Crowder On Health Care
on 07/14/2009 at 10:10 PM
Damn ... Another grand slam Drew. How’d ya find this?
Were you specifically looking or just stumbled on it? Whatever ... well done!Each province has their own health care system, there is no “Canadian” health care system. Everyone seems to get that incorrect.
The delays are definitely inherent in the system, and the extra damage caused by the delays: Oh yeah. I’m pretty much resigned to dying if I get seriously ill.
Taxed on top of Taxes: That becoming far too common in Canada. This practice should be illegal.
Our gasoline has always been more expensive than in the United States due to the taxes.
Peiper - Steve emails me directly. BMEWS is on his mailing list along with IMAO and about 5 other blogs. We’ve all been running his stuff since the beginning. I’m the picky one, choosing to not run the few videos he made that were pretty lame, but most of what he does is both funny and meaningful. The production quality has gone up since he signed on with Pajamas Media, and I’m glad of that.
It’s a video good but as Argentium points out each Province has it’s own system and it would have been better if he had gone to other Provinces to see how they do things. Quebec is in my opinion a bit like London. I would pay good money to avoid. I notice at the end he mentions the cost of food and equates it to the cost in the US, but a Canadian dollar is only worth 90 US cents so it rather spoils his argument. As for being taxed on tax surely this also happens in the US? If you buy something imported chances are it has duty (ie tax). On top of that you pay sales tax. Or if you buy gasoline I suspect there is an element of tax in the price with sales tax added after. Or am I missing something here?
However as far as NHS systems go I think Mark Steyn has the best take on it. Once you introduce socialised medicine you change the relationship of the citizen to the state. The citizen is the junkie and the state becomes the pusher. Once you get an NHS in you will never get rid of it and like most government run organisations it will be inefficient and expensive.
I wrote to a cousin of the wife who lives in Canada. I passed on the video which she didn’t see but I gave a brief (very) description. I also wrote to a friend there who moved back after many years in the states. Anyway ... just for interest, here are their replies.
I confess I do not understand the reference made, “Talk about a dyslexic system” in relation to a lady having to return to work in the second letter below.
Good to hear from you even if it is about our so called ‘flawed’ healthcare.
Here in the west things may be different than back east speaking of our National HC. People sometimes misuse the plan and a triage system had to be set up to give the sicker patients in an emergency room quicker care. One is aware of the length of time to be seen so you bring a book. I also had to wait a few hours to be seen when I fell...they could see I was not in distress even though it followed that I had broken a small bone in my head and turned out I had a smashed face with much bruising. I went for a scan where they picked up the break. From then on things happened very quickly. I saw an ophthalmologist in 2 days and followed that in a month. I saw a plastic surgeon in 2 days and was assessed on the condition of my face and broken bone. I was relieved that wait and heal was the best route. I waited for my face to heal before I saw my family doc, (1 mo.) about the fall and feeling tired and short of breath. He put me in a Holter and monitored my pulse for 24 hours. Immediately as an emergency I was admitted for a pace maker and had superb looking after. I was there for 4,5 days where daily I had and ecg and various blood work. After that I went for a follow up for my back and was rebooked for a surgery( I was too chicken to have it last year) that will happen on Aug 17th. Once in the system for a particular problem, one gets great care. Anyway, I am still being followed up with various things, just yesterday saw an internist for my BP, which is high and saw him, a specialist, 3 times in a month. For all this we were not billed a penny.
So you see I think our health care is pretty good, nothing is perfect. We pay about 100.00 a month per family, and according to income, it can be as little as 20.00 mo or even free.
That video then is not truly accurate although some true points were brought up. Those kids were obviously making fun of the system and did not go about getting into the system through proper channels. My daughter and her family arrived here and were being looked after well in 3 months, 2 kids and all and much stressed conditions following such a large move from Cali that needed many trips to doctors. They also bit-- but generally are happy esp where the kids are concerned. Of course all this costs money and cost of living may be higher but also salaries are higher. So all in all I am happy here considering I had no coverage in US. Life is also better in all ....so do come and see for yourselves and join me here, I’d love to see you soon. Hope this makes sense to you......how does it compare with UK?I’m on vacation so I’m not going to read a rant. The US is having this big push on extending health care so all the people with vested interests in the status quo are coming out in force. The US system is the most expensive as a proportion of GDP in the world (14% in US v 10% in Canada, I think) and yet around 20% of people have no coverage. John’s poor little niece has to go back to work full time 3 months after having her baby because she has healthcare coverage with her job and her husband does not. Talk about a dyslexic system.
I broke my arm in January and my care has been great. If people have very expensive problems then that can be difficult (sometimes they get sent to the States for care and sometimes the system pays for that). The waits are too long for some tests. The hospital food is terrible, privatized. But overall the care is not too bad, no worse than the NHS in the UK and for some things the outcomes are better than the US. Certainly the overall mortality rates are lower in Canada than in the US.
> John’s poor little niece has to go back to work full time 3 months after having her
> baby because she has healthcare coverage with her job and her husband does not.Um, yeah, if she’s got the job with the healthcare coverage, her employer is going to expect her to actually ... y’know… WORK in order to get that particular benefit. He’s not going to give it to her for free.
> Talk about a dyslexic system.
Nothing dyslexic about it at all - makes perfect sense to me.
Tiger ... I thought the same as you. That line didn’t make sense to me at all but it shows ya how even well educated folks have ... what’s the word? Mindset. That’s it.
Ppl conditioned to think that way and see nothing amiss at the idea, as you point out, one works to earn a certain benefit. No longer. It’s now apparently a God given right.
07/15/2009 at 04:06 AM
07/15/2009 at 07:03 AM
