Late to the party, sorry. But this “fact” is, in fact, not a fact.
Phantoms In The Snow: Canadians’ Use Of Health Care Services In The United States
I believe it is a fact. The problem is that you are citing data that is from eleven to fifteen years old, and furthermore that data refers to a perception that Canadians are “extensively” seeking health care here, which is not what I said.
Still, the Canadian system seems pretty poor, and true to form when you have govenment in charge, little is legal in terms of trying to circumvent it. Take a look at this report (admittedly from Fox News, but unless someone can debunk its blatantly-stated facts I see no reason that it can’t be accepted as accurate): Cite
As you can see, Canadians are having to wait up to a year for MRI’s to address accidental injuries, the Canadian government has made it illegal for private clinics to treat conditions that government health care covers (with the exception that the Canadian Supreme Court has allowed private-pay care due to extensive wait times. Clearly this is a major problem if even the Canadian Supreme Court has found wait times to be so egregious that it has declared an exemption to that law).
Further, and predictably, you have Canadian health care proponents complaining that private-care facilities are draining the country of what is already a shortage of doctors (and why is that, I wonder) and adding to their already admittedly bad wait times. To wit:
“Private clinics don’t produce one new doctor, nurse, or specialist. All they do it take the existing ones out of the public system, make wait times longer for everybody else while people who can pay more and more and more money jump the queue for health care services,” said Natalie Mehra, member of the Ontario Health Coalition.
And here we come to another well-known liberal bugaboo, fairness*:
“People with money are managing to short-circuit our crappy substandard system, and it’s not fair to the people who are forced by poverty to endure it! Wah!”
Yep. Government health care is just like I’ve been describing all along. Long waits, substandard service, and special pains taken (or attempted) to keep people with money from circumventing these admittedly poor systems because it only makes things worse and it isn’t “fair”.
*Damn, I hate that word, “fair”. As adults, it shouldn’t even be in our vocabulary. Things aren’t fair; life isn’t fair. When you try to pound the square peg of fairness into the round hole of reality, all you do is replace the unfairness of random happenstance with artificial unfairness created by man. Either way there’s no such thing as fair, and I’d vastly prefer the unfairness I face to be the result of random happenstance than inflicted by government and impassioned do-gooders incensed by the fact that some people have more than others and blind to the fact that they are creating the worst type of unfairness themselves by virtue of the fact that it is artificial and enforcable only by government fiat.
Man, your naivete is fucking scary.
Sure, it’s a strategy that’s likely to fail a lot. But what if it only fails 95% of the time? That means that you’ve reduced the number of times you have to pay for medical treatment by 5%, and only at the cost of some mailings.
And you can honestly say that you’ve never had any business screw your account up?
WE are at a point where you can not take anything that Fox says as accurate or un-biased. They might just as well call themseleves Republican News Service and be done with it. They repeatedly mis-identify Republicans with ethics problems as Democrats, the have hosts who call the president a racist, say that his birth certificate was destroyed, and can’t tell the difference between 2 cars and 2% of the CARS program. There was a study a few years ago showing thgat the more you listened to Fox the less informed you were on key issues (like whether Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11). If you want to actually learn anything you have to listen to something else.
And pay is based on how much you can cut costs by denying claims rather than by customer satisfaction.
Allow me to clarify that. It is partly true, yet not.
Here in the Netherlands, as in the US, doctors will do all they can to save a patient. However, in the US the focus is upon saving someones life, period. In Holland, a more nuanced calculation is made, and the patients wishes are taken into account, as well. An otherwise healthy (considering her age) 82 year old will get that hip replacement. Anyone with a disease that is treatable and has chances of a good outcome, too, no matter what the age. But a very sick person with one more fatal affliction, where the chances of a positive outcome of treatment are slim to none…They get offered the choice between “we’re going to fix you or you’ll die trying” or “get sent home with palliative care (painkillers, nursing care) to die home at peace”.
So, the age of the patient or the expense of the care aren’t that relevant. What is relevant is the chance that treatment will bring some high-quality healthy years, judged against the discomfort of the treatment to the patient. The difference with the US is that Dutch doc’s aren’t fanatic to save lives at all costs; they are more likely to admit defeat at a certain point and stop trying, and spend all efforts at making the patient comfortable and peaceful.
As for euthanasia, that is another thing all together. Currently euthanasia is only allowed if there is “unbearable suffering without hope”. All cases have to be reported, and two separate doctors have to judge a case to make sure the treating doc does’t lose his licence.
I could say more about Dutch policies on euthanasia, but that’s another subject all together.
I stand corrected. Thank you. 
Starving Artist - I doubt this will make any impression but would you consider just for a few seconds the notion that American society has for decades been the subject of the greatest con in the history of full electoral sufferage. It makes other sales pitch successes like ‘smoking is cool’ and WMD seem like amateur hour in comparison.
I would suggest to you you’re position on health care is the same as saying you think you smoke because you want to and no one ever influenced you in that.
You’ve been subject to decades of emotionally-based, flag waving propaganda on an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with how best to take care of a populations health requirements.
Ahhhh. There’s the problem right there. We don’t really do nuance very well here in the Shining Beacon On The Hill. I suppose you think you’re all hot shit because you take patients’ wishes into account, huh?
Klootzak*.
*
(I kid!)
Thanks for your reasonable and tactfully worded post. I tried to respond several times last night over a period of several hours but the board kept timing out.
I’m curious to know what sales pitch it is you think I have been influenced by. If you’d like to explain further I’ll be happy to respond.
As it is, I can only say that most of my feelings about government social programs, and indeed liberal ideology in the main, are feelings I’ve had since becoming politically aware in my late teens, and from my perspective they are based almost totally on instinct and what appears to me to be common sense.
I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh, though to be honest I did for a couple of years in the early nineties. I don’t watch Fox, nor obviously Hannity, O’Reilly, etc., and to be honest (and perhaps to you, surprisingly) I don’t recall government health care ever being on my radar prior to Hillary Clinton’s effort.
Most of my beliefs and feelings regarding government health care are in line with my disdain for governement in the main, and from my perspective I feel I’ve come up with them on my own.
But like I said, if you’d like to explain where you think I’ve been influenced by outside sources I would happy to take a look at what you have to say.
The provision in the bill that got all this crap started was simply to pay doctors for consulting with patients on the end of life care options. That was to include a living will and hospice care discussion. It had no position on it.
The hospitals are private business. Doctors are private business. Pharmacies are private business. Hospices are private businesses. Where did you people get the idea that our system was getting socialized?
These sort of things already happen. Don’t kid yourself for a minute. But instead of government doing it, it’s insurance companies and accountants making these “medical” decisions.
Sorry, Steve, but I get so tired of this. IT IS NOT SO! I know a good many people who get exactly the care, operations, and medicines that their doctors prescribe because they have (and pay for) coverage (through their employment) that provides it. Others, with less advantageous policies, may get generic drugs instead of brand names, but they still get operations and doctor visits and anything else their particular policies cover.
Yes, insurance companies try to minimize expenditure and maximize profit just like any company does. But they are bound by contract, competition and the routine day-to-day operation of business (i.e., you call a rep to find out if some medication or proceedure is covered and they can usually tell you instantly, based on nothing but the fact that it always is) to provide the coverage they agree to provide.
Starving Artist, what do you think should be done with the old, the sick and the dying? What happens when they run out of money and have no home or family? What happens when they can’t afford medicine or treatments anymore? What should happen when they are so old that surgery would kill them?
Do you believe that you and others should be taxed to help take care of them? Should the rich be taxed to help take care of them?
How do you know that these older people didn’t work hard even well beyond retirement age? I knew a man who used to crawl to work after several heart attacks, you know?
Starving Artist, I spent two or three week ends working with a dozen other women (all of us over the age of fifty) last spring and we raised over $6000 for ALIVE Hospice.. What have you done for a hospice this year? Since you are complaining about going the government route, I think this is a fair question. I’m not asking you to supply any solutions that I haven’t been willing to do myself.
First of all, howdy!
Second of all, I believe we already have programs in place for people like this. My focus has been on the issue of a new national health care program.
In a word, yes…but like I said, I believe we already are.
In my opinion the rich should not be taxed to benefit any particular group of people. I also don’t believe the rich should be taxed at a greater rate than anyone else as I don’t approve of the so-called progressive tax system.
If they work as long as they can, and want to, I say good for them. But like I said, I have no problem with programs to take care of people who, for physical reasons (or for that matter, mental), cannot care for themselves.
Congratulations! I admire you (and the others) for having done so.
Like I would imagine 99.999% of the population, I haven’t done anything for hospice this year (or at any time).
I’m not complaining; I’m fighting. 
I know that. And again I admire you for what you’ve done.
There may come a time when I will follow your example, or there may not. But either way, ideological considerations will not be a factor.
I’m glad to know that you are not opposed to the programs that are already in place. But believe me, there needs to be something more for so many people. As it is, I’m not sure what’s going to happen to them if Medicare goes bust.
As for the hospice, I’m just lucky they picked one I’ve worked for to talk about. Belonging to a church or a club will get you involved in more charities than you can shake a stick at.
Hospices aren’t just for the old either. I looked up a kid I used to babysit for on the internet the other day. Unfortunately, he had died a few months before in a hospice. I’m glad he was there instead of in a hospital though.
David Frum big time repub who was a member of the Bush team was on Tv yesterday. He said the reason the tax cuts were not being made permanent (they end in 2110-11) was because the government needed the revenue due to the rising costs of health care. He said the repubs might not like what they are fighting for if they win. The system in place needs desperately to be fixed. The repubs know it. The dems know it. But the insurance companies are fighting to continue looting the system. It is easy to sway public opinion with loud ,flaming rhetoric which scares the citizens.
Those who think they have great coverage have to think of the future. Their future coverage is at risk. To simply say" I have satisfactory coverage and do not want it changed," assumes that it will continue in the future. It can not. It will not. It can not continue to swallow increasing amounts of wealth ,without dire consequences.
More than 70 percent of the people want UHC. The recent polls which say the support is flagging are flawed. They ask whether you agree with the protesters at the meetings or not ,having a right to protest. Then they interpret that as a rejection of UHC.
The fight against UHC is political. The repubs can not allow it to go through and work. That would show the repubs have been defending an abusive system for generations .
Some words on the Canadian system vs. American healthcare.
I want to hear the joke about the nun and the construction foreman.