Canadian Consensus - View our election through the neighbor's window :)

[Slamfire]

When my mom's cancer reached it's final stages, my step-father had to take money out of his 401K to pay for her care because it was no longer itemized as "medical care" by the insurance company.  That's just so fluffied, and now where's his retirement? 

In Canada, most people do not have the option for a nice 401k retirement - because of crushing taxation.

At least in the USA, you have the option if you play your cards right.

I know, I've lived in both countries.

[Toad]

When my mom's cancer reached it's final stages, my step-father had to take money out of his 401K to pay for her care because it was no longer itemized as "medical care" by the insurance company.  That's just so fluffied, and now where's his retirement?  Other people are worse off than that, and when someone in their family becomes very sick they lose even more.

Yep. Bad deal. Nothing like that could ever happen in Canada though, thank God.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html

Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada.

When Aucoin appealed to an official ombudsman, the Ontario government claimed that her treatment was unproven and that she had gone to an unaccredited clinic. But the FDA in the U.S. had approved Erbitux, and her clinic was a cancer center affiliated with a prominent Catholic hospital in Buffalo. This January, the ombudsman ruled in Aucoin’s favor, awarding her the cost of treatment. She represents a dramatic new trend in Canadian health-care advocacy: finding the treatment you need in another country, and then fighting Canadian bureaucrats (and often suing) to get them to pick up the tab.

Luckily she could go to the States for modern treatment and even more luckily she won her appeal to the ombudsman. Otherwise she had two choices, right? Die or spend her savings fighting to live. That's a better deal, right?

and this

My health-care prejudices crumbled not in the classroom but on the way to one. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute. Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered that the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic—with a three-year wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a two-year delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks.

Is that what you're hoping we get? 5 day waits in the emergency room? I wonder if it'll be longer with 100 illegals in line before you.

But, hey, it works in Europe, right?

And if we measure a health-care system by how well it serves its sick citizens, American medicine excels. Five-year cancer survival rates bear this out. For leukemia, the American survival rate is almost 50 percent; the European rate is just 35 percent. Esophageal carcinoma: 12 percent in the United States, 6 percent in Europe. The survival rate for prostate cancer is 81.2 percent here, yet 61.7 percent in France and down to 44.3 percent in England—a striking variation.

Yep, it's damn expensive here. But perhaps as in most things, you get what you pay for. Would you rather pay more in the US and have an 80% chance of surviving prostate cancer or pay very little and have a 44% chance in England?

I'm a kidney cancer survivor, almost 4 years now. The bill was very large. I am alive. It was worth it to me. I suspect I would have died in a socialized system because my case would not have been deemed worth the effort.

YMMV.

[lyric1]

I'm a kidney cancer survivor, almost 4 years now. The bill was very large. I am alive. It was worth it to me. I suspect I would have died in a socialized system because my case would not have been deemed worth the effort.

YMMV.

Glad to see your doing well first off.  I don't know about the English system I do know in the Australian system you have the ability to pick your own private health insurance to fill in the gaps were the national system has it's pit falls. In 1989 when I left for a single male it was $35.00 a month so if you needed surgery done you could get in & not have to wait. I don't know what it costs now I am sure it is a lot more also your employer has nothing to do with health insurance there. No preexisting conditions no deductables. I am sure a lot has changed since I have been gone, so I would defer to any of my other country men to give the latest changes.

[Toad]

I admittedly don't know much about the Aussie system but it sure sounds better than Canada or England!

I don't know how they ration treatement if at all; my case did not present as one with a very favorable outcome. I feel pretty lucky/blessed. It may be I might not have been worthy in Australia either.

Perhaps we should be looking there instead of Canada/Europe though. Your reports sound a lot better.

[Baitman]

In my personal case, my Canadian medical bill was roughly $25k a year more than it is here in the USA - and I only get a yearly checkup + a colonoscopy every 10 years.

Another way to look at it:  those who pay income tax in Canada not only pay for their own medical care, they pay for someone else's.

Show me how you came up with 25,000 per year more I am listening........

[Torque]

geeze... no doubt the taxes are high here... because canadians actually pay the taxes to maintain their standard of living.   

sure.... the taxes are lower in the states because uncle sam won't burden his citizens with tax hikes to maintain their standard of living. oh... no... uncle sam just prints the world's reserve currency for nothing to cover the account deficits. it's just too easy to export an inflation tax onto the backs of other hardworking countries... then it is to take away the free lunch from a lazy closet socialist draped in a flag. 

inflation is a tax period... so.... when uncle sam doesn't raise taxes at home to pay for things like a war or an army... when he inflates and depreciates the dollar to pay all those bills... he is just exporting an inflation tax on commodities and dollar holdings in central banks everywhere... it's just bare bones taxation without representation ain't it?

you'd have to be pretty naive not to see oil and gold prices chasing the inflated dollar...the current price of gas is just a back door war tax on everyone... just follow the money trail.

when you consider that 2.4 trillion dollars are held in central banks around the world... and when uncle spam devalues the dollar by 10% a year to make ends meet that's pretty hefty annual tax on the world.

that's why europe started the the euro to stop subsidizing the american economy... and why the real socialists won't publish the m3 aggregate report anymore either.

as it works out.... canadians have been paying about a 2 billion dollar a year inflation tax to the socialists... over the last 5 year that's like 10 billion dollars we could of spent on infrastructure like maybe health care... but that's how empires work  and how the game is played... they're parasitic in nature the leech from others to subsidize their own.

wow... the confiscation and redistribution of wealth eh...

but this is the worst form of socialism ain't it toad... the privatizing of profits and the socializing of the cost and loses... crack me up.



the chart tells it all.... whining civil servants aside an 18% inflation rate... that's about as hardcore as you can get... stalin would blush...

[Baitman]

Glad to see your doing well first off.  I don't know about the English system I do know in the Australian system you have the ability to pick your own private health insurance to fill in the gaps were the national system has it's pit falls. In 1989 when I left for a single male it was $35.00 a month so if you needed surgery done you could get in & not have to wait. I don't know what it costs now I am sure it is a lot more also your employer has nothing to do with health insurance there. No preexisting conditions no deductables. I am sure a lot has changed since I have been gone, so I would defer to any of my other country men to give the latest changes.

You have these choices in Canada also. We have extended medical insurance, which covers things like private rooms and such. For a family (any size) I believe it is $115 per month. This is for stuff over and above the standard health care.

I really enjoy seeing the system being picked apart on a few cases. The majority of the cases life threatning, broken limbs such get handled quickly and at no cost. (Some time the ride to the hospital in the ambulance will hurt though)

[JoeA]

P.S. Why is life expectancy longer in western-European countries with socialized medicine?  They smoke more, drink more, eat a lot of red meat, etc.

Life expectancy can't legitimately be used to compare health care systems.  Lots of things (diet/exercise/race/income/etc) that impact life expectancy have nothing to do with the health care system.  For example, if you simply factor out homicides and auto fatalities, US life expectancy is higher than almost every industrialized country in the world. 

Because US health care (not the system) is the best in the world and the overwhelming percent of people are already covered, I'd first try tweaking the current system system, esp in administration and delivery, before trying to replace the entire system with a new socialized system.

[Slamfire]

You have these choices in Canada also. We have extended medical insurance, which covers things like private rooms and such. For a family (any size) I believe it is $115 per month. This is for stuff over and above the standard health care.

I really enjoy seeing the system being picked apart on a few cases. The majority of the cases life threatning, broken limbs such get handled quickly and at no cost. (Some time the ride to the hospital in the ambulance will hurt though)

BTW - and this is years ago, I broke three fingers and busted my head open during a cycling accident - got treated at the Ottawa General Hospital (Canada).

I waited 13 hours in emergency before a doctor saw me - by then it was too late for stitches (still live with the scar) and my fingers were summarily re-broken on the spot because they had already set.  No anesthetic or pain killers administered as they were extremely short on time because of the backlog.

[Slamfire]

Show me how you came up with 25,000 per year more I am listening........

Already explained in previous post:  it was the difference that I SAVED in federal tax per year living in the USA vs living in Canada (making the exact same salary - they transfered my job position to the USA).  I attribute the difference in taxation with the cost of socialized health care...  Very ironic considering I've since received far superior health care in the USA vs the health care I received in Canada.

Of course that's all just my personal experience - YMMV

[Slamfire]

Another factor why social health care sucks and costs more:  when going to the hospital entails no out of pocket cost, you start seeing people going to Emergency every time they get a minor cold.

Canada's hospitals are flooded with frivolous visits - in the USA, people abuse the system at a far lesser rate because there's usually a cost involved ($20 co-pay etc)

[lyric1]

BTW - and this is years ago, I broke three fingers and busted my head open during a cycling accident - got treated at the Ottawa General Hospital (Canada).

I waited 13 hours in emergency before a doctor saw me - by then it was too late for stitches (still live with the scar) and my fingers were summarily re-broken on the spot because they had already set.  No anesthetic or pain killers administered as they were extremely short on time because of the backlog.

Broken fingers reset in 13 hours?

[lazs2]

ex broke her leg while we were in rural canada.. they set it and charged me about $200..  it really hurt her after than and we went to our doctor in the states.. he looked at the cast and xrays in horror... he asked for the xrays of the doctor who did the original work.. there were none..   he asked who did the work.. when we said it was done in canada.. he was obviously relieved.. he sat us down and explained how he would have to reset the bone.. that it had been set badly.

As for people going bankrupt over $12,000 worth of medical expenses?  how do they afford to own a house or a car?  a new roof on the house costs 5-12k  a furnace 3-8k..  a new transmission in the car 3-5k   Medical insurance with a 3,000 deductable costs less than $100 a month.

lazs

lazs

[Toad]

Gee, Torque, you'd think if all those non-US governments were as smart as you they'd all have been in the Euro from the start. If they realize we're "taxing" them, why don't they switch to the Euro as the reserve currency?

[Slamfire]

Broken fingers reset in 13 hours?

Sorry - edit error - they were set after 13 hours and were re-broken on the followup visit +/- 2 weeks later...  Point is I had to wait a tremendously long time to get treatment, and as a bonus, they botched the job.