Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Toad on September 08, 2008, 08:19:57 PM
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David Warren is apparently often published ni the Ottawa Citizen. I think this is an interesting piece, a view of our election and situation contrasted with the Canadian situation.
I really don't know Warren's history, but I'm sure Torque will jump in here and claim he's a Canadian Neo-Con that went to school with Bush2 and is a member of Skull and Bones or something.
It's clear he is a bit disgruntled with parts of the Canadian utopia; his comments on the <cough>great</cough> socialistic system should give pause to those who think our government will do these things better than the Canadians have.
Canadian Consensus
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/canadian_consensus.html
For instance, all parties are committed to preserving Canada's dysfunctional socialist health care system. All are committed to the continued heavy regulation of private enterprise generally, and to choking small business in particular with red tape. All are committed to maintaining a crippling tax burden, and a tax collection system with arbitrary and unaccountable powers of search and seizure. Moreover, in the name of the "global warming" imposture, all are committed to significantly extending the leaden hand of government micro-mismanagement into every aspect of our daily lives that may touch even tangentially on "the environment."
And to take a subject of special interest to me, none is prepared to defend our country's common-law heritage, and due process in our courts (especially our family courts). None will vindicate the most elementary rights of free speech and free press. None will lift a finger when journalists and many others are hauled before "human rights" kangaroo courts, and put under star chamber inquisitions, as if Canada were exactly the sort of country our fathers fought in two World Wars.
The debates are seldom if ever about which direction we should be going, but rather, how far and how fast we should proceed along the pre-determined highway. This is the "Canadian consensus," shared by the various self-appointing and self-regulating elites in government, law, media, and academia. And it is a "consensus" they enforce, with ever-increasing restrictions on our ability to discuss, publicly, the various activist agendas they are pushing.
To be fair to many who hold all the conventional "Canadian consensus" views, there is seldom much malice in them. As products of our ideologized schools and universities, living all their lives deep within urban conurbations, in spiritually "gated" communities where they mix only with their own kind, they have never been exposed to contrary ideas. And they are sincerely aghast when anything that challenges their profoundly settled views is set before them. The notion that deviation must be suppressed comes as naturally to them, as the notion that anything unIslamic must be suppressed, to a Wahabi fundamentalist in Arabia.
Seems like Laz and Moot have a pretty good idea of where the liberals would lead us.
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All politicians lead us there. Democrats are running full on sprints to the finish line, republicans are merely jogging.
There is only one solution to it. Yet there are days when I wonder if its worth it.
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All of our political parties have pretty much the same views. There fore all will use the top house equally.
(http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x279/dogwood_03/Outhouse.jpg)
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Anyone who uses the words "all" and "none" to describe citizens of any nation, and then gripes about freedom of speech in the same sentence, is an idiot. :rofl
This guy doesn't have a clue! Ice-cream? :rofl
Why post this jibberish? :rofl
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pretty hard to explain the what you are seeing to a blind person.
lazs
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Why post this jibberish? :rofl
My guess is because you were bored, didn't read the article and felt the need to post something.
But that's just a guess.
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I'm sorry, but why is this man's opinion so relevant?
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I found it interesting because many of the Obamessiah's proposals would try to move the US towards things that are already established and functioning in Canada.
Like the fabulous national health care system that has seriously sick people coming to the US for treatment because they'll die before the move to the head of the line in Canada.
And because this description rings so true of Amreekan liberals, the big city blue voters:
More subtly, the dweller in an urban apartment complex cannot imagine a life in which everything he does is not bound by fussy rules and regulations, and in which any act of non-conformity (lighting a cigarette, for instance) must be greeted with hysterical alarm. In this sense, our vast modern cities, not only in Canada but everywhere, breed Pavlovian conformity to their own physical requirements, and systematically replace moral imperatives with bureaucratic ones.
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Ahhh, so his opinion is relevant because he agrees with you. Got it.
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Pehaps. The interesting part to me is that he lives in the paradise of Canada yet has clear concerns about liberty.
But if so, it is in much the same way that you discuss articles/ideas that agree with your own.
Much as everyone does on this board.
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Of course, but too many times opinion pieces are posted as if they prove something. This article proves nothing, except what the writer thinks. I'm sure we could find tons of articles extolling the virtues of Canada's health care system or deriding the US system. All irrelevant without facts. As is your conclusion that Lazs and Moot have it right based on this article.
I wonder how many Canadians declare bankruptcy each year due to medical bills? Last I heard the number in the US was close to 2 million..... Sounds broken to me, but that is just an opinion.
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I think you noted that I said I found it interesting.
As far as proof with regards to Laz and Moot, they have pointed out that the US drift towards socialism, things such as the Obamessiah proposes, leads to places that a great many of us do not wish to go. This writer has experienced that move towards socialism in Canada and his observations on the results are pretty much right in line with what Laz and Moot have posted. Now I suspect that neither Laz nor Moot have ever met this guy, so I don't think there's collusion between the US, French and Canadian observers of the scene. Seems there may some truth to it to me.
A while back I posted an article on Canadian health care by a Canadian doctor that has been trying to change it back towards a free market system. Did you happen to read that?
You wonder about how many Canadians go bankrupt over health care. I might wonder how many Canadians DIE because their health care is rationed.
Tell me, would you rather be bankrupt or dead?
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2007 Non Buisness Bankruptcies 822,590 still an awful lot and I would wonder what the % is due to medical bills?
Politics and facts MT? come on ;)
fwiw
2007 Canadian Consumer Insolvency 101,206
US Population 2007 301 million (july est)
CAN Population 2007 33 million (july est)
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Yeah 2 million was too high...
A recent study by Harvard University researchers found that the average out-of-pocket medical debt for those who filed for bankruptcy was $12,000. The study noted that 68 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy had health insurance. In addition, the study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses.13 Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem.
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Ahhh, so his opinion is relevant because he agrees with you. Got it.
LOL
Indeed.
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My guess is the guy who wrote the article (for money) was sitting a coffee shop and p.oed cause he couldn't have a smoke with his coffee. Yeah were all socialist up here I tell ya.
Oh, and by the way I did read the article and I was gonna do a point for point rebuttle, but the whole thing is nonsense.
I'm not gonna do an apples and oranges debate here about Canada vs America either.
To say "a vote for Obama is a step in the direction of the socialist nation of Canada" is weak.
When I vote, I vote for the person/party who best represents my ideas. Not because they came up with best bash against the other choices.
When someone needs to use insults to get their point across, I loose respect for that persons opinion. :salute
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All I can say about the health care system here in the USA is after living half of my adult life here in the USA & the other in Australia that has a national health system as part of it's options. I have found it cheaper with more choices & a better level of service back in Australia compared to the States. Just my experience take it for what it's worth.
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To say "a vote for Obama is a step in the direction of the socialist nation of Canada" is weak.
LOL, it's simply true.
When I vote, I vote for the person/party who best represents my ideas. Not because they came up with best bash against the other choices.
What a coincidence! So do I! That's why I'll vote either Ron Paul or Bob Barr. That doesn't mean I shouldn't comment on the other choices though.
TheMaj
When someone needs to use insults to get their point across, I loose respect for that persons opinion. :salute
This is just uncanny! I feel the EXACT SAME WAY!
Did you notice the very first poster to use insults in this thread?
TheMaj
Anyone who uses the words "all" and "none" to describe citizens of any nation, and then gripes about freedom of speech in the same sentence, is an idiot.
This guy doesn't have a clue! Ice-cream?
Why post this jibberish?
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Canadian free-speech protections do suck, I agree with that much.
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the US drift towards socialism, things such as the Obamessiah proposes, leads to places that a great many of us do not wish to go.
You really need to know the whole context really well like I did then, to appreciate what I mean, but the moment I stepped back in France after 6 years in the US.. It was all wrong. Fundamentaly... And even to someone who gave as little credit to and had as much reservation for anything political as I did.. it just couldn't be denied that the cause of most if not all of the mind boggling amount of suckage apparent was rooted in socialistic policies and culture. It was so obvious once I entertained the thought for a while as I walked all over to bounce the idea off as much evidence for or against it as I could (in rich and poor places alike, e.g. slums, bars, campuses, Rotary members' dinner tables, politician meetings, bullpooping in self-made CEOs' office after hours), it could poke your eyes out.
Random example I most recently noticed.. Elon Musk. Himself he says he's nauseatingly pro-american. I don't think that's attraction to something like social programs. I see entrepreneurship, a drive to get things done yourself, economicaly, efficiently, successfuly. You don't need to be freakin einstein to get engineering degrees, you need only a bit of intelligence but mostly consistent discipline. Look at any US campus, see the foreign students (e.g. Indian) tearing thru the curiculums with little fat (literaly and figuratively) to show for it.
Govt checks are only good when you can't help yourself. You'd have to be out of your mind to think that the american dream is something like sucking at the social programs' tit.
As far as Obama or any other politician's policies are concerned.. Before any more money is thrown at something with the intention of improving its output, it needs to be checked for proper health. You don't prescribe a patient 5000J of extra food or an equivalent amount of excercise if he's not merely fat or anorexic but also has heart problems or something like a drug addiction. I don't see the point in feeding even more money into (e.g.) schools when what's already there isn't even working efficiently in the first place.. Why feed the troll? Same thing with every other bloated government agency. Nevermind the outright socialist rationales like "we must redistribute people's income".
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When I was in France I got pretty sick, probably from the airplane ride over there...the medical care I received was first-rate. I also know someone who had to spend time in a hospital in France. After a week of care, the bill was ~$5000, in two parts: intensive care / non-intensive care. Someone probably has some negative stories, but what I experienced was very positive.
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.
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Time of life depends on more than the medical care. Med care could be after the fact as much as preventive treatment. I know it's definitely not preventive treatment that I see most people waiting for in doctor's lobbies. Other factors are genetics, what you put in, put out, and what you do with your body in between. etc.
There's also not just a matter of how good the med services you get, in qualifying healthcare systems as more or less good. I know first hand that medical prep studies in France are world class... You already get your brains racked for all they're worth in their regular academic courses. Getting into good college level science curiculums, and even more so medical ones, is only for the very best and most dedicated students. Add all the other factors large and small, and you get a country that has very good healthcare personel (and a poopload of em going on strike, sometimes even before they're done with studies, because their work conditions blow chunks).
I tallied a hospital bill of ~2500E a few months back. I paid something like 200 bucks (probably less, can't recall, so it had to be tiny); I had no insurance at the time of hospitalisation.. I just went to get myself on the public healthcare subscription a few days AFTER the fact, and got 90% of it refunded.. That ain't right. I don't like the fact that someone takes money off my paycheck for someone else's services. Services that I'll never need myself, so it's akin to paying an insurance plan, for someone else, for something I'll never use myself. Nonsense. There's a very thin line between philantropy and robbery.. I don't want the govt telling me where to put my feet.. I can do that myself. So can anyone else with a minimum of common sense.
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I read the article from start to finish. Let me try and paraphrase what he is writing from my perspective.
Canadian politics suck. No party has a clearly defined stance on anything. And they basically are all preaching the same stuff from behind a different pedestal. It would be so refreshing to see somebody with 'vision' step up to lead, but our system breeds a 'tow the party line' mentality and no free thinkers survive party assimilation at the Federal level.
I read more about the American election up here than I do the Canadian. In fact I can't even tell you the leaders of the party's. Why? Who cares, they are going to preech one thing and then do what they want when in power. Our country is messed up politically, we've been at the teet for too long.
The writer used healthcare as an example of something that needs to be tweaked in order to sustain itself, and basically from what I know, not one party plans to change anything in that respect. No party or party leader has the cahones to upset the apple cart and change it. So, once again to the polls, if you voted liberal all your life you will continue to likewise if you vote conservative. End result, new election, new leader, no changes in anything. Boring.
I voted Conservative last time, I probably will once again. Why? I hate the Liberals since Mr. Chretien and will not be in favor of that party of crooks running my country.
If I were American, I am leaning towards McCain. I would wait until the debate concludes before making any final decisions but that is where I put my 'x' to this point.
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All I can say about the health care system here in the USA is after living half of my adult life here in the USA & the other in Australia that has a national health system as part of it's options. I have found it cheaper with more choices & a better level of service back in Australia compared to the States. Just my experience take it for what it's worth.
As someone who lived his first 31 years of life in Canada, and the rest in the USA, I share your opinion. My sister is also a Canadian medical doctor so I still have inside personal ties to "that scene".
Canada's health care system is in shambles - waiting times for things like colonoscopies, CAT scans, MRI etc are typically > 3 years and usually involve traveling 100s of miles. I had my last colonoscopy in Texas - took 3 day wait, and I had to drive 2 miles.
Also, Canada's healthcare system is UNIVERSAL, not FREE.
I CRINGE every time I hear an ignorant left-leaning American describe Canada's Rainbow N' Butterflies "Free Healthcare".
Universal means it's all from one common fund, and it has to be lowest possible denominator quality (it is). Also it is NOT free - it's paid for by income tax - which explains why Canada's income tax rate was DOUBLE in my case (56%) than it was here in the USA (30%) for my income bracket. Also, sales tax on all goods sold was double (15% vs 7-8%). You can't live a life like that - the money I saved every year (comparatively speaking) was roughly equivalent to a NEW CAR every year (25k).
Ask yourself - as an American, could you AFFORD a DOUBLING of your income tax ?
Canada's grand experiment with socialism has been a tragic failure - it is commonly recognized as such - and the country is slowly moving back to the old ways, as is evident in the last, and now upcoming elections.
We tried socialism - it didn't work in Canada, and it will never work in the USA.
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I wonder how many Canadians declare bankruptcy each year due to medical bills? Last I heard the number in the US was close to 2 million..... Sounds broken to me, but that is just an opinion.
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.
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it was not socialism.
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"When someone needs to use insults to get their point across, I loose respect for that persons opinion."
-This is just uncanny! I feel the EXACT SAME WAY!-
-Did you notice the very first poster to use insults in this thread? -
hehe good one
But my point was that he is an idiot.
Listen, I'm no political affentionado, but the referenced article claimed to be describing me, a Canadian, and I found it offensive & untrue.
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My point is that calling someone an "idiot" is an insult.
And I know how you "loose" respect for those guys.
And he didn't describe you; he described the Canadian political scene the way he sees it. Makes you just want to muzzle him, doesn't it?
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I still think that he is just p.oed that he can't have a smoke with his coffee :lol
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It always puzzles me when someone warns that income taxes will increase, or even double, for universal health care in the USA because it's a known fact that we pay more $/person for healthcare in this country than those with universal care, e.g the Netherlands seems to have a very efficient system. First, we're assuming the money would come from income taxes. Second, we're assuming any additional tax burden would not be offset by the over-all savings.
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.
All I hear is "I, I, I..." "I don'wanna pay for someone else to go to the doctor, I wanna be left alone, I don't want no government managing my health care, etc." What bromide. The reality and experiences of ordinary Americans with our healthcare system should make us ashamed. :uhoh
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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........
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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.
(http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2008/4/13/annualmoneysupply.jpg)
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... :aok
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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
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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)
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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?
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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
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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?
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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.
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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.
Saying that most are covered is a misuse of the word. I'd go for "conditionally covered" as a more accurate term. A lot people don't realize that their insurance can and will screw them if their illness gets bad enough, sometimes legally, sometimes illegally. (Let's not forget that dental/vision are frequently left out from the start, too)
When the politicians and media use the word "covered" to describe most Americans' health care status it amounts to a kind of Orwellian thought-control by means of language.
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When the politicians and media use the word "covered" to describe most Americans' health care status it amounts to a kind of Orwellian thought-control by means of language.
So you're saying it's like the national systems around the world? You're covered.... eventually. A short wait of a year or so for your MRI?
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I'm not saying it doesn't happen in other countries, too.
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Saying that most are covered is a misuse of the word. I'd go for "conditionally covered" as a more accurate term. A lot people don't realize that their insurance can and will screw them if their illness gets bad enough, sometimes legally, sometimes illegally.
I think you are talking about rationing services (cost control) which is a mandatory part of any health care system unless you want to spend the entire GDP on health care. In the US, the insurance company is hired to do that nasty job which is one of the main reasons everyone hates insurance companies. Socialized systems do the rationing in a different manner so you get some other group to hate.