# Healthcare - The More I Learn the More Disgusted I Become **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 26, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687 "2009-09-26T22:53:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/101 "2009-09-28T01:13:31Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > I get a bit tired repeating it all the time, but apparently nobody listens to the facts… Actually, it’s mostly The Underfed One who doesn’t listen… he just happens to be very noisy about it. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/102 "2009-09-28T02:43:27Z")
Jim and I had an example of Canadian healthcare in the spring of 2008 - Jim had an acute gallbladder attack, and it had to come out. He waited for three days to have his operation and spent a week in the hospital after that (he had to have the big incision, rather than the easy keyhole surgery). The emergency room visit, week in hospital and the surgery cost us a grand total of…nothing. This all happened in Calgary, where you can find some of the worst wait times in Canada. If I want to go in and get my tubes tied on a whim, yeah, I’d probably wait anywhere from six months to a year for that, but that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I also know I can go to a rural hospital nearby and probably have my wait times cut drastically (for the same level of care, and the same zero cost). Would we trade our healthcare system for an American system? Not no but hell no. Do we have systemic problems here that need serious work on fixing? Oh yeah. But health problems won’t ruin you financially here, and we don’t make decisions on employment and marriage based on healthcare costs. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/103 "2009-09-28T03:24:25Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I call bullshit on this claim. > > I have a ‘middle income’, and my total payroll deductions (including 5% 401k deductions) are 25%. Sales tax in this state are nowhere near 25% of my income. Beat me to it. About 28% of my paycheck goes to deductions which includes my healthcare. Yeah, I have healthcare. My work pays half of it. Ever single year for the past several years they have raised our rates by dropping our existing plan and forcing us to choose a more expensive plan with slightly less coverage or a cheaper plan (that’s closer in price to what we were paying) but has much less coverage. The last time they did this we had to pick a plan with a deductible. Now we have to pay more for our heathcare because it won’t really cover us until we’ve shelled out about $1,500 for the year and it resets every year so we have to pay at least $1,500 every year in addition to our premium and copays. So I have healthcare but I can’t even afford to use it. It’s basically just in case I have a life threatening problem and then I’ll just have to go into debt to get it taken care of. However, maybe if my deductible wasn’t so outrageous I could get the little things taken care of before they turn into life-threatening problems? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/104 "2009-09-28T03:47:11Z")
> [@hobscrk777](#): > > So to the people against reforming this system I have only this to say: you make me sick. And I mean that literally. I consider myself a fairly stoic individual, one who doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve. But I get physically queasy when I read this absolutely deplorable litany of factoids and statistics. I don’t understand how you can sleep at night. They sleep nice and comfy on their mattresses stuffed with $50’s and $100’s (nice post btw - I liked the links) ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/105 "2009-09-28T03:52:24Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I take it you’re referring to the [_Chaoulli_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaoulli_v._Quebec_(Attorney_General)) decision. In selecting that decision to prove your point, you’d be “sort of correct”: the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) did find that unreasonable wait times compromised the patient’s rights under the _Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms_, as well as the _Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms_. Where you’d be wrong is that _Chaoulli_ applies only to the province of Quebec–not Canada as a whole. More’s the pity, I suppose, but because Quebec-specific legislation was at issue in _Chaoulli_, the decision couldn’t apply to the other provinces. **Spoons** , this has been told to **Starving Artist** again, and again and again in exhausting detail. Thanks for trying again. However, don’t be disappointed when he trots out this crappy argument in the future. He CANNOT understand your post. He can read it, but his neurons do not fire. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/106 "2009-09-28T04:02:38Z")
Final comment of the night: I totally agree with **Muffin** , **Cat Wisperer** and others. I don’t know ANYBODY who would trade our health care system in Canada for that in the USA. We know it needs improvements, and hope that we can make it better. I’m sorry that **Starving Artist** does not seem able to understand facts, and I"m sorry that **Carol Stream** seems to feel that he’ll be out of a job if the US gets some form of public health, but those are the breaks. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/107 "2009-09-28T04:04:01Z")
What the hell do you guys know about it? Just because you live there? ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/108 "2009-09-28T05:18:00Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > **Spoons** , this has been told to **Starving Artist** again, and again and again in exhausting detail. Thanks for trying again. However, don’t be disappointed when he trots out this crappy argument in the future. He CANNOT understand your post. He can read it, but his neurons do not fire. So what are you saying? That Quebec is the only province plagued by unreasonably long wait times? It hardly matters if the Supreme Court’s decision only applies only to Quebec if the same or similar conditions exist throughout the rest of Canada’s health care system. We had a Canadian poster here a year or two ago whose name I can’t recall and whose post I’ve been unable to find given the limitations of the board’s search function whose mother had to wait nine months to begin treatment of her cancer, and that was a huge red flag to me. And contrary to **elucidator’s** claims, I’ve posted cites to other problems in the Canadian health care system, such as Dr. Doig’s comments and the proposed cutbacks in necessary surgeries in Vancouver due to lack of sufficient funding, and they’ve been roundly ignored just like the fact that wait times in Quebec got so bad that the Canadian Supreme Court had to approve private treatment outside the system (which in my opinion is another drawback to government health care…IMO the government should have no right anyway to tell you that you have to stay within its system and that you can’t get private help even if you can afford to do so). People around here simply want government health care and that’s all there is to it. So they exaggerate and whinge about such things as insurance company malfeasance; they ignore the fact 70 to 80 percent of the people in this country already have coverage they are happy to very happy with; and they ignore or belittle evidence of serious problems with UHC in other countries. All in all, it’s just the same old, same old here at the so-called ignorance-fighting Straight Dope. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/109 "2009-09-28T05:44:05Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > they ignore or belittle evidence of serious problems with UHC in other countries. So how do you explain the relative lack of horror stories directly from those countries? The vast, vast majority of we seem to hear from Canadians and such is “please, do NOT bring the U.S. system to our country, PLEASE!” If you put stock in the polls about health insurance here (and people have already pointed out how easily the insured can be denied coverage or dropped entirely the second they really need it, before they have reason to respond unhappily to a poll), then why don’t you put any stock into that? (Yes, I know you gave an example of someone with a Canadian HS horror story, but the number seems rather small, especially compared to the horror stories from Americans - which I admit there are more of on this board, but still.) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/110 "2009-09-28T05:49:01Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > People around here simply want government health care and that’s all there is to it. So they exaggerate and whinge about such things as insurance company malfeasance; they ignore the fact 70 to 80 percent of the people in this country already have coverage they are happy to very happy with; and they ignore or belittle evidence of serious problems with UHC in other countries. > > All in all, it’s just the same old, same old here at the so-called ignorance-fighting Straight Dope. :rolleyes: No, what is new is that your example is even more weak as it is clear that it does not apply to all Canada. Before I noticed that Dr. Doig’s comments in reality were only directed to specific issues in Canada, and in the end the Dr. clarified that the American system was not being proposed as a solution. It is true that there is satisfaction for many in the current system, but also many do also agree that there should be at least a public option, because most Americans know that being satisfied now means horse-puckey when coverage can denied or lost thanks to your employment condition or when an insurer decides that you are a burden. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/111 "2009-09-28T05:54:15Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > So how do you explain the relative lack of horror stories directly from those countries? The vast, vast majority of we seem to hear from Canadians and such is “please, do NOT bring the U.S. system to our country, PLEASE!” If you put stock in the polls about health insurance here (and people have already pointed out how easily the insured can be denied coverage or dropped entirely the second they really need it, before they have reason to respond unhappily to a poll), then why don’t you put any stock into that? > > (Yes, I know you gave an example of someone with a Canadian HS horror story, but the number seems rather small, especially compared to the horror stories from Americans - which I admit there are more of on this board, but still.) The fact that only a very small minority at any given time needs expensive care or care for extremely serious illness. ISTM that most people would be happy with a government health care system when their primary experience with it is Band-Aids, flu shots or broken arms…or in just knowing that they are covered in case something happens. Where serious problems seem to come in is in later life or in some other circumstance where the care that is needed is expensive and/or ongoing. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/112 "2009-09-28T06:14:38Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > or in just knowing that they are covered in case something happens. This may be irrelevant to what you’re saying (depends how you meant this), but there’s nothing wrong with that. Peace of mind is a powerful positive economic force, given how it tends to be reflected in consumer confidence and spending. > [@](#): > > Where serious problems seem to come in is in later life or in some other circumstance where the care that is needed is expensive and/or ongoing. But that wouldn’t prevent the horror stories from coming out. We hear them all the time from grown children. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/113 "2009-09-28T06:21:58Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > The fact that only a very small minority at any given time needs expensive care or care for extremely serious illness. ISTM that most people would be happy with a government health care system when their primary experience with it is Band-Aids, flu shots or broken arms…or in just knowing that they are covered in case something happens. Where serious problems seem to come in is in later life or in some other circumstance where the care that is needed is expensive and/or ongoing. I have government health care (Alberta, Canada) and I completely disagree with your statement. I have a serious medical problem earlier in life, that will be lifelong, and it requires expensive and ongoing care. I am absolutely satisfied with the care I am receiving, and there is no way in hell I would move to the US and risk having to be covered under your healthcare system. _Details:_ I am a fairly young person (30) with a serious health condition (Crohn’s disease). I received a fairly prompt diagnosis with short waits for testing (e.g. three or four days to get a CT scan, and it would have been shorter except that was over a weekend) and short waits to initially see a specialist (e.g. if I had a less urgent condition like irritable bowel syndrome not requiring quick treatment I might have had to wait several months to see the GI doc, but since the CT said I likely had moderate Crohn’s I got in in 2-3 weeks, and my GP had already placed me on appropriate medication to manage it until then.). I require expensive and ongoing health care (visit GP monthly and specialist 2-3 times per year, 3 colonoscopies in the last year and a half, expensive medication on the order of $20,000 per year), and there is a high likelihood that I will require major medical care in the future for that condition and also for another health problem that requires no current treatment but might become serious in the future. There are a few areas where I think our healthcare system could be improved, but there is no way I would ever want to move to the US or make changes to our system so it is more like the US. People everywhere love to bitch about health care, but I know virtually no one who wants to scrap our universal healthcare system. My biggest priority for change would be better dental coverage (since very little dental care is covered by the government unless it’s so bad it becomes a medical emergency), and better prescription drug coverage (since only drugs provided in hospital are covered under our healthcare system). However, the prescription problem is greatly alleviated by a [non-group prescription drug plan](https://www.ab.bluecross.ca/gov_aps.html) that I get through Alberta Blue Cross. This plan is administered by Blue Cross but is funded by the provincial government, and it accepts all patients in the province who are covered by health care, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Premium for a single person is currently $41 per month (going up to $63 per month in July 2010, which I have no complaints about but some people are worried may be hard on seniors on a fixed income), and a co-pay 30% of my prescription costs, up to a maximum of $25 per prescription. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/114 "2009-09-28T06:55:43Z")
> [@](#): > > We had a Canadian poster here a year or two ago whose name I can’t recall and whose post I’ve been unable to find given the limitations of the board’s search function whose mother had to wait nine months to begin treatment of her cancer, and that was a huge red flag to me. I had to wait for over a year and a half for my insurance company to cover a DIAGNOSTIC TEST for my heart disease, to find out what was wrong and how to start treating it. I only got the test and treatment after I switched companies. Oh, the first company would cover the test…theoretically. However, in practice, it would drag its feet much better than any government agency that I know of. It’s not just one company, either. I frequently talk to the front office staff of my various doctors, and I’ve heard that currently, many insurance companies are not at all efficient when it comes to paying their portion of the doctor’s fee. It’s not just the patients who suffer from our system, it’s also the providers. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/115 "2009-09-28T10:16:54Z")
Like I said before, if CNN or some other mainstream media outlet put a film crew and interviewer live outside any UHC hospital in Europe (or any of the other 30 most industrialized countries) for half an hour a night for a week talking to any random people who came out, this entire debate would be over by Wednesday of that week. Let the people speak. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/116 "2009-09-28T12:06:11Z")
They would be dismissed for being communist cheese eating surrender monkeys. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/117 "2009-09-28T13:43:27Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Actually, it’s mostly **The Underfed One** who doesn’t listen… he just happens to be very noisy about it. (bolding mine) Hee hee. Think he might change his views a bit if I send him a CARE package, so he’s well-fed? I can understand being grumpy because of hunger (because I get grouchy when I miss my mealtime, too), and care packages were used with the intent of political propaganda before… ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/118 "2009-09-28T13:47:29Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Unfortunately I have to leave for work now, but I’ve cited several times around here where in Canada waits have gotten so bad that the Supreme Court ruled exceptions could be made in the case of unreasonably long waits so as to allow private care for conditions covered by the Canadian system, something that is otherwise illegal. I’ve posted cites showing that the incoming president of the Canadian system says that most Canadians have no idea how bad things are in Canada with regard to its health care system, and I’ve provided cites as to cutbacks in necessary surgeries are being mulled in Vancouver due to lack of funding. I’ve also read and posted a couple of cites regarding wait times in the U.K. A search of this keywords and my user name should reveal them, but I can tell you from experience that the typical Doper response is “So? They don’t recommend changing to the U.S. system, do they?”, which of course has nothing at all to do with the fact that their systems are barely working, or the fact that our system works very well and in a timely fashion for the majority of our citizens. You are correct that Canada appears to have the worst wait times, but the US is almost as bad according to [this article:](http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2007/tc20070621_716260.htm) > [@](#): > > There is no systemized, nationwide collection of data on wait times in the U.S., making it difficult to compare delays to those in countries with national health systems, who typically track and publish data on wait times. But a 2005 survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund of sicker adults in six highly industrialized countries found that only Canada was worse than the U.S. when it came to waiting six days or longer to schedule a doctor’s appointment for a medical problem. > > Of the countries surveyed, 81% of patients in New Zealand got a same or next-day appointment for a nonroutine visit, 71% in Britain, 69% in Germany, 66% in Australia, 47% in the U.S., and 36% in Canada. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/119 "2009-09-28T13:53:02Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > Like I said before, if CNN or some other mainstream media outlet put a film crew and interviewer live outside any UHC hospital in Europe (or any of the other 30 most industrialized countries) for half an hour a night for a week talking to any random people who came out, this entire debate would be over by Wednesday of that week. > > Let the people speak. Wouldn’t work. As per [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=503766) from earlier this year, those who oppose a UHC for the US would claim that the US is so different from the other places that it cannot do like they do. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687/120 "2009-09-28T13:55:38Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > (bolding mine) > > Hee hee. Think he might change his views a bit if I send him a CARE package, so he’s well-fed? I can understand being grumpy because of hunger (because I get grouchy when I miss my mealtime, too), and care packages were used with the intent of political propaganda before… Vacuum-packaged sausages and Toblerone? We want to make sure he gets lots of energy! Glad I was able to make you smile 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/healthcare-the-more-i-learn-the-more-disgusted-i-become/511687.md?page=7)