots of idiots in the booths on both sides.


Too bad, considering in '95 or so I got a 6 month visa for Mexico with a driver's license

Many things have changed, and not for the better.


And for those of you still dreaming of the 'Euro' system, I might remind you
to take real look at how it works, and well financially Europe is doing these days.

[bootlegga]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Tea Party hero Sarah Palin used to come to CANADA for health care all the time.

$1:

Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.

That had more to do with proximity than anything else.

It's irrelevant - she still used our system.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

In addition, thousands more Americans come to Canada for all sorts of procedures.

Some come for flu shots, others come for gastric bypasses, and yet others simply come because the costs the are cheaper and most of the outcomes are far higher;

Thank you for paying for them.

Don't thank me - international patients either pay for the service themselves or use travel medical insurance to do so. That's why it's called medical tourism. It is exactly the same thing as our friend the dentist used when he went to the States for his treatment.

One thing our government plans don't pay for is non-Canadians. You are on the hook for your own medical costs, not Canadian taxpayers.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

What's more - 60% of Americans are in favour of medical tourism;

And for some odd reason you seem compelled to want to force your fellow Canadians to have to leave their country for treatment, too. I'm at a loss as to why you'd criticize the USA on this point when this is exactly the point we're talking about in Canada.

We don't compel anyone to travel anywhere for health care.

It's here and if your condition is not life-threatening, then you'll get it taken care of when a spot opens up for you. As I said, in a low population density large geographic country like ours, it's not realistic or economically possible to treat every ailment in every city/town/village for everyone at the same time. The US can do a lot of things Canada can't simply due to economy of scale.

However, if it is life-threatening, expect to be admitted immediately to the hospital and treated to the best of our ability right away. The only thing you'll pay for are things like a private room or TV rental.

Nobody forced the this dentist to go anywhere - he simply felt he was better than everyone else and tried to jump the queue. I have no empathy for him or anyone who does that.

[bootlegga]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Sometimes I wonder if your opinion of the 'wonders' of a private system would change if Lisa's cancer hadn't gone into remission and you had been forced to spend every last dime you had to try and save her, only to either run out of money or lose the battle anyways.

That's the thing. I have peers who opt for cheaper health care so they can afford bigger houses, newer cars, and more frequent vacations than we have. They've got the latest cell phones and they've got the latest big screen TV and they've got swimming pools and jet skis and etc. I choose to skip all of that crap so I can save money and the one thing I don't cut corners on is health care. We've had this same level of care since we got married in 1987.

And it paid off.

You missed the point - what if it hadn't?

That was my hypothetical - suppose Kaiser Permanente (or whoever you pay) decided that the cost of Lisa's treatments were a bad investment on their part, or suddenly concluded it was a pre-existing condition, or used any of a dozen different loopholes insurance companies commonly use to avoid paying for coverage for patients.

What then? What if you had had to sell your house, your car, all your investments and everything else and still come up short?

Like I said, I'd bet your opinion of the private health care system would be far different.

Honestly, I'm glad your story had a happy ending, but for far too many Americans, that is NOT the case.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Sorry if I sound cold but I have no sympathies for people who piss away their money on crap and then they DEMAND that someone else has to pay for their health care, their retirement, their food, their housing, and etc.

You wonder why I'm so hard on losers who can't make good choices in life?

...

I chose to work hard and I chose to sacrifice by skipping the new cars and etc. and instead saving for the future and buying decent health care that I didn't have to worry about when I needed it. That attitude paid off when Lisa needed it. It also paid off when my premium health care chose to fix my knee (which they didn't have to) when the sh*t job the VA did had me partially disabled.

Government health care left me with a disability that I would still have were it not for my private health care.

It's ironic that the same government that would've left me disabled is supposed to be trustworthy enough not to do it again. Sorry, I just don't believe that.

So the question of what would've happened to Lisa and I has already been answered.

As for other people, they make their choices in life and the ones who choose to fritter away their lives are not at all a concern to me.

You see, your experiences were the opposite of what many Americans have. Like I said above, I'm glad it worked out for you, but you case sounds like the exception, not the rule.

For me, it's the exact opposite. When my loved ones needed urgent care, they got the best care available and in record time. When my dad's pacemaker went off, he was immediately admitted to the Cardiac care unit of the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute and received the very best care available in Alberta, if not western Canada. To receive that, I didn't need to pay an extra penny. I wasn't saddled with a bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars for his care. And I was never forced to take on extra insurance or sell my property to pay for his care.

I have no doubt that some people skip health care coverage, or purchase cut rate plans, but to me that is the ultimate in "falling on hard times". That people are forced to live on the street to pay for their loved ones medical bills is a travesty in my eyes. We can compare stats all day long, but the one that kills me about your system is that close to half of all bankruptcies in the US are due to medical bills.

Again, that goes to the differences in culture between Canada and the USA. Individualism is the law of the land in the States and Canadians tend to be more collective than you are. Neither position is necessarily superior to the other, it's just different.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

It's like the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant.

In a field one summer's day a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. A group of ants walked by, grunting as they struggled to carry plump kernels of corn.

"Where are you going with those heavy things?" asked the grasshopper.

Without stopping, the first ant replied, "To our ant hill. This is the third kernel I've delivered today."

"Why not come and sing with me," teased the grasshopper, "instead of working so hard?"

"We are helping to store food for the winter," said the ant, "and think you should do the same."

"Winter is far away and it is a glorious day to play," sang the grasshopper.

But the ants went on their way and continued their hard work.

The weather soon turned cold. All the food lying in the field was covered with a thick white blanket of snow that even the grasshopper could not dig through. Soon the grasshopper found itself dying of hunger.

He staggered to the ants' hill and saw them handing out corn from the stores they had collected in the summer. He begged them for something to eat.

"What!" cried the ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?"

"I didn't have time to store any food," complained the grasshopper; "I was so busy playing music that before I knew it the summer was gone."

The ants shook their heads in disgust, turned their backs on the grasshopper and went on with their work.

The version I heard from Fry (Futurama) was that the ants all died and the grasshopper ate their food and got a sports car!

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Now don't get me wrong, I have sympathy for those who simply fall on hard times despite their best efforts and I've often donated money to helping such people.

But for the ones who don't apply themselves and then spout off about using government as a means to steal money from those who earned it I really don't give a damn if they live or die anymore. To me they are not even as good as pigeons who at least leave their nest every day to go find a meal. These jokers just want everything handed to them and they have nothing but hatred for anyone who works hard, saves, and gets ahead.

In the matter of Obamacare I oppose it because it is just another scheme where layabouts are taking my money.

The Congressional Budget Office, which is strictly non-partisan, released some charming facts this past week.

49% of Americans receive some sort of support from the government and they pay no taxes.

Another 2% pay no taxes but do not take any assistance.

Just shy of 49% of Americans pay taxes with 20% of Americans shouldering over 78% of the total tax burden.

And now we're going to ask the 49% of Americans to cough up another $2 trillion per year by 2020 to pay for the health care of the other 51%...in addition to what they pay for.

It is just another scheme to transfer wealth from those who earned it to those who didn't.

Sorry for the tl;dr but this galls me.

And now you have a better picture as to why.

I highly doubt that any American pays no taxes. Some might pay no INCOME taxes sure, but sales taxes, property taxes and all the rest - yeah, I'm betting every American (including the homeless) probably pay some sort of tax in their daily lives.

[OnTheIce]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

If the Doctors want to buy an MRI machine and sell time on it, mor epower to them. But many don't because there is no money in it. Ones that tried go bankrupt. Even with the Province renting time on the MRI to reduce wait times, the volumes just aren't there.

I've told this story before about a friend of a doctor I know.

He owned 2-3 MRI clinics here in Ontario. The province made some changes many years back and actually forced him to close or sell and bought his clinics for 12 million.

Give Canadians the option to purchase private insurance and use private services but keep tax rates the same. If some guy wants to run to a private clinic, let him....it'll mean one less person waiting in a public clinic.

[bootlegga]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

That's what people don't get. It's always been a 2 tiered system. Doctors clinics are privately owned by the Doctors. The are only allowed to bill the provincial health plans for covered services, but after that the sky is the limit!

If the Doctors want to buy an MRI machine and sell time on it, mor epower to them. But many don't because there is no money in it. Ones that tried go bankrupt. Even with the Province renting time on the MRI to reduce wait times, the volumes just aren't there.

All these guys want is the right to get insurance for services covered by the Canada Health Act. Currently that is illegal, and I think if we open that door, under NAFTA we will never be able to close it again.

That's why I'm talking about economies of scale - they just aren't available in Canada. In the US, you can set-up MRI clinics in the big cities and make lots of money - most major Canadian cities are a fraction of the size of American major cities and most people are willing to wait a month or two for something that isn't life-threatening (merely inconvenient or annoying).

I suppose some of those might work in central Canada were population densities are higher, but out West and in the Maritimes, it just won't work.

[andyt]

bootlegga bootlegga:

I highly doubt that any American pays no taxes. Some might pay no INCOME taxes sure, but sales taxes, property taxes and all the rest - yeah, I'm betting every American (including the homeless) probably pay some sort of tax in their daily lives.

Don't forget FICA. Payroll tax that everybody pays.

[Brenda]

martin14 martin14:

Brenda Brenda:

Again, it is pretty common in (at least Western) Europe to go abroad. Germans come to The Netherlands, Dutchies go to Belgium, Belgians go to Germany (and all other ways of versa) and insurance pays. I don't see why I couldn't go to Spokane or Vancouverites to Seattle if the wait time is shorter there. Especially if it turns out to be cheaper too, all costs considered.
My neighbour had to go to Kelowna for radiation therapy for breast cancer for 5 weeks. Just because the hospital here does not offer that. It's a 3 hour drive one way. Spokane is just as far away, so if the hospital here wouldn't offer a (non-life threatening) surgery, or wait times would be ridiculously long, why not go cross border?

I can now clearly state that the border between the US and Canada is now
much more serious than anything in Europe, including the borders around
Switzerland, which are still officially up.
They should stop wasting the money to pay the guards.

All I have heard since being back is how messed up the US border is now,
with lots of idiots in the booths on both sides.

Absolutely. I have crossed a lot of European borders, before the EU got so big, even to Eastern Europe, and I have never been treated as badly there as I have been here.

$1:

And for those of you still dreaming of the 'Euro' system, I might remind you
to take real look at how it works, and well financially Europe is doing these days.

The "one currency for all" bullshit should have never happened. The "European Constitution" should have never even been a topic of discussion. Europe should have stayed Europe, instead of becoming the EU. It used to be about TRADING PARTNERS, when it consisted of 6 countries, which were basically equal financially, culturally and business wise. Now it is 27 (or something) and it is about "who buys ME out?" There is no similarity between Greece and Germany or even Belgium, not financially, not culturally, not in the way they do business. It is ridiculous how fast it has gone down the drain.

[Scape]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

All these guys want is the right to get insurance for services covered by the Canada Health Act. Currently that is illegal, and I think if we open that door, under NAFTA we will never be able to close it again.

Bingo.

They are using the access to healthcare as a wedge for their cause. It's a trojan horse and they know it but people who subscribe to that will eat it up. Right Bart?

[BartSimpson]

bootlegga bootlegga:

I highly doubt that any American pays no taxes. Some might pay no INCOME taxes sure, but sales taxes, property taxes and all the rest - yeah, I'm betting every American (including the homeless) probably pay some sort of tax in their daily lives.

If you have no earned income and you live off of government support then, arguably, the government is paying your incidental taxes for you.

Funny thing, the homeless probably pay higher net taxes on what little they have than do welfare recipients.

[BartSimpson]

Scape Scape:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

All these guys want is the right to get insurance for services covered by the Canada Health Act. Currently that is illegal, and I think if we open that door, under NAFTA we will never be able to close it again.

Bingo.

They are using the access to healthcare as a wedge for their cause. It's a trojan horse and they know it but people who subscribe to that will eat it up. Right Bart?

I really don't care what argument ends NAFTA, I'll support it.