Dismayed Americans contemplate Canada

Why · Joined: 06 Dec 2003 Posts: 51

Wrong Canuck, we do our homework and your healthcare may be more successful at the moment but also keep in mind that we have a population 200 million more than you and keeping care to everyone of them isn't a walk in the park. I don't like it either having to wait, but where one measure is filled the other goes blank.

Galmin · The King has spoken! Joined: 30 Dec 2001 Posts: 1711

Quote:
Wrong Canuck, we do our homework and your healthcare may be more successful at the moment but also keep in mind that we have a population 200 million more than you and keeping care to everyone of them isn't a walk in the park. I don't like it either having to wait, but where one measure is filled the other goes blank.

This is a rather ignorant post.

You see, no matter if you have a population of 1 million or 290 million, the system by itself would be the same.

Thus, if the US had as small a population as Canada, 15% would still be without healthcare!

bbchris · Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:17 pm Post subject: Re: re: another thing

Canadian health system sounds pretty good to me.

DreamTone7 · Joined: 20 Sep 2002 Posts: 2571

Sounds good to me too, chris. Problem is it doesn't work. You may not have to wait a long time for a mammogram, but there are many things you do have to wait a year for.

bbchris · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 4:51 am Post subject: Re: re: another thing

I don't think any country in the world (possibly New Zealand) doesn't have to wait for this that or another. I know the National Health in UK has long waits. Here in HK if you are not high priority, you have to wait. However if you are high priority they treat you fast. A friend of Shaun's got diagnosed with cancer of the stomach and was operated on within 2 weeks. He's been clear for 3 years now.

DreamTone7 · Joined: 20 Sep 2002 Posts: 2571

Not much waiting at all here in the states...as long as you have the money/insurance. Truth is, many rich Canadians get their treatment here in the US for this very reason. Quality of care, and no waiting.

Galmin · The King has spoken! Joined: 30 Dec 2001 Posts: 1711

Quote:
Not much waiting at all here in the states...as long as you have the money/insurance

Wich 15% of the population do not.

DreamTone7 · Joined: 20 Sep 2002 Posts: 2571

While I would not say that medical aid is available to all, I will say that the situation here is better than you paint it, Galmin. (Big surprise, huh?) Most states have medical aid programs that help out those people that make below a certain amount of money...which cuts the percentage of those that don't have access to medical services way down. No system is perfect...in Canada, some die while waiting for a life-saving operation...though this does not happen often, it happens more in Canada than in the US.

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

"canada's universal healthcare system is a disaster"

Quote:
I'm hoping this means that healthcare is now much better in America? I have no idea what Canadian healthcare is like but I know without medical insurance in USA, you have no chance of medical help? Is this true?

Chris, I don't know that I'd call Canadian healthcare a "disaster", but it's not very patient-friendly. I read of one case a short while back where a guy whose appendix had burst was refused treatment because he didn't have the paperwork. He was sent back home to get the papers but he died before he could made it back to the hospital.

You pretty much have to plan to need treatment months in advance, even for things as serious as a heart bypass. Canadians who can afford it often cross the border to the US for reliable and immediate treatment of anything serious. My state borders Canada and we see alot of that happening. Of course, Minnesota in particular has a great rep for medical treatment; you very likely have heard of the Mayo Clinic, for example.

Regarding your question, though. If someone is in need of care and can't afford it, they still get treatment. There's a safety net of programs on the national and state levels. Also, the instance I mentioned in Canada, where a person was denied life-saving treatment wouldn't happen in the US. Or least if it did happen, the hospital, doctors, all involved would be sued for big $$.

For example, if someone has a condition that's life threatening they can go to the nearest hospital for treatment - it could be the most expensive, swanky one in town. The person would then be treated and hospitilized, if needed. It doesn't matter if the person doesn't have the funds or insurance, the medical center is obligated by law and ethics to provide needed healthcare.

When the patient is stable enough to be ambulatory, s/he would be sent to the local government-funded hospital (usually a county medical center) for any further treatment, hospitalization and follow-up care. The "swanky" hospital writes the cost off on it's taxes. So a debit turns to credit in the books.

But if people can afford insurance, getting it should be at the top of the "to do" list. Earlier this year when our yougest bro had a near-fatal bout of diverticulitis (severe liver, colon disease), the total medical cost was just over $100,000. But his insurance was good - his co-pay (the amount he's responible for) was somewhere between $1 - 2,000.

Galmin · The King has spoken! Joined: 30 Dec 2001 Posts: 1711

Quote:
For example, if someone has a condition that's life threatening they can go to the nearest hospital for treatment - it could be the most expensive, swanky one in town. The person would then be treated and hospitilized, if needed. It doesn't matter if the person doesn't have the funds or insurance, the medical center is obligated by law and ethics to provide needed healthcare.

What about a condition that is not an immediate threat to your life but that without treatment most probably will be fatal? What about a condition that will not kill you but make your life into a living hell?

Now imagine you've got no insurance.

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

I don't believe you read my previous post comprehensively, Gal - you missed:

"If someone is in need of care and can't afford it, they still get treatment. There's a safety net of programs on the national and state levels.".

If a person has a debilitating condition or a condition that will result in death, e.g AIDs, and they can't afford to pay the medical cost involved, that's where the safety net comes into play. Various programs, like Medicare and Medicaid ,for example. If a person has no income due the condition, they are additionally eligible for finiancial assistance, such as monthy payments of SSI - (Supplementtal Security Income) on the Federal-national level and from the the varying programs on the state level.

E.g. a close friend of mine had juvenile diabetes (type I) since about the age of nine. When it became physically and finiacially unmanagable later on when she was an adult, she received a monthly income from SSI, Medicaid and food stamps. While it wasn't a life of luxury, it met all her needs. That included coverage for dialysis, medication, hospitization, two kidney transplants (by a world-reknowned transplant doctor) and all the other ravages that makes some diabetics' lives a "living hell". She passed away while in her 40s due the severe nature of the disease as it progesses.

In places where healthcare is rationed due the very nature of socialism, there is a trade-off : "free" medical care vs. quality medical care. As the president of Czechoslovakia noted, that's one of the many problems of "living in a dreamworld" where everything is free (in his reference to Old Europe socialism).

EU doctors are now alarmed about the impending the implosion of the EU bureaucratic-socialist run (i.e. incompetent) healthcare:

BBC - EU plans 'risk patients' safety'

EU plans 'risk patients' safety'

Saturday, 30 October, 2004

Patients could be put at risk by new proposals from the European Union, doctors' leaders have warned.

The British Medical Association has warned against a lowering of doctors' standards in the UK.

The BMA's Dr Edwin Borman said: "Patients in the UK have different expectations from patients in Germany."

The draft directive - unlikely to come into effect for some two years - aims to create a common internal EU market in various services.

There are also concerns the proposed EU Services Directive could bring an excessively business-oriented approach to healthcare.

It is designed to ensure free movement of doctors and other providers of services around the EU.

BMA

The BMA is lobbying for healthcare to be excluded from the measure as it fears the UK would then not be able to ensure doctors are of the highest standard.

It says safeguards must be guaranteed before the plans are approved.

BBC social affairs reporter Jane Dreaper says government ministers support the exclusion of healthcare from the directive.

Dr Borman, head of the BMA's international committee, said the proposals undermined a country's ability to decide what was in the best interests of patients.

"In the UK, clinical guidelines, referral schemes, licence to practice procedures and many other safeguards could all be removed if this directive is adopted," he said.

"Our concerns must be met if patient safety is to be guaranteed and standards assured across the NHS."

Europe-wide concern

Doctors in Germany, France and Poland say they share UK doctors' fears, although the European Commission denies it is trying to tell individual countries how to run their health services.

At present, each EU member state regulates its own healthcare system - setting the standards, clinical guidelines and rules on qualifications for doctors working within its borders.

Under the directive, a member state would have to justify any rules under market requirements, proving them to be "non-discriminatory, necessary or proportional".

In addition, a doctor working in the UK who had qualified in another EU country would effectively be regulated by their home country.

At present, anyone working as a doctor in the UK is regulated by the General Medical Council (GMC).

Public funding

The GMC said it was studying the directive's implications and working with the commission to ensure safeguards were in place.

A Department of Health spokesman said the directive - broadly supported by the UK - was under discussion within working groups in Brussels.

"The initial view of the majority of member states, including the UK, is that publicly funded health services should be excluded from the scope of the directive," he said.

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said there was no advantage in moving away from a country-by-country basis because of the differences in services in member states.

"Healthcare services, with the exception of mutual availability to healthcare access in other countries when visiting, should not be harmonised between EU countries," he said.

The BMA plans to raise its concerns with MEPs ahead of a public hearing on the directive in Brussels on 11 November

Galmin · The King has spoken! Joined: 30 Dec 2001 Posts: 1711

There was a case in Arizona in 93 or 94 where a girl needed a liver transplant, had no money and no insurance so she kited a few checks that were over the felony limit and the State of AZ paid for her transplant while she was in the pen.

So, uh, as long as you give up your rights, you can have medical treatment? :lol

RonOnGuitar · Joined: 08 Jan 2003 Posts: 1916

That doesn't make any sense at all, Gal. You can't buy or sell livers or any other body part. I believe a close match, e.g. a living relative, may donate part of his/her liver, but otherwise for most major organs you have to wait until somebody who is a donor dies and who is a possible good match. So it's a waiting game - there are more people who need donated organs than there are donors.

So no one could go to a hospital, get an on-the-spot liver transplant and then write bad/kite checks to pay for it. And in the scenerio you've mentioned - supposedly a decade ago - the person got a transplant while in prison. As I said it doesn't add up - a person got a transplant by writing bad checks while free and got the same time transplant while in prison???

In such a scenerio, a person would be well advised to get government-paid financial and medical assistance (such as I metioned in my last post) while on the other side of jail bars.

But even if such a case had occured - lo, those many years back - it would have been the obvious rarity that demonstrates the maxim "The exception proves the rule".

It would futher underline the UK doctors' concerns noted in the BBC articlea bout the inferior and unelaible nature of EU medical practice; pointing out that someone in a US prison is much more likely to receive reliable, superior care!

I believe I mentioned earlier in this thread - I'm too lazy to go back and check - that it is news when - as in the original thread topic here - a few losers pack their bags and head off to Canada (or to be a citizen of any other nation). Americans just tell 'em "Be careful - don't let the door hit you ass on the way out!" It's good riddance to bad rubbish and we can just only hope the don't come crying back.

What is the norm (the rule proven by just such an exception) is every year millions of people seek to escape their failured governments to come to America for a chance at a better life. They want to come in by the millions - legally and illegally - wether it's to visit the US for the best healthcare in the world (which, as you've noted, even extends to US jails), to find fulfillment of things they could only dream of in their former land, or for any other countless number of reasons.

But I do realize that Amer-envy often runs deep amongst some of those who've been left behind, not having been fortunate enough to have that same opportunity for a better life. I think it's an ancient saying, but it's still true - "The grapes that are out of one's reach are the bitter ones." C'est la vie.

questionnaire · Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 640

"But I do realize that Amer-envy often runs deep amongst some of those who've been left behind, not having been fortunate enough to have that same opportunity for a better life. I think it's an ancient saying, but it's still true - "The grapes that are out of one's reach are the bitter ones." C'est la vie."

Ron, you're a very sad, very deluded, very ignorant and badly educated man.

I don't blame you personally, though. I think that you honestly believe that you're telling the truth, like most crazy supremacists. You and other poor backward simpletons like you have no idea that you are simply unthinking products of an immensely powerful belief-system, and thus your string of lies is probably unintended. At least I hope that is the case.

Nothing you say ever stands up to factual analysis. Such as this:

The USA spends more per capita on healthcare than any other nation. Yet for life expectancy it ranks at best #18 if you analyse the population as a whole and at worst #29 if you base the analysis on the working classes and poorer sectors.

This is the top 5:

1. Japan 81.3

2. Sweden 79.9

3. Canada 79.2

4. Spain 79.1

5. Switzerland 79.0

Sir Michael Marmot, professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London, argues that money is not the answer to better health. More important are diet, which reduces disease, and social cohesion, which reduces stress on individuals and thus lowers the illness rates, and low crime, which lowers the murder rate. Social democratic countries with a liberal culture, a regulated market economy, proper tenured job contracts, job creation programmes, stable communities and redistributive welfare systems have a far superior life expectancy rate and a far superior way of life.

My country, the UK, has slipped from #6 to #15 since we allowed ourselves to be infiltrated by US politics and business culture from the 1980s onwards. It's time for us to kick out Blair, cut back relations with the USA, become properly European and support the working class social democrats and liberals in America in their efforts to crush the politics of Bush and his goons out of existence.

The USA is a stressful, hard-edged, socially divided, competitive, violent and insecure place with a poor diet and a backward 17th century Christian culture outside of its cosmopolitan seaboard cities that makes many of its badly-educated and obese citizens ill. It is not fit to be leading the world and its plans for more global influence should be resisted by peaceful protest.

One of the worst life expectancies rates in the developed world, the highest murder and crime rates, the worst obesity and stupidity rates, full of religous nutcases, swindlers, medicine-men and wide-boy businessmen, the most revolting food and one of the most aggressive, supremacist and bad-mannered populations in history??

Oh, and I forgot - hated by most of the rest of the world.

Jealous of you???? :aua

Galmin · The King has spoken! Joined: 30 Dec 2001 Posts: 1711

Quote:
So no one could go to a hospital, get an on-the-spot liver transplant and then write bad/kite checks to pay for it. And in the scenerio you've mentioned - supposedly a decade ago - the person got a transplant while in prison.

No. The reason why she kited the checks over the felony limit was to get herself in jail and thus get the treatment she needed.

Ironically enough, the livertransplant-girl-example is being used as an argument for how "losers get everything they ask for shoved over them from the government" and "The prisoners get excellent medical care and we normal people do not. Unfair!" on another BB. I just had to share.

Tell me, in your El-Doradorian health-system, why is it that:

-death from cardiovascular disease is about 30% higher among African American adults than among white adults?

-African American (21.6% uninsured)

-White Non-Hispanics (11.6% uninsured)

-If you get everything you need, why have an insurance? :lol

I am waiting, Candide.

Edited by: Galmin at: 11/2/04 10:19