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Oh look another healthcare debate where us Canadians can show Americans how intellectually and morally superior we are. Oh goody.
How about another topic on gun control while we're at it?
It's been my experience that most of these healthcare discussion are started by Americans (the OP is American I believe ) either asking fair questions about our system, or by making absurd and misinformed statements about our system.
The fact that Canadians, high 90's percentage wise, like our system, with the caveat it can always be improved, and are proud of our system in it's universality and speak up about it does not equate to saying we are superior in any way.
Some comments are reactions to some extremely off the wall statements made by people in the U.S. including politicians. I don't think it's unusual for a comment to come off sounding intellectually superior when the question or statement lacks any intelligence whatsoever.
Oh look another healthcare debate where us Canadians can show Americans how intellectually and morally superior we are. Oh goody.
How about another topic on gun control while we're at it?
I believe that there are many Americans who are very knowledgeable and concerned about acquiring a universal health care plan for all of its citizens. I personally don't feel that anyone, Canadian or otherwise has behaved or insinuated that they are intellectually or morally superior to us.
Let's just face the facts about Canada and America...we are very similar in many aspects and we are very different in others. Although we share a great many things in common we are different countries with different ways in which we conduct our lives, our businesses, and our country, for better or worse.
Maybe it's me but I don't feel insulted or inferior in the least bit.
I won't compare to the US medical system because I have never lived there and experienced it. But in terms of the Canadian system, where you will find longer waiting times are for things that are not emergencies but can still be painful (knee replacements, hip replacements and such). What condition has a longer waiting time depends on the province and the availability of specialists within that province.
What I don't like to see brought into these discussions by either Canadians or Americans are the fluke examples of stuff going wrong. As long as humans are human, there will be times when a serious condition is misdiagnosed as something less serious, with sometimes tragic results. But those do not constitute the norm for either country.
Something else I have come across online, is Americans using Alberta's issue a few years back (might still be going on, I don't know) with a lack of doctors and sending Canadians to a neighbouring US state for treatment (or maybe it was childbirth?). I've seen that presented as some sort of an example of the lack in Canadian health care, but it was the result of a flood of job-seekers to Alberta, so many that the system could not keep up with them.
And the actual point is that none were denied health care, but where the hospitals were too full/doctors too few, the Canadian health care system made sure that they were still taken care of, at Canadian taxpayer cost, by sending them to the nearest medical facility (I think it was usually to Montana). Maybe stubblejumper or someone else from the area will remember this making the news.
Or take Manitoba, which isn't on anyone's top ten place to live - obviously Manitoba is going to attract fewer specialists than Toronto or Calgary. But the point is, as in the example I made of a relative who had a brain bleed that the specialists here did not feel qualified to operate on, she wasn't left to die. Under our health care system she was taken to where she had the possibility of care.
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Witha all due respect, sincerely...
