Think Canada Has Better Health Care Coverage?

[Destroit]

You can go ahead and research, verify, study, etc this, but it is not an official "news" thing, it was written by a Canadian citizen. If you do, however, research it and try to verify it, you will find that you can easily (i.e. it's pretty fucking accurate):

I saw on the news up here in Canada where Hillary Clinton introduced her new health care plan. Something similar to what we have in Canada. I also hear that Michael Moore was raving about the health care up here in Canada in his latest movie. As someone who lives on the Canada health care plan, I thought I would give you some facts about this great medical plan that we have in Canada.

First of all:

1) The health care plan in Canada is not free. We pay a premium every month of $96 for Shirley and I to be covered. Sounds great! What they don't tell you is how much money we pay in taxes to keep the health care system afloat. I am persoanlly in the 55% tax bracket. Yes 55% of my earnings go to taxes. A large portion of that (I am not sure of the exact amount) goes directly to health care, our #1 expense.

2) I would not classify what we have has as a health care plan, it is more like a health diagnosis system. You can get into see a doctor quick enough so he can tell you "yes, indeed you are sick or you need an operation" but now the challenge becomes getting treated or operated on. We have waiting lists out the ying yang, some as much as 2 years down the road.

3) Rather than fix what is wrong with you, the usual tactic in Canada is to prescribe drugs. Have a pain - here is a drug to take - not what is causing the pain and why. No time for checking you out because it is more important to move as many patients thru as possible each hour for the Government to re-imburse.

4) Many Canadians do not have a family doctor.

5) Don't require emergency treatment as you may wait for hours in the emergency room waiting for treatment. ('Kay so this one we have over here in America sometimes too )

6) Shirley's dad cut his hand on a power saw a few weeks back and it required that his hand be put in a splint - to our surprise we had to pay $125 for a splint because it is not covered under health care, plus we have to pay $60 for each visit for the doctor to check it out each week.

7) Shirley's cousin was diagnosed with a heart blockage. He was put on a waiting list...died before he could get treatment.

8) Government allots so many operations per year. When that is done no more operations, unless you go to your local newspaper and plead your case and embarrass the government, then money suddenly appears.

9) The Government takes great pride in telling us how much more they are increasing the funding for health care but waitings lists never get shorter. Government just keeps throwing money at the problem, but it never goes away. Theya re good at finding new ways to tax us, but they don't call it a tax anymore it is now a "user fee"

10) A friend needs an operation for a blockage in her leg, but because she is a smoker they will not do it despite paying into the health care system all these years. My friend is 65 years old. Now there is talk that maybe we should not treat fat and obese people either because they are a drain on the health care system. Let me see now, what we want in Canada is a health care system for healthy people only. That should reduce our costs.

11) Forget getting a second opinion, what you see is what you get.

12) I can spend what money I have left after taxes on booze, cigarettes, junk food and anything else that could kill me, but I am not allowed by law to spend my money on getting an operation I need because that would be jumping the queue. I must wait my turn except if I am a hockey player or athlete then I can get looked at right away. Go figure. Where else in the world can you spend money to kill yourself but are not allowed to spend money to get healthy.

13) Oh, did I mention that immigrants are covered automatically at tax payer expense having never contributed a dollar to the system and pay no premiums?

14) We now give free needles to drug usuers to try and keep them healthy. Wouldn't want a sickly druggie breaking into your house and stealing your things. But people with diabetes who pay into the health care system have to pay for their own needles because it is not covered.

I send this out not looking for sympathy but as the election looms in the states you will be hearing more and more about universal health care down there, and the advocates will be pointing to Canada. I just want to make sure that you know the truth about health care up here and have some food for thought and informed questions to ask when broached with this subject.

Step back and don't make the same mistakes we have.

[Fierce Critter]

Yep. I agree. It's there for them, but also not there at the same time.

It's a majorly flawed system.

But that doesn't mean we can't do it better/right.

But I don't think anything like this is going to happen unless hospitals cease to be profit-making companies. I find it actually repugnant that they're not non-profit.

[Head Wreck]

sounds like our health care system

[know_buddy_kares]

honestly.. it's greed that fucks anything up. at least canada is fair about it. But I've noticed that people start singing a different tune once they can no longer afford health insurance...