Free, Public Healthcare

Next thing you know, we'll start demanding education for all. What's the world coming to?

I'm with you, GW. I have insurance but it's breaking us. Our premiums went up (and benefits went down) at the exact same time that our employer cut its contribution and gave us all pay cuts (thank you economy). Health insurance is as expensive for us as our mortgage right now. Yet after all we've paid over the years and not used, if I lost my job tomorrow it would be as if I had never paid a cent into the system. And it's not like I can opt out and just tell my employer that I no longer want health insurance and will just take my chances -- they require proof of other coverage before I can do that. (And it's not open enrollment time anyway.)

Previously answered.

Check on it's origins...

What's really crazy is that my girlfriend who lives in France pays less for her excellent medical coverage than the average American pays for their catastrophic plans. Why can the French do it but America can't?

Are we talking Nuclear power plants?

No healthcare. Please read more carefully when answering.

Actually, with climate change the French are worried about the cooling systems of their nuclear plants.

Probably because they eat French fries rather than Freedom fries.

It's getting cooler and they want it cooler

Any 10 year old with a garden thermometer could figure out it's getting warmer each year and the overall weather less predictable, but I wouldn't expect you to understand the science, so I'm not going to waste my time trying to dumb down the information in hope of an epiphany from you. You live in your own personal bubble of "truthiness" and I know it is useless to try and break through. Enjoy your ignorance, but don't get mad if the rest of us make fun of it, and snicker both behind your back and in your face.

Back to healthcare - So why can so many other countries do it and America can't?

Maybe a 10 year old that attends government schools, but a 10 year old that is home schooled would no better.
Your ignorance on this matter has been noted.

Back to health care. Why would this country want to stoop to such an inferior level of health care?

I'm sorry H2O man, but you're boring me with your silly posts that you can't back up with any sign of intelligent argument. McGentrix and I may never agree on political matters, but his posts are thoughtful and worthy of debate. I have to put you back on ignore in order for me to stop wasting time going around in pointless circles with you. Ciao.

No. It wasn't. Feel free to repost where you believe you answered it.

Oh please,Green Witch,You have no idea what you are talking about. If you want to become educated about the climate, there is a thread about the alleged global warming which may dispelyour ignorance

The health care for all crowd which really is looking towards Socialized Medicine should really read the following:

Why Canadians Purchase Private Health Insurance
by Walter Williams (June 20, 2005)

America's socialists advocate that we adopt a universal healthcare system like our northern neighbor Canada. Before we buy into complete socialization of our healthcare system, we might check out the Canadian Supreme Court's June 9th ruling in Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General). It turns out that in order to prop up government-delivered medical care, Quebec and other Canadian provinces have outlawed private health insurance. By a 4 to 3 decision, Canada's high court struck down Quebec's law that prohibits private medical insurance. With all of the leftist hype extolling the "virtues" of Canada's universal healthcare system, you might wonder why any sane Canadian would want to purchase private insurance.

Plaintiffs Jacques Chaoulli, a physician, and his patient, George Zeliotis, launched their legal challenge to the government's monopolized healthcare system after having had to wait a year for hip-replacement surgery. In finding for the plaintiffs, Canada's high court said, "The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public healthcare system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public healthcare. The evidence also demonstrates that the prohibition against private health insurance and its consequence of denying people vital healthcare result in physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness." Writing for the majority, Justice Marie Deschamps said, "Many patients on non-urgent waiting lists are in pain and cannot fully enjoy any real quality of life. The right to life and to personal inviolability is therefore affected by the waiting times."






The Vancouver, British Columbia-based Fraser Institute keeps track of Canadian waiting times for various medical procedures. According to the Fraser Institute's 14th annual edition of "Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (2004)," total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, rose from 17.7 weeks in 2003 to 17.9 weeks in 2004.

For example, depending on which Canadian province, an MRI requires a wait between 7 and 33 weeks.

Orthopaedic surgery might require a wait of 14 weeks for a referral from a general practitioner to the specialist and then another 24 weeks from the specialist to treatment. That statistic might help explain why Cleveland, Ohio, has become Canada's hip-replacement center.

As reported in a December 2003 story by Kerri Houston for the Frontiers of Freedom Institute titled "Access Denied: Canada's Healthcare System Turns Patients into Victims," in some instances, patients die on the waiting list because they become too sick to tolerate a procedure. Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin responded to the court's decision saying, "We're not going to have a two-tier healthcare system in this country. What we want to do is strengthen the public healthcare system." That's the standard callous political response. He's telling Canadians to continue waiting, continue suffering and perhaps dying until the day comes when there's no more waiting. And though Canadian politicians can't give their citizens a date certain when there'll be no more waiting, they're determined to deny them alternatives to waiting for government-provided healthcare. I'd bet you the rent money that Prime Minister Martin and members of the Canadian Parliament don't have to wait months and years for a medical procedure.

I wonder just how many Americans would like to import Canada's healthcare system, which prohibits the purchase of private insurance and private healthcare services. In British Columbia, for example, Bill 82 provides that a physician can be fined up to $20,000 for accepting fees for surgery. In my book, it's medical Naziism for government to prohibit a person who wishes to purchase medical services from doing so. But let's not look down our noses at our northern neighbors, for we too are well along the road toward medical Naziism.

1) If this is an argument against anything at all, it's an argument against McGentrix's system, where the government provides the healthcare. It isn't an argument against the system actually proposed by the Democrats in the US, where the providers stay private, and the federal government provides only one health insurance plan among many. Nobody in the US wants to prohibit the purchase of health insurance from private companies.

2) The article doesn't really make a strong case against McGentrix's system either, because the whole case rests on waiting times alone. No mention of of other benchmarks such as life expectancy, childhood mortality, or any of that, by which Canada looks way better than the US. What kind of country would you rather live in: in a country where you wait 3 months for a hip replacement, or in one where you die three years earlier? I, too, prefer the Democratic plan to the Canadian healthcare system, but the Canadian system would still be an improvement over America's status quo.

PS: For the perils of failing to look at the big statistical picture, see the first chapter of Lomborg's Skeptical Environmentalist, a book that we both appreciate.

I'm bored with your inability to grasp the truth.

Obama and the left don't give a **** about how healthy or unhealthy the dumbmasses are.
All they care about is a vehicle that will give them more power and control over the dumbmasses.

So you experienced the health care systems in one of the European countries and know from own experience that the current US system is a lot better, I guess.

Obama and the left don't give a **** about how healthy or unhealthy the dumbmasses are.
All they care about is a vehicle that will give them more power and control over the dumbmasses.

Socialized health care is that vehicle.

Walter, I think the answer to your question is "no". No, H2O man has not experienced any of the European health care systems by himself. And no, he does not know from current experience that America's current system is much better.

I actually don't care about any other health care plan, I'm only interested in what we have here in the states.

And as I have pointed out... Obama's interest in health care in the US is all about power and control over US citizens.