[Gromit]

(AP) A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."

The patient wasn't dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care.

Wow, three months for a five minute procedure. Impressive. Of course, the Fraser institute has a list called 'waiting your turn' that has plenty of these examples.

Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament.

"It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government.

"Every day we're paying for health care, yet when we go to access it, it's just not there," said Pelton.

This doesn't really jive with the rosy picture our Canadian friend is painting. I would guess that some in their own healthcare system really DON'T think its such a great plan.

The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care.

It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario director of the federation. "We have to examine private alternatives as well."

GEEKYRN, Taxes on the working class in the USA are NOT in the 48 percentile. Allow me to repeat that for you again -the AVERAGE AMERICAN WORKING STIFF DOES NOT PAY 48%.
You can claim your system isn't government run if you like, but it sure isn't run by private enterprise. The employees may not be government employees, but when government pays the tab, government calls the shots. That duck quacks like a duck.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=4&gl=us
CBS NEWS Canadian Health Care In Crisis.

[GeekyRN]

Gromit;

Regarding your tripe in italic:

<<Wow, I don't know what koolaid you've been drinking, but if you honestly
think nurses and truckers pay more in taxes than billionairs, then you really should>>

I didn't say they paid more dollars in taxes than a billionaire- I said they pay higher tax RATES than. (although considering estate income is actually untaxed at this time, in fact it's perfectly conceivable to conclude that in fact some poor RN has paid more tax dollars than the heir of a large fortune this year)


<<considder an economics class or at least some classes in basic math. >>

Considering my FIRST B.S. was in accounting information systems with a minor in economics, does that qualify as enough math and economics to play ball in what sadly passes for five-star "economic" discussions in your circle.

How about a masters of science from Northwestern?

Either that,
or give up trying to reference move-onDOTorgs' talking points, because reality
doesn't jive with it. In fact, that kind of 'lack of reality' thinking is kind of tarnishing your
talking points. >>

Whereas YOU might actually just want to look up IRONY in the dictionary...
(along with a few other things, such as ad hominen, argument ignoranti, etc).


<< You claim that Canadas' healthcare is actually run by private
entities, yet in the same paragraph you gush about how their government is paying>>

And don't tell me, you , despite all your superior economic education, can't figure out the difference between a service the government pools funds to pay for versus one it actually owns and runs Soviet style. (hint: try to stretch your intellectual curiosity and consider how medicare pays for healthcare services for seniors in a privae healthcare market).
the tab.

<<If government (and lets be a little more clear here, your taxes are >>
paying
it) is paying it, then government is dictating it. No two ways about it.>>

Enlightening. Really. I think I'll have my Congressman call NASA and tell them to paint the space station a different shade of titanium then. After all, I'm paying for it so I'm dictating it sayeth the expert economist.

PS - the next time you want to pass off that sort of personal vitriolic bile as intelligent discussion, you might want to stick to whatever crackpot websites you normally engage in it on.

[GeekyRN]

Originally Posted by Gromit

Wow, three months for a five minute procedure. Impressive. Of course, the Fraser institute has a list called 'waiting your turn' that has plenty of these examples.

This doesn't really jive with the rosy picture our Canadian friend is painting. I would guess that some in their own healthcare system really DON'T think its such a great plan.

GEEKYRN, Taxes on the working class in the USA are NOT in the 48 percentile. Allow me to repeat that for you again -the AVERAGE AMERICAN WORKING STIFF DOES NOT PAY 48%.
You can claim your system isn't government run if you like, but it sure isn't run by private enterprise. The employees may not be government employees, but when government pays the tab, government calls the shots. That duck quacks like a duck.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=4&gl=us
CBS NEWS Canadian Health Care In Crisis.

Thanks for sharing Gromit, but the next time you want to spam your emotional tantrums in a website, you really should cite the crackpot rightwing website you took the material from, rather than just the citation from a newstory it references somewhere.

Whatever Canada's healthcare problems that are legit, our own healthcare systems problems are bankrupting the country and leaving 70milion ununsired and the taxpayers are paying higher dollars per capita for it.

And while one can always find ancecdotal incidents to claim some horror or the other and no system is perfect, I still will maintain the Canadian system works better for the average Canadian than the USA system works for the average American having used both, compared per capita costs, etc.

I'd also be idly curious as to what reliable citations you could provide comparing the TOTAL tax burdens of an American family and a Canadian family making the same earnings in real dollars.

I'll anxiously await.

[GeekyRN]

Originally Posted by Gromit

GEEKYRN, Taxes on the working class in the USA are NOT in the 48 percentile. Allow me to repeat that for you again -the AVERAGE AMERICAN WORKING STIFF DOES NOT PAY 48%.
You can claim your system isn't government run if you like, but it sure isn't run by private enterprise. The employees may not be government employees, but when government pays the tab, government calls the shots. That duck quacks like a duck.

Pardon me, but your rude vulgarity is only surpassed by your ignorance.

1. My system IS the USA system.
2. Please provide your citation for the tax burden of the "average American working stiff" and how the taxburden of (presumably the average Canadian working stiff, whatever that is) is 48%. As a working American stiff, I can assure you my total tax burden is well over 40%, probably about 44-45%. (property, federal, fica, state, medicare, sales, gas, etc etc).
Thanks to jerks on the fringe right, the government has had no accountability for eight years and has been free to ring up 350-500 billion dollar deficits every year. Unfortunately we are ALL going to pay a lifetime of hightaxes servicing debt with few if any of the government services the current generation of retirees enjoys.

3. As for the government "running" Canada's healthcare system per your continued infantile insistance, ONCE AGAIN, everything from the pharmaceuticals to the major healthcare providers to the employees in Canada are PRIVATE. The government is no more "running" healthcare than they are in the USA because the government happens to pool funds for medicare.

If you want to persist with your perpetual rant that it's somehow different than get off your carcass and provide for us the major pharmacies and healthcare providers in CA and list for us the percent of government ownership. (Try ZERO). Not anecdotal spammings.

Since you obviously won't do any of this, than perhaps you should stick to the free republic, rush limbaugh or whatever other crackpot site, your sort of personal vitriol and uninformed drivel will actually serve to impress somebody..

At a minimum I don't want this forum to be polluted with unsubstantiated ideological rants, and if I'm somehow encouraging you to behave that way than perhaps it's time to end this "discussion". you jus declare victory and convince yourself you're the man.

[Gromit]

You want to call ME ignorant, and yet you seem to think (and I have NO idea how you could come up with THAT) that CBS is a 'right wing' site?!?? I think you just finished shooting your own credibility in the foot.

Oh and Geeky, you have NO idea what 'rude vulgarity' is, if you considder my statements to be such. As for our healthcare system, I have logged 19yrs taking care of patients in one aspect of our system or another, I think by now I have SOME idea as to what has or hasn't been working. I learned by doing, not by reading some books about it, and listening to professors who may or may not have had any actual tangible experience in it.
But hey, to each his (or her) own.
As for your claiming my ignorance, do you REALLY expect me to respond to trashtalk like that? Grow up.
I do seriously think we should back off a bit.
This site has rules about people getting too personal, and I dare say that BOTH of us are kind of skirting that. I like this site, and by and large people (even those who disagree) have reasonable discussions. Its obvious to me that this is getting pretty close to being beyond that standard. You certainly have no cause to encourage ME to behave in any semblance of what you seem to think is 'acceptable'. You should climb out of your ivory tower once in a while and see what the real world is like.

[Gromit]

By the way, the Frasier Institute -which I mentioned had the list about waiting periods on healthcare systems with examples among others, the Canadian and the UK, is not a 'right wing' site either.
Before calling someone else 'ignorant', you should do some research of your own.

[pickledpepperRN]

From the same article. It seems quite complicated.
Government licensed health professionals and facilities. It is not perfect but there are standards. Just like what we read about in Canada we have horrible things in our facilities.
Doesn't each Province administer their Medicare?

Not right or left wing. The article says good and bad about the Canadian system.

...Despite the financial burden, Canadians value their Medicare as a marker of egalitarianism and independent identity that sets their country apart from the United States, where some 45 million Americans lack health insurance.

Raisa Deber, a professor of health policy at the University of Toronto, believes Canada's system is one of the world's fairest.

"Canadians are very proud of the fact that if they need care, they will get care," she said. Of the United States, she said: "I don't understand how they got to this worship of markets, to the extent that they're perfectly happy that some people don't get the health care that they need."

Canada does not have fully nationalized health care; its doctors are in private practice and send their bills to the government for reimbursement.

"That doctor doesn't have to worry about how you're going to pay the bill," said Deber. "He knows that his bill will be paid, so there's absolutely nothing to stop any doctor from treating anyone." ...

BUT ...George Zeliotis told the court he suffered pain and became addicted to painkillers during a yearlong wait for hip replacement surgery, and should have been allowed to pay for faster service. His physician, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, said his patient's constitutional rights were violated because Quebec couldn't provide the care he needed, but didn't offer him the option of getting it privately.

A ruling on the case is expected any time.

If Zeliotis had been from the United States, China or neighboring Ontario anywhere, in fact, except Quebec — he could have bought treatment in a private Quebec clinic. That's one way the system discourages the spread of private medicine — by limiting it to nonresidents. But it can have curious results, says Day.

He tells of a patient who was informed by Ontario officials that since Ontario couldn't help him, they would spend $35,000 to send him to the United States for surgery.

Day said his Vancouver clinic could have done it for $12,000 but the Ontario officials "do not philosophically support sending an individual to a nongovernment clinic in Canada." ...

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...lnk&cd=4&gl=us

[NRSKarenRN]

Why can't members just agree to disagree on topic without the mud.
Personal insults ad NOTHING to this discussion. When a topic casuses you to have a meltdown, time to step back get away for the computer... check out our blooming Spring flowers in US or take a cool shower.

Thread closed for cool down and mod review.