Beginning in the 1930s, both the Americans and the Canadians tried to alleviate health care gaps by increasing use of employment-based insurance plans. Both countries encouraged nonprofit private insurance plans like Blue Cross, as well as for-profit insurance plans. The difference between the United States and Canada is that Americans are still doing this, ignoring decades of international statistics that show that this type of funding inevitably leads to poorer public health.
2006-08-31
Has Canada Got the Cure?
Since 1970, Canada has had a publicly funded, single-payer health system. Today, all Canadians are equally healthy, regardless of income.
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Yeah, this is pretty funny and ironic seeing as I just spent a week's vacation up in that land of fun, good beer and exorbitantly high taxes, The People's Socialist Republic of Ontario, Canada, hanging out with a bunch of canucks.
Around the campfire one night one particular canuck we were hanging with lamented the sh*tty state of their healthcare system by referring to a personal instance regarding his mother.
It seems she's paid into their wonderful national healthcare system her entire working life and now, in her later years she finds herself in need of some fairly critical surgery. Yet depsite having paid into the system all these years she finds herself on a waiting list which he says she's been on now for months.
He was adamant; We do not want their healthcare model!
The Canadian-style system IS NOT the answer. It sucks. They pay obscene taxes to pay for their "free" healthcare and then can't even get the treatment they need when they need it.
Meanwhile, the wealthier Canadians, the ones who can afford it come over to the States to get their critical care.
Another couple from Sarnia we spent some time with had a another similar story. She works as a nurse on the U.S. side in a hospital in Port Huron. She talks of how fortunate they are that she, her husband and kids get their healthcare through the hospital she works at and do not have to rely on the Canadian system. Again, she talks about how awful their system is.
So there you go. But of course, I don't expect this change your mind. For you, socialism is the answer to everything. Better that EVERYONE have mediocre/shitty government-provided services, that to allow the free-market to work.
Granted, the current state of our healthcare system is mess as well, but this is not the answer.
Here's another misnomer that is trotted out on a regular basis:
"Worse, Americans' mortality rates--both general and infant--are shockingly high."
Completely false. Especially in regards to the infant mortality rate.
The reason the U.S. infant mortality rate at a glance looks to high in comparison is that in the vast majority of countries around the world unborn babies with problem pregnancies do not survive in the womb long enough to be born alive. We have gotten so good at giving problem pregnancies a chance at success, but unfortunately many of those babies because of complications in the womb don't survive after birth.
In many other countries they never would have made it that far, but because they weren't born alive they don't count against the infant mortality rate.
You need to look closely at these sorts of statistics that are trotted out as fact.
Six, very well said. But remember: Nadir is not a socialist! He only advocates policies which happen to be socialist.
We could also throw in the reliance of Canada's medical system on advances paid for by US citizens paying for their own healthcare. (Note that I believe most of these advances are rubbish, but this is what people want: eat crappy food all your life, then get expensive drug, surgery, and other high tech treatment of symptoms.)
In the US if you want better health care (or housing, or transportation, or clothing, or education), you work harder or better and find a way to make more money to purchase whatever it is that you want. In a socialist system you lack such an incentive: everybody gets the same -- meciocrity.
This reminds me of my recent post about socialist fantasies versus capitalist reality. Capitalism only promises the best possible outcome, which derives from free people trading goods and services amoungst themselves. Capitalism does not promise heaven on earth. Socialism meanwhile promises heaven on earth, but always delivers something much closer to hell than what capitalism does.
So Nadir and Tom will always advocate the promise of socialist heaven over the practical reality of the best possible outcome here on earth.
"For you, socialism is the answer to everything."
You're calling names again. Bad form.
There is nothing wrong with having a social safety net. If you can afford better health care, you should get it. If you can't there should be a way that you can get the help you need without being turned away because you are poor.
Explain to me how you guys can support a party that provides welfare to corporations but won't help individual citizens when they need it most?
Hypocrisy...
Canada's system is not socialist. It is practical and promotes a healthier populace.
Paul, I continue to be appalled that someone who fancies himself as an herb doctor would advocate denying healthcare to a poor person who needed help.
Working harder sometimes isn't an option when you're already working two minimum wage jobs neither of which provide healthcare. People in that situation don't even have time to look for another job or take classes to improve their education and skills. They are just trying to survive.
No wonder Americans are so unhealthy.
As with any bureaucracy there are going to be problems. Six, if your friends mother can't afford healthcare and has to be on a waiting list for an opperation in Canada, think about her plight in the US. She would be ass out with no alternative and no waiting list.
Which is better - waiting and eventually getting help or dying because there is no help?
=============Nadir
No wonder Americans are so unhealthy.
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Americans, even those defined as "poor", have about the highest life span on earth. And yes, I'm an herb doctor, and as such, I regard "health" as deriving not from access to X-rays, scalpels, catscans, and expensive toxic drugs, but rather from personal choices known as "habits", which include excersize and diets free from artificial substances and rich in nutrients. Even poor people in the US -- or, more accurately -- people in the US during time in their lives when they qualify as "poor", can obtain this for themselves.
====Nadir
Paul, I continue to be appalled that someone who fancies himself as an herb doctor would advocate denying healthcare to a poor person who needed help.
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I'll send some "poor" people over to your house to demand that you purchase the herbs, vitamins, and natural foods that I proscribe for them. Certainly you will not "turn them away", given your compassion for "the poor."
You seem to live in a fantasy world in which resources are limited only by the willingness of powerful people to "give" these resources away. There has to be some orderly mechanism to manage and allocate societies limitted resources. Well, there is: capitalism. Within this framework, you and Six and decide to share what you have with others.
In the socialist model, everybody gets the same, which inevitably results in a lower overall average. It is easy to "turn nobody away" from an empty hospital.
=========Nadir
Canada's system is not socialist. It is practical and promotes a healthier populace.
=================
You keep inventing your own definitions for words. Something being "practical" or "promoting of health" does not preclude it from being socialist. Wait, I retract that statement. It sure does! Except that this Canadian model isn't practical, and doesn't promote general health. But its finanancial operation qualifies it for the term, "socialist."
=========Nadir
Six, if your friends mother can't afford healthcare and has to be on a waiting list for an opperation in Canada, think about her plight in the US. She would be ass out with no alternative and no waiting list.
==================
If she lived in the US she would keep more of her paycheck, leaving her more money with which to purchase private health insurance, which runs about $2k/year through an employer. Six, how much extra taxes per year do you reckon your mom pays in order to get what would cost $2k/yr in the US? Also, in the US, with lower tax rates, Six's mom would work within a more robust economy, where she would have more opportunities, and could expect a better chance at a higher salary. She could also work with Nadir's mom on the weekends, though she of couse would need a new wardrobe.
===========Nadir
You're calling names again. Bad form.
==============
It's "bad form" to call you (who advocates a host of socialist plans) a socialist, but "good form" to call Bush Grand Wizard (who has never said anything against black folks).
I don't understand how calling an advocate of socialist programs a "socialist" even qualifies as "name-calling".
=========Nadir
Explain to me how you guys can support a party that provides welfare to corporations but won't help individual citizens when they need it most?
================
Six and I 100% oppose govt welfare for companies, including susidies for Big Ag. I also include here govt money to build pro sports stadiums.
I vote Repo because even though I disagree with them here, the Demos support this as well, so this isn't a differentiating issue. I support a low, flat tax system with no credits, write-offs, etc. I vote Repo because those guys do vote to cut many tax rates, including on capital gains. Such operations stimulate economic activity, which is the main thing that "the poor" need, in my view (combined with their own smart choices and efforts).
I do not believe that the best answer for reducing poverty lies with actions taken by the government; I believe the opposite.
Nadir, now that I've answered all of your questions (as always), perhaps for a change you will answer some of mine for you.
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2006/08/gladwell_on_nat.html
An input of reality.
Nadir:
1. Is there a limit to the amount of people you can help with... guitar lessons?
2. What about you and Six joining forces to help "the poor" learn guitar: providing guitars, time, analysis, etc. How many poor people could you guys help learn guitar each week? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand?
3. If you -- even if combined with Six -- have a limit to the amount of people you can donate guitar lessons to, what makes you think that doctors offices are magic machines that can provide all medical assistance to all people, even if funded by taking money from the paychecks of you and Six?
Certainly there are limited resources in the world. The problem in the US is priorities.
Corporate welfare is more important than the welfare of US citizens. Wars in other countries are more important than the levees in New Orleans or the health of Americans.
Ag subsidies are more important than funding food stamps for poor people. Tax cuts for the rich are more important than tax cuts for the poor who need the money more.
The estate tax, a tax on the rich when they die, is more important than living wages for working class Americans. Higher profits for pharmaceutical companies are more important than lower drug prices.
Better public schools are less important than the money that Haliburton stole from the US government with fraudulent practices in Iraq.
In each of these situations, if the priorities were reversed, the lives of American citizens would be improved AND more money could be made available for a nationalized health care system.
The prioirty for you and other godless capitalists is that the rich should get richer and the poor should stay poor. I just believe that life should be better for everyone, but that the rich take more than their fair share.
What is wrong with equality?
Nadir: I share your opposition to corporate welfare. But those "tax cuts for the rich" have resulted in more money getting into the pockets of non-rich people than any hand out. Estate tax rate cuts as well stimulate the economy (and consequently result in more non-rich people obtaining money than does confiscating wealth from dead "rich" people), and represent people keeping their own property; "living wages" represents me and Six dictating to you what you must pay your drummer and bass player. And those "higher pharmaceutial profits" are what creates those drugs in the first place (not that I think anybody should want to take them).
Many fedl govt expendatures over the past 50 years I would have prefered spent instead on NOLA levees. History may prove you correct about spending on the Iraq war; I hope not.
What is wrong with equality? I don't know what you mean by "equality". You claim to not be a socialist. Equal opportunity and equal status under the law, I agree with. But equal houses, cars, and even healthcare, no, but equal opportunity to obtain the house, car, and healthcare that you want, yes. And history shows that this leads to more people having better houses, cars, and healthcare than they would have via attempts to impose "equality" in any of these goods or services.
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