i think the ideal of america has been corrupted into an environment of greed and 'it's all about me'.
if you look at posters and commercials from the 50's and stuff, you get the idea from the ideal (get it?) that if you come to america and work hard you can be and do what ever you want. and millions have. and that's what makes america such an incredible country.

the trouble started when people lost the ideal and started becoming more and more greedy thinking only of themselves.
helthcare is the one outstanding example of this (i know, i know, i won't shut up about this). the general attitude is, 'if you can't afford it, then either get a better job or suffer. you ain't gettin' any of my money.' even when a neighbours child is suffering from a disease that may be curable.
i feel good knowing that the children that my children play with are healthy due in part by the high taxes i pay. i know none of them have to worry and i know that none of their parents, be they widowed stay at home mom's or rich suv driving idiots, don't have to worry about mounting hospital bills.
i truely feel good knowing that we all get taken care of because we all pitch in to help.

yeah, i'm a socialist commie. whatever...

anyway, my personal opinion is that america, as great and innovative and generous a country and it's citizens are, has to stop putting money before the welfare of people worldwide.
quit beeing so ****ing greedy! drop the lawsuit for the hot burrito burning your tongue resulting in mental trauma...

Thanks, Evad. That's pretty much what I was trying to get at, but I'd just woken up and was somewhat failing to articulate myself. The difference is that I think it's something that's built into America. I'm not saying that the ideal they had/have (the whole 50's thing you said) is a bad thing, but it was always a selfish outlook, and sooner or later it was going to end up with the greed we see today. The healthcare example is perfect. It completely astounds me that anyone would ever want to live somewhere that they weren't guaranteed healthcare.

And affordable meds for that matter.

Yeah, I'm still seething somewhat about having to pay for prescriptions (full time student, but once you're 19 you have to pay £6.30), but I found out today when my mum had to go to the hospital for antibiotics (clinic is closed on Saturday) that you can still get any drugs for free from the hospital, you just have to wait longer.

I don't see how paying for medicare is a big deal--then again I live in an almost completely capitalist economy. You grow up learning that you don't get anything for free, and that's how you perceive things--it's weird if you DO get it for free.

I think it's funny how they're still telling americans that canadian meds are dangerous just to scare them away from crossing the border to get them, when our safety standards are ten times more vigorous, and hundreds of drugs actively in circulation in america are banned in canada for being too dangerous.

Yeah that really cracks me up

Just look at Aleve, a simple over-the-counter med in the States, is banned here in Canada.

And yet Bush thinks (read "says") our meds are dangerous.

it's not that you get it for free. everyone pays into one big pot so that everyone can use that big pot of money when they need it. and everyone is going to need it one day. everyone.
not everyone can reach into their pockets for $2000 for the deductable on an apendectomy even though they have health insurance (i couldn't believe my ****ing eyes when i saw this. my neighbour was paying for health insurance yet it still cost him just over $1900. wtf???).

Between Bush's love of tax cuts, our current debt, and the fact that models built for Canada or Britain do not[/b] incorporate any contigency for a much higher percentage of people who don't pay taxes but would utilize the offered services, thus providing a much larger drain on the system, a national healthcare system would not work. In addition, if the U.S. went to socialist health care, where would people go for important surgeries that have long, long waiting lines now in both Canada and the U.S.? Sure, Jimmy's heart transplant is free, but by the time he gets to the operating table, he may be dead.

Those line-ups are caused by a lack of donors, not by a surplus of sick people.

You're biking, you fall off a cliff and break both your legs and you can't get up. A guy passes buy and offers to help you get to a hospital, but only if you pay him two hundred bucks, otherwise, he'll leave you there and won't even call an ambulance.

It's the same concept. Of course, I exagerrated, but the idea is there. Money has it's uses, but that's not the kind of thing that should be charged. Instead, anyone and everyone puts a little money aside, and when someone gets hurt, everybody takes care of them. Isn't it nicer knowing whatever happends to you or your loved ones, you'll get the help you need, rather than having to think "damn, I can't break my legs today, I can't afford it!"

careful. i've had people on this very forum say that you shouldn't be biking if you don't have $200 for a ride to the hospital.
let's use cancer for example. this is a fact and has happened 20,000 times in the US.
an eight year old kid gets cancer even though his family lives on a farm in rural montana. niehter parents are smokers. but for some fantastical mystical magic reason, the kid actually gets cancer even though he's never ever in his entire life, ever, been exposed to cigarette smoke (can this actually happen???? i'll have to google it but i'm sure i heard someone say something about it once about 20 years ago. i think).
now this family has to pay for all kinds of services and deductables on their insurance for years. then the insurance company finds a reason not to insure them anymore because they found that the herbicides that the government is spraying on their crops accross the road weren't part of the coverage plan, so now they have a debt of $50,000 to the insurance comapny and the hospital and the kid is dying and he needs more treatment but they can't afford it and then the hospital starts giving them a hard time becasuse they haven't been paying and the family members have drained their bank accounts for this poor kid and now no one will take care of him.

NO ONE CARES!!!!! sure they care. enough to say they care but that doesn't get this poor ******* any better.

i would rather have a broken social health care system so that when this happens to me or my friends, none of us have to worry.

Exactly. I still kinda do that. And even though I live in America. Americans SUCK. I'm not saying America sucks, I'm saying the majority of the people do.

http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman/issues/healthcare/socialized.html#canada

To give some focus:

Canadians have higher death risk than Americans after heart attack: study

Canadian medical tourists in India

To quote:



Canada's Medical Nightmare

Yeah. So, even in the perfect land of Canadia, the health care system, beyond routine doctor check-ups, is rather lacking[/b]. The cancer kid will die on the waiting list in Canada, and the costs of the guy who broke his leg would be absorbed into the costs of the hospital and calculated into the costs of others (in America).

wolfy, canadians may die more often from heart attacks, but it's not because of the medical bills we get. that's my point.
someone having a heart attack in the US may get treatment but when he gets the bill, he's gonna wish he had died.

...that's your argument?

it's my point! i don't have to worry about health care because it's always there for me. that's my point. we're all gonna die. some of us sooner than others for preventable reasons. but until then i know i don't have to worry about paying for it when it comes. i don't have to worry about paying for it when it comes. that's my point. i don't have to worry about paying for it when it comes. i don't have to worry about paying for it when it comes. that's my point.
i already said it may be broken but at least i don't have to worry about it when it comes. it's broken but it's paid for. it's paid for already by me and and my 32 million neighbours. paid for already. i don't have to worry about $21,000 hospital bills for having a tiny shard of metal removed from my eye when i was working in the garage (this happend to my american frend and he showed me the bill but because he was a roofer he couln't afford the >$390/month insurance (yeah yeah, i know he shouldn't have been a roofer and should've been a computer programmer or a lawyer or someone who makes >$75k/yr. and he also shouldn't have had children if he was only a roofer so he wouldn't have to get family health insurance but it seems some really really stupid poeple in the US have kids when they know full well they don't have post secondary education and can't afford health insurance for the family they might want to have).

so my point is that i don't have to worry about it when the time comes.
that's my point.

did every one get that?!?

i don't have to worry about paying the deductable on an operation that i may have needed that was the result of an act of 'god' and could not have been avoided even though i only leave the house to go to work so i can afford health insurance and i don't ride a bilke or smoke or drink or watch too much tv because that may affect my eye sight. i don't have to pay the medical bills all at once when the time comes.

that's my point.

ehhh... never mind, you won't get it until you get a bill in the mail for $35,000 for something that happened to you and you weren't covered for it and then maybe you'll complain (but until then you'll probably say you won't complain because you agree with the fact that you'll be slapped with a bill for the price of a corvette for something that should be a right, not a privledge).

:p yeah that's right. it absolutly boggles my frickin mind that people don't get that. i'm dumbfounded that such a country thinks health care is only for those who can afford it. even when the number of people who can't afford it numbers in the tens of millions.

Nationalistic health care is a nice idea, but when you get things like this:

this:

this:

this:


Boy, I'm sure that the Jansens are so glad that their medical procedures are fr--. Oh, wait. Whoops.

The idea behind the Canadian national healthcare is idealistic and impractical. I don't see how you can actually say that this preferable to private insurance -- Canada's going to be an interesting place if and when the Canadian national healthcare calls it quits. Ahhh, never mind. You won't get it until you have to do any serious surgical procedures.

dont look a gift horse in the mouth, can you afford healthcare? do you know anyone who can't that has a severe problem?

you're not addressing evads point of the fact that some americans cannot afford heathcare... whereas people who earn a ****load of money in my country can choose to purchase a private heathcare plan.... the people with less of an income can get free care.... free care with a few problems or none at all, you decide.

and why not start a new thread, this one has gone WAAAAAY off course.

I am[/b] addressing his point, pointing out that his faith in the national health care is misplaced, as it is not a practical system -- it's losing doctors; it has tremendous wait times on surgical procedures, forcing people to seek such procedures outside of Canadian coverage; some are even projecting a 10-year lifetime of it.

Like I said, it's a nice idea, but, as it is currently implemented, prone to failure or such low quality as to be ridiculous. He's praising the free apartment housing as he's overrun with roaches and the walls are collapsing.

like i'm saying, dont look a gift horse in the mouth, its better than nothing, especially for those who cannot afford private healthcare, this is the point you're not addressing whilst saying it sucks... lots of things suck, get used to it, sometimes its even something you actually pay for.

But, at the rate at which it is going (taking more and more and more funding), it's either going to be too great of a drain and get dropped or suffer severe limitations in order to make it affordable for the government and the taxed people. It's a "it was fun while it lasted" type of deal.

To be fair, that's not a problem of the health care system per se. It's a problem caused by the community. The majority of health care expenditure is directed towards treating obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes (IIRC, the US spent ~1 trillion dollars on these in 2002). These are all lifestyle diseases (highly prevalent in western countries) primarily caused by people sitting on their arses and shovelling food into their face.

Public health care isn't all that practical because too much money is directed towards treating diseases that should never be arising on this scale in the first place. If people took better care of themselves in the first place, the public system wouldn't be under anywhere near as much stress and wouldbe substantially more efficient. I'm not saying that this would magically fix public health, but it would provide a substantial relief.

Of course it would. But you just provided even more reason as to why a public health care system would not work in the U.S. -- aren't we supposed to have the highest rate of obesity in the world?

I think I've misread/skipped something, I didn't realise you were talking about applying the same model to the US. You are of course right in that respect as it would just make the US system worse. I thought you were talking about public health in general, which would be a slightly different issue. My mistake.

My point is that even the Canadian system is failing. They're pumping more and more money into it, and losing more and more doctors and quality of healthcare.

Wolfy you speak the truth... last time I went to the hospital and I wasn't considered a critical case I had to wait 7 hours in the emergancy room. It seems like the Canadian health care system only services if you are bleeding to death on a stretcher.

That depends on the hospital, the time you go, and if there were any emergencies. There might not be any one in the waiting room, but an ambulance might've just come in.

I don't think I've ever waited more than 3 hours, and usually only 1.

Ahhh, the United States... I'm just glad I wasn't born in any other country on Earth.. I honestly feel sorry for all of you, you have no idea what you're missing. Ha!

Its true. And I think we're really out of line. (Well, not so much me perse as America in general) Freedom Fries? Come on, do these people have nothing better to do than get riled up at the french? Maybe if they read a newspaper once in awhile they could find something real to be mad at.

I don't like it either. But there's little to be done about it because the majority of Americans would rather give the rich a tax break instead of paying a little more taxes themselves.

Its a costant arguement over here. We do have a very "leave them behind" attitude about everyone. Anyone who doesn't work a 60 hour work week killing themselves to buy a new SUV seems to be perceived by many as "lazy" around here.

The trouble is...America doesn't have as much global clout as it once did. But, instead of adapting to its new position we just keep charging headstrong forward like nothings changed. And sooner or later, we'll charge right off a cliff.

That's just a flat out lie that government officials tell us who don't want the drug companies pissed at them. The drugs are REimported, which means they're the same damn drugs we already use.

Bush said in the debates "I just want to see if they're safe!" which is what he said 4 years ago in the first debates. He knows they're safe. Canada is not some 3rd world country. He just doesn't care about the health care problem. Thats all there is to it.

I think a combination system would be our best bet. The US will not switch to an entirely socialized healthcare system, not in my lifetime anyway. And I don't see how that would really be feasible anyway.

While that may be the reasoning for some, I[/b] oppose a system like Canada's because it does not work.

yeah, people have to make lifestyle changes.

For one, their eligibility could be taken away unless they are willing to make any attempt to change their habits. It sounds extreme, but it just might work.

Getting a free ride all the time encourages complacency and sloth. If people know that doctors are going to save their fat a**es for free, then what incentive do they have for wanting to change?

Do you come from a rich family or what?

For poor (read: average) people, Canada's health care is of much easier access than the States' system.

Long line-ups? There's private clinics that you can go to here, and that you can pay out of your pocket for.

Read:

Shortage of Doctors

Ontario Hospitals a Health Risk

Long wait lines to get into surgery

"The survey of 300 medical professionals found 44% of doctors and 49% of nurses believe their patients' conditions worsened while waiting for care."

"All the major candidates in Canada's recent national election acknowledged that the country's health-care system is failing Canadians."

"Canadian Health Care in Crisis"

Waiting lines for Canadian pets less than Canadian humans

The Top Ten Things People Believe About Canadian Health Care, But Shouldn’t

"The federal government is putting people at risk with plans to cut spending on an already stretched-to-the-limit public health-care system, the Canadian Medical Association said yesterday."

Shortage of Doctors
Many doctors go to the States for the higher salaries. With the incredible cost of health care in the States, it's easy to see where their pay comes from. A government can't really compete with those kinds of salaries, although they are still very well paid here. It just goes to show that many are in it for the money.

Ontario Hospitals a Health Risk
While this brings up good points, not all of Canada lives in Ontario. Measures have already been taken here in Québec to get rid of C. difficile; most likely in Ontario they are doing the same. It seems to have been taken under control here in Québec.

Long wait lines to get into surgery
Private clinics are also available, especially in Alberta, IIRC.

"The survey of 300 medical professionals found 44% of doctors and 49% of nurses believe their patients' conditions worsened while waiting for care."
The Prime Minister gave out loads of money to the provinces this month to help remedy this.

"All the major candidates in Canada's recent national election acknowledged that the country's health-care system is failing Canadians."
Nothing that I disagree with here. I'm far from believing that our system is perfect, and it definitely needs a over-haul. But a system such as yours is not the answer.

"Canadian Health Care in Crisis"

No it isn't. Explain why there are many medical insurance companies and private clinics all over Canada? That bit of misinformation basically throws off the integrity of that interview.

Waiting lines for Canadian pets less than Canadian humans
Does this have anything to do with our hospitals?

The Top Ten Things People Believe About Canadian Health Care, But Shouldn’t
First page of that report, concerning the myth that the world ranking of Canada's health system is very high:

You say our system doesn't work but it seems to be working better than yours, even with all of its problems. This argument should end right here.

"The federal government is putting people at risk with plans to cut spending on an already stretched-to-the-limit public health-care system, the Canadian Medical Association said yesterday."
That's outdated. Spending was just increased.


Your turn to read:
We thought we had insurance?

Insurance screws people over again

Consequences of high medical bills

Hassles of medical debt

Medical bills make you go bankrupt

Actually, the increase in prices are largely due to increase in costs of liability insurance.



Point conceded.



But these aren't publicly-funded, nor publicly-covered. In these cases, the clinics have to either go pro bono or charge the patients.



But it doesn't seem to be helping.



Perhaps, as Run suggested, a combination of private, government-regulated insurance companies, then?



While I disagree that it throws off the credibility of the entire interview, I concede that it does put the credibility of the person being questioned into a serious questionable light.



The fact that pets covered by private insurance get faster treatment than humans covered by public insurance?



Didn't say that our current system was without its flaws.



Again, it doesn't seem to be helping.

[/b]

I didn't say that complete privatized insurance was the best system. Government regulation of insurance plans offered by employers should be done, in my opinion.



Again, our system is not perfect, but any attempts at implementation a socialized health care system in the U.S. would result in catastrophe, especially given government expenditure at this moment in time.