10-05-2005, 08:47 PM | #101 |
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10-05-2005, 09:09 PM | #102 | |
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Well, this is where I know its a losing battle for any sense of reason. This clown lives in the UK, yet blasts me calling me a 'moron' because I talked about a 1.Canadian guy 2. Living in Canada 3. Talking about the CANADIAN health care plan. But this guy in the UK knows more than the Canadian radio guy so I'm the moron for restating it. Fantastic! Then I cite sources for my critics, from places like the HARVARD LIBRARY, hardly a conservative bastion of propaganda, and those get ignored for more personal attacks because I don't take for granted the indocrinated wisdom of Jon Stewart and Comedy Central that my critics apparently get their info from. Hey, you want to be lefty? Be a lefty! Be a happy lefty! Just don't delude yourself that you got some kind of 'clarity' because you can call me a name in this forum and get yourself stroked for doing it. Then again, maybe you just live to get yourself 'stroked' in this forum. Explains alot of it. Last edited by Bubba Wheels : 10-05-2005 at 09:12 PM. |
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10-05-2005, 09:42 PM | #103 | |
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Finally, we agree.
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10-05-2005, 09:51 PM | #104 |
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Arguing with Bubba is about like arguing with concrete. If concrete were less flexible and less capable of rational, logical thinking that is...
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10-05-2005, 11:15 PM | #105 | ||
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10-06-2005, 06:40 AM | #106 | |
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Would you like to reply to this guy now Bubba? He's Canadian you know. Don't take this as a defense of the Canadian health care system, or call me a lefty either. You know jack shit about me. If you'd actually read my original post, I think public health care without a private option is a stupid idea. Hell, I might even agreed with you if you'd provided some sort of proof or a link to an article or something. And no, I don't get off on arguing or calling people names on messageboards. But your continued practise of starting threads (I believe most call it trolling) based on conjecture and things you read on your kookie websites just astounds me. I'm not going to post again in this thread, so knock yourself out. |
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10-06-2005, 08:25 AM | #107 | |
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Well, just because I didn't respond to the Canadian guy doesn't automatically mean that I didn't think he made a valid point. Yet another example of my critics quick to jump on me with false presumptions. That aside, the difference between him and you is...HE ACTUALLY LIVES IN CANADA UNDER THE CANADIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM! You, on the other hand, live in the UK, know nothing about living under the Canadian health care system and yet still deem yourself informed enough to basically say the CANADIAN RADIO GUY talking about it was WRONG and that I am 'a moron' for restating what he said. In fact, restating what he said...listen now...BECAUSE HE IS CANADIAN LIVING IN CANADA...made his remarks a VALID STARTING POINT for this thread! Get it? No, your beyond the pale. You want to see moron, look in the mirror Gov'ner. |
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10-06-2005, 08:35 AM | #108 | |
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Well, he sees it with every post you make.
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10-06-2005, 08:37 AM | #109 | |
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10-06-2005, 08:39 AM | #110 |
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BTW, my final say on this, the guy in question was on a Southern Ontario morning show...sounded conservative...so some already know who he is even though I didn't get the guy's name.
And the point of his rant was simply this: He wanted a private option included in the national health care plan and saw its exclusion as just another device for more control of government over the private citizen's lives. So maybe that is the answer right there, if national health care is inevitable make darn sure that a private option is open for those wanting to pay for it. |
10-06-2005, 08:40 AM | #111 | |
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10-06-2005, 09:47 AM | #112 |
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As an average Canadian, here are my thoughts on this thread:
1) The Canadian system is far from perfect, but it is not as bad as some make it out to be. People are not dropping like flies waiting for surgery, and I like the idea that Joe Dirt can get the same priority as Daddy Warbucks. That said, the waits can be terribly long, and we do lose our best doctors to the states all the time. The system needs fixing, there is no doubt, but I don't feel we should look to the US system for our answers. 2) On the topic of drug prices, I am amazed that people are still brainwashed by the "Americans pay for the R&D so everyone can have drugs" hogwash that Big Pharma spits out. America pays higher prices because Big Pharma lobbyists are in the federal government's pockets. Pharmaceutical companies are still making profit selling to Canada and other countries, just not the obscene amounts of profit they make off of Americans. Until Americans stand up and demand that their government take action against Big Pharma the price gouging will continue.
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02-21-2006, 03:32 PM | #113 |
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Really quite good article / discussion by Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell on the very issue raised by the first post in this thread. Both make good points with Gopnick falling back often on the 'think of the kids / fairness' angle and Gladwell focusing on quality and innovation.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea...ellgopnik.html |
02-21-2006, 06:13 PM | #114 | |
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Obviously where the market fails is that not everyone can afford the price set by the market. That's the wrap on providing AIDS drugs in Africa. Companies could provide them at a lower cost, but since so many are so poor they wouldn't make any more money. Thus, the price is set at a premium to extract as much money as they can from the few who can afford it. Where lobbying and support for candidates comes in is preventing national health care and price controls from being implemented. Probably the biggest argument for national health care in this country is that the health care companies are so against it. Interesting this should come up right now ... for sweeps a local station in town did a series of stories last week entitled "Death by Denial" that profiled a series of local cases where people died waiting for approval for payment on treatments and medications from insurers or were denied treatment due to cost. Our system has plenty of holes. |
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02-21-2006, 06:56 PM | #115 | |
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Apparently your best doctors think otherwise. |
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02-21-2006, 07:04 PM | #116 | |
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02-21-2006, 07:07 PM | #117 | |
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I would say that top doctors leaving (whether for higher pay or for any other reason) is a characteristic of a health care system that needs overhauling. I don't know how you can say otherwise - if you're losing your top talent, you need to change something. |
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02-21-2006, 07:11 PM | #118 | |
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There is a great difference in supply and demand of labor (doctors, here) and how good an entire health care program is.
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02-21-2006, 07:20 PM | #119 | |
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Well, if your argument is that Canada has more than enough good doctors to meet it's needs, that's different. I have no idea if that's true. If there were a shortage of good lawyers in this country, that would be a problem. |
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02-21-2006, 07:22 PM | #120 | |
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I disagree, in the short term, there probably isn't much of a problem, but over the long term this will hurt the quality of the health care program. |
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02-21-2006, 07:22 PM | #121 | |
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This would be an area where fidatelo's point about pharm company lobbyists and Congress is spot-on. |
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02-21-2006, 07:29 PM | #122 | |
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I'd prefer a hybrid system, but if I had to choose between the US and Canadian systems, I'd take the Canadian one. I've heard too many horror stories in my line of work with how insurance carriers and employers have screwed over people, that in good conscience, I cannot support the current system.
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"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages" -Tennessee Williams Last edited by ISiddiqui : 02-21-2006 at 07:32 PM. |
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02-21-2006, 08:13 PM | #123 |
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I'm not up on the health care plans that were proposed, so I apologize in advance if I'm wrong about something. Anyone have a link to the the proposals that Clinton and the Republicans submitted?
Oddly enough, since I'm Republican, I'm all for universal health care, as long as it does not limit the money paid to doctors. That creates a downward spiral -- less money made = less qualified people who go to medical school. I'm also all for limiting lawsuits for malpractice, too. Universal health care isn't much use if it lowers the quality of healthcare for everyone involved. I'm also not a fan of requiring employers to provide healthcare. This is a death-knell to many small businesses. |
02-21-2006, 08:15 PM | #124 |
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I'm a Canadian who lives in Canada.
Canada has a public-only (i.e. government-run) health system. The waiting time for surgery is too long. There are shortages. Costs are rising at a high rate. Do not copy the Canadian public health system. You will run into the same problems as we're having. People have waited so long for necessary treatment that they have gone to other countries for surgery and successfully sued the provincial governments (who actually run the health care system) for the cost. In fact a case was taken up to the Supreme Court who decided that the person from Quebec had waited too long for his medical procedure and that he had the right to get medical treatment from a private system. The provincial governments have made some very stupid decisions. About 10 years ago, in a bid to cut costs, they restricted the number of doctors who could go through medical school. The result now is, of course, we have a shortage of doctors. Health care costs have risen so much that it will soon consume close to 50% of the budgets of some provinces. The extra costs will have to be paid from somewhere i.e. taxes. Public health-care is not free. Companies like it because the ordinary citizen has to pay the extra cost, not the company as much (which is one of the reasons Toyota decided to built a plant in Ontario). Toyota pays less but the worker pays more. A government-only run system does not work. If it did, the USSR would still be around and the USA would be a colony of the USSR. Wherever government-only systems have been tried, they have failed. This is in health care, industry, agriculture etc. China is another example of a failed government-run economic system. Canada is slowly beginning to get more private health care. It will take a long time, though, because of the entrenched interest groups in this country. They don't care if people die because of their intransigence. Their socialist ideology is more important. Possibly the best system is a public system competing with various health-care private companies. Competition is great. People have a choice. If they prefer public health care, they can go to it. Those who prefer private health care can use a private company. If the Canadian health care system is so great, why doesn't the government allow people a choice? If it's so great then people will flock to the public health-care system and the private companies will go bankrupt. But the government is afraid to give their own citizens a choice. For now, if I have to wait a long time for a medical procedure, I have no option. I must wait. Unless a person is rich enough to go outside the country. Anyways, that's my 2¢ worth. |
02-21-2006, 08:21 PM | #125 | |
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How could you have a private and public system co-exist? Some type of voucher system to transfer to a private system? Why would doctors want to deal with the the government, who might pay less? Universal health care sounds like a great idea, but I don't think it's working to well for other countries, unless you want to tax the hell out of people to have a top-notch system like France, Sweden, ect. Last edited by Galaxy : 02-21-2006 at 08:22 PM. |
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02-21-2006, 08:31 PM | #126 |
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The more government sticks its nose into healthcare, the more expensive it gets. Market forces have pretty much been eliminated from the medical profession. Also, I know a lot of doctors who are quitting their practices or retiring early because it just isn't worth continuing due to the high overhead involved, a lot of which is tied up in medical malpractice insurance.
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02-21-2006, 09:07 PM | #127 | |
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Yeap....Plus, you have patients who are stubborn, demanding that they know what's best, and think that the doctors owe them. |
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02-21-2006, 09:17 PM | #128 | ||
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That's a patently false statement. Single-payer health care systems exist, and work, in many countries, including most of Western Europe, Scandanavia & Australia and New Zealand. There's a fair amount of variety amongst these systems, and they work to different extents, but to say they've all failed is just simply wrong. Also, as you note, the system in Canada isn't failing because of the system, per se, but because of the ridiculously bad decisions made by the provinces administering the system. Using that logic, I could say that energy brokerage is a failed enterprise simply because Enron went belly-up. Quote:
If you can't afford health insurance in the United States, you're in exactly the same boat, except that you won't eventually get the procedure. That's a pretty big difference, if you ask me. |
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02-21-2006, 09:27 PM | #129 | |
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02-21-2006, 09:29 PM | #130 | |
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Last edited by MrBigglesworth : 02-21-2006 at 09:29 PM. |
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02-21-2006, 10:08 PM | #131 | ||
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02-21-2006, 10:40 PM | #132 | |
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Exactly. Because there is no competition to drive down costs like there are in other professions and industries. If I'm a doctor and an insurance company or government healthcare program tells me they are going to pay $1,500 for a certain procedure, I am going to bill for that amount, even if the procedure only actually costs me $950. It's the same as all those stories we hear about the military paying $200 for $5 bolt. Last edited by SFL Cat : 02-21-2006 at 10:41 PM. |
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02-21-2006, 10:42 PM | #133 | |
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02-21-2006, 10:44 PM | #134 | |
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02-21-2006, 10:44 PM | #135 | |
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I'm not sure how that explains how foriegn health care systems, with LESS competition costs less per capita than the US's. Maybe you can say that US has more expensive procedures, but the other health care systems cover every person, and most of the health care cost in the US is overhead, which are reduced with economies of scale.
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02-21-2006, 10:49 PM | #136 | |
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When you set artificial limits or caps on prices, you eventually shoot yourself in the foot. That's why a lot of doctors will leave these countries in search of greener pastures elsewhere, or students will steer away from medical careers for something more lucrative and a lot less stressful. Last edited by SFL Cat : 02-21-2006 at 10:50 PM. |
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02-21-2006, 10:53 PM | #137 | |
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02-21-2006, 10:57 PM | #138 |
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Health Care and Education in the US become the subjects of intense debate and noise, but what often gets overlooked is that they are, if not clearly superior to what the rest of the world does, at least among the best. Sure, there are aspects that can be improved, often by applying common sense where it has been abandoned, but I don't see that a radical new approach is needed.
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02-21-2006, 10:59 PM | #139 | |
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They may have lower costs (see above post about artificial caps on prices), but whether they have better output is debatable. I know care is rationed in these countries, and that you often have to wait a lot longer for several medical procedures than you would in the US. Last edited by SFL Cat : 02-21-2006 at 11:07 PM. |
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02-21-2006, 11:01 PM | #140 | |
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02-21-2006, 11:07 PM | #141 | |
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Uninsured Americans still recieve health care. It's a problem, but not on the scale that reformers would have us believe. |
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02-21-2006, 11:22 PM | #142 | |
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02-21-2006, 11:26 PM | #143 | |
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I do pay for my own health care. |
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02-21-2006, 11:54 PM | #144 | |
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02-21-2006, 11:57 PM | #145 | |
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02-21-2006, 11:59 PM | #146 | |
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And yes, that situation happens WAAAYY more than most people realize. It's especially bad when the only thing you can tell them is that there is nothing they can do except to sue... and when they don't have enough money to hire a lawyer, frankly, they can only go into bankrupcy or die.
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02-22-2006, 12:01 AM | #147 | |
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In my job, I've heard plenty of participants who have been screwed by their insurance companies, who, if they can't declare bankrupcy, they can't afford procedures or medications... and really have to simply prepare to die.
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02-22-2006, 12:01 AM | #148 | |
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02-22-2006, 12:02 AM | #149 | |
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02-22-2006, 12:05 AM | #150 | |
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The politicians that allowed this to happen should be ashamed. |
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