This is the Healthcare Reform that many of you hate?

No, I am not under that impression at all. But there is more choice than there would be under the government-run system, which is no choice at all.

 

Wish I could read what you wrote, but it's impossible to translate. I would guess you are showing up with signs at the town hall meetings even though the government has paid for your treatment, you think they are out to get you and your family?

 

How so? You don't have any pre existing conditions, you are under 30, you are employed? How much can you afford to pay per month? We can't compare the details under this for profit system without personal details.

The poor don't have much choice they take what they get. And sometimes they get bussed to low income clinics without concern for their condidtions.

Most of us don't care about choice we are only interested in basic care.

 

The majority can be wrong if they vote and their votes are counted, but if they don't because people like you Rat tell them their vote doesn't count only the a certain segment is actually setting policy.

 

I'm very proud of my healthcare system for many reasons over, miracles over, and choices available over. Any Fraser Institute conservative think tank 'survey' published each year cannot change my mind about my experiences with my universal coverage and the people that I love and care about.

For 25 long years, I've had nothing but the best delivery of medical services than I could ever expect and I hope that someday every person on this earth can say that about their healthcare.

 

What you haven't been sneaking acrossed the border to pay for superior US medical care?

 

What the hell for? I've never met anyone that went to the USA to pay for medical care out of necessity or preference. Ever.

I do have an aunt that had her medical expenses covered by the Province of Ontario to have her stomach stapled as an elective surgery in Michigan, of which she chose to have done at that specific hospital because of some new technique available there. But guess what, she never paid for it!

 

There is only a choice if you can afford to pay for one. No one is giving anyone a rebate on health care like they are those that can afford payments for new cars. Most of us have no choices. We use the closest ER when we get so sick we can't go it alone. We walk or drive our twenty something year old vehicles that still run if we can afford gas and have paid for insurance and cleared smog inspections to use them to drive to the closest ER. That's the choice we have.

 

Canadian health care paid for an elective US surgery?

 

I have all the choice in the world, and for a large part the luxury.

It's just a blanket statement to assume that choice is limited when funding for a service comes largely from the government. Heh.

 

*nods*

Correct. Does this surprise you?!? Upset you?!

 

Do you feel over taxed? How much of your salary is taken out to make sure when you get sick you don't have to worry about how much it costs?

Does your employer have to figure your health care into their overhead?

 

Kind of surprises me. We are told you Canadians drive across our borders for superior care and pay for it personally on top of your extremely high taxes. No one ever says you come here and your government health care plan pays for it because of the recipient's choice.

How can a socialistic system afford that? I thought they rationed care? They don't force you to add your name to a domestic waiting list?

 

I don't feel overtaxed, personally. 10% of our GDP covers 100% of people in my country. Of my own personal salary, it's difficult to say just how much goes towards my personal times of sickness. Most of it is matched by my employer since I don't have healthcare benefits (private health insurance) through my employer. I pay more in Unemployment Insurance taxes, Retirement Pension taxes on my paycheque than I do for allocations to my own personal healthcare fund.

Here. I just pulled out a paystub.

Gross pay was $380.57. CPP tax contributions was $12.18 (that's for Canadian Pension Plan for people over 65). EI Employee Contributions was for $6.58 (That's for people who lost their jobs and are on Unemployment Assistance).

Total withholding tax was $18.76.

So, about 4.92% of my paycheque was deducted in taxes.

My employer paid $6.80 towards the Ontario Healthcare system.

 

It's not a socialistic system. It's universal healthcare based on a two-tiered system - it's socialist in ideology but in practice it's far from it. Far, far, from it.

What do you mean rationed care? It's not like we re-use boat oars for hip replacements.

Force your name to a list? What are you talking about exactly?? It's not like we're a bunch of meat packers. Haha. Cute.

 

Thanks for the information Ari. Those are the kind of details lacking from the US discussion. We hear all kinds of fear tactic information no one really provides us with the real information.

Thanks again.
Pat

 

Interesting read:

http://www.windsorstar.com/goes+Buffalo+life+saving+treatment/1702800/story.html

 

For the record, I'm going to deposit a cheque for $363.54 right now that the federal government gives me every quarter of the year for my income tax contributions. I made less than $20,000 last year (just above the poverty line) but we get a lot of our money back from income tax deductions and rebates.

Heh, I live just above the poverty line but all my medical expenses have always been looked after. Any time Pat.

 

In English, according to Google's translation of Le Journal de Montreal's article, that's The incontinence waiting.

People have to wait 3 years in Quebec for an 30 minute operation to correct a condition that dramatically affects their quality of life. These people suffer from severe incontinence. Some must urinate every 15 minutes. There are currently 60 people on the waiting list.

 

Gardener,

From wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada#Cross-border_health_care

• According to a September 14, 2007, article from CTV News, Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach went to the United States for breast cancer surgery in June 2007. Stronach's spokesperson Greg MacEachern was quoted in the article saying that the US was the best place to have this type of surgery done. Stronach paid for the surgery out of her own pocket.[47] Prior to this incident, Stronach had stated in an interview that she was against two-tiered health care.[48]
• When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, needed cancer treatment, he went to the US to get it.[49]
• In 2007, it was reported that Canada sent scores of pregnant women to the US to give birth.[50] In 2007 a woman from Calgary who was pregnant with quadruplets was sent to Great Falls, Montana to give birth. An article on this incident states there were no Canadian hospitals with enough neo-natal intensive beds to accomodate the extremely rare quadruple birth.[51]
• A January 19, 2008, article in The Globe And Mail states, "More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here. Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care." [52]