Originally posted by HotSauce
I always here the Canadians talk about their great healthcare. I guess they like waiting way more than Americans do, either that or they will take any old crappy healthsystem as long as they THINK it is free.

Dick Morris is the genius behind Bill Clinton's move to the center back in the 90's.

Dick Morris can be the queen of France, appeal to authority is a terribly weak fallacy, he obviously hasn't experienced what he's talking about.

No one in Canada thinks health care is free... sigh, Americans

I am a Canadian and I pay $400 a year ($15 a paycheque) for extended medical coverage. I pay $0 for prescriptions, emergency, long term care, disability... basically if i need any sort of medical care, it's free. To see a specialist there is a long wait, but what everyone seems to be missing is that if your life is at risk, you get bumped to the front of the line. Also if you WANT to pay insane prices to get fast treatment, then you can go in to a private office and pay insane prices. Maybe they should ask Canadians instead of spreading around ignorance. Our healthcare system isn't perfect. I don't think ANYTHING in this world is perfect. Duh.

Well since nobody seems to have the gull to touch this one, allow me.

Being married to a doctor who owns his own practice and does the emergency circuit in CANADA, I perhaps can shed some light on your "horrible American Thinking" as you put it.

We KNOW it's not free. Let me just say that. We have these things called taxes and we pay them. Funny enough, we pay less taxes than you do and we somehow still manage to not pay a dime out of pocket for health care, but anyway.

Secondly, yes the waits are long, but let's look at the real issue here. Money.

Now, my sister lives in Wisconsin and has a mediocre health care plan through an HMO I believe. Her son broke his foot last year, with all the visits, it cost her 5 thousand to get him a cast and healed up.

Now let's say she was living in Canada. The kid would wait perhaps a few hours depending on where he lived, obviously metropolitan areas have longer waits (think free clinic states side) but we live in an area with a population of about 250k. Now after the wait, he gets treated he comes home, gets a lollipop and I my sister, would NOT have gotten a bill.

Now I am not saying the system is perfect, no system is. It's flawed. Do we have doctor's leaving? Yes, but they are foreign doctors who come here to study and then go off to make millions in America since prices are ridiculous.

I don't know what they have to complain about. All in all my husband takes in almost half a million a year before taxes. As far as Unions go, well you ask any health professional or teacher who isn't in a union and they will tell you they wish they were.

Either way, Canadian healthcare is better than NO healthcare, which is what you all currently have so forgive us for saying that we are better off than you. Currently we are.

Sure I got to the states and pay through the roof and get the best of the best, but I don't really need the best of the best. We will settle with good. So long as it gets the job done.

Ohh and my son has a severe Immune Defficiency, and without my horrible Canadian Health Care program, I would be paying along the lines of 50k a year in medication and treatment alone.

~Keeper



[edit on 11/14/2009 by tothetenthpower]

If there was a serious problem with the Canadian health care system, you would be hearing about it...from Canadians....not from a bunch of whackjob American political analysts who have an agenda to push.

Even if you had socialized medicine in the United States, it would completely suck, since you are dealing with a country which would rather spend taxpayers' money on bombing innocent civilians than taking care of its own residents.