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What is Canada doing right with healthcare that we are doing wrong? How can they have free Healthcare and we in the US can not? If free healthcare was that easy to implement wouldn't we have done it already? What's the hold up?
This is a very big subject and is full of complexities. Responding with short, terse comments as though the writer is expert on the subject is not helpful in understanding this enormous problem of healthcare in America.
Just start here and one can spend many weeks learning about Canada's system from the various links provided while perusing the data:
"Surgical Wait Times
In British Columbia, more than 400,000 hospital-based surgeries and treatments are performed each year. If you need surgery or treatment that is not an emergency, you will be placed on a wait list. An individual who needs emergency surgery does not go on a waitlist; they receive treatment without delay."
Canadian health care has its problems nobody is denying that, but survey after survey shows that Canadians have NO desire to switch to a US style health care system, so that says something in my mind.
In the US just the other day, someone died in the middle of the emergency room (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-king20may20,0,6057993.story?coll=la-home-center - broken link) because the staff refused to help her. So we've got plenty of problems of our own.
Personally, I've long been in favor of universal health care, that we don't have it I think causes a lot of problems, especially within the business community. Imagine how much more competitive our labor costs would be if corporations did not have to pour thousands of dollars into health care benefits for employees.
Last edited by j33; 06-14-2007 at 09:13 AM..
Reason: spelling
Canadian taxes are nuts a gallon milk is atleast 5$ Gas was about 6 It may be a little more than that I havent been in a couple of years As far as Canadians not wanting an American type system. Alot of people are so hooked on the Govt for everything they would be too afraid to try such a thing
Imagine how much more competitive our labor costs would be if corporations did not have to poor thousands of dollars into health care benefits for employees.
But that gov't health care money doesn't come from nowhere. It seems to me that the health insurance costs businesses currently pay would be replaced by higher taxes, which would cancel out any competitive advantage for businesses.
I personally think that Canada doesn't face the challenges, demographically, that the US faces. You can't treat the countries as equals. The US has a larger indigent population, higher poverty rates, higher drug usage, higher teen pregnancy rates, etc.
Our system has major problems, but for those who can afford it, it provides the highest quality health care in the world, IMO.
That's what needs changing. From those people who are so anti-Canadian-style health care, there is a dearth of good ideas about creating competitiveness in what is now the health care/health insurance collusion industry.
Canadian taxes are nuts a gallon milk is atleast 5$ Gas was about 6 It may be a little more than that I havent been in a couple of years As far as Canadians not wanting an American type system. Alot of people are so hooked on the Govt for everything they would be too afraid to try such a thing
Why give up something up that is working out fine for the people involved even if it is not perfect for something that is clearly broken. Our health care system is not in good shape. Unlike some of you folks here, I have had to navigate the world of being uninsured for several years (I am insured now) and I know the other side fairly well, it is a horrible place to be in.
But that gov't health care money doesn't come from nowhere. It seems to me that the health insurance costs businesses currently pay would be replaced by higher taxes, which would cancel out any competitive advantage for businesses.
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Quite true, but think of the thousands of people who stay in jobs they are miserable in because they cannot afford to leave due to their fear of losing healthcare, what does that do for productivity and/or moral. How many entrepreneurs have been stifled because if they quit their day job they lose their healthcare? I think the benefits ultimately outweigh the cost.
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