No one would say that socialized medicine is perfect an anymore than someone would say democracy is perfect. But to paraphrase Churchill, socialized medicine is the worst system of healthcare in the world, except for all the other types we’ve tried.
If you have lots and lots of money, you can seek to buy yourself more care than anyone else gets, but that’s true no matter where you live.
As the wall slogan said years ago
“Free the Indianapolis 500!”
Maggie did the same thing in the UK. I know a psychiatrist who was one of the people who planned out how Care in the Community would work, and he hates her for what she actually did with it.
Well, if they have the name of a place and a number in their name then they probably are innocent.
Never said it was a paradise, every system can always use improvement.
There’s a running joke up here that we don’t need an official two-tier health care system in Canada, because the rich people already go to the US and pay through the nose. (Which mostly we’re fine with, let the assholes get out of the way of people that will wait their turn, fine by us!)
And I still hope she had travel insurance, not because travellers should get “free” health care while abroad, but because American Health Care is just so much more expensive for literally no reason.
See also: Panama. Such a nice welcome!
I went diving in Cozumel in '93 and the dive operator wanted to make sure the medication I was talking didn’t interfere with my dive. Free doctor’s appointment for me!
I would argue that at least part of the problem is the fact that the managers have taken over medicine. And they have discovered that demand is very price inelastic. The prices have little to do with their “costs” and everything to do with taking you for every penny they can.
We’ll meet you halfway. Americans going to Canada pay Canadian rates for healthcare, last time you were here and still to this day. You would, just as I did on the occasion I was sick in Canada before I ever moved here, save FAT STACKS if you win the misfortune lottery while you happen to be here, you’ll get a thank you letter from your insurance company, or if uninsured a bill that won’t end you.
& anyway I think the comment you’re replying to was a joke, as in “Oh no, what if she forgot to buy her $35 dollar, full coverage travellers health insurance, which you get such a cheap rate on if you are enrolled in a gevernment plan, which most everybody is.”
That $35 is an instant quote online from one of the banks I use, for me, for one week in the USA, but does have a $2,000,000.00 cap per person, that’s private insurance through my bank available to anyone with so much as a checking account at virtually any bank. If you don’t bank you can buy it from numerous places, and it remains cheap if you’re covered under OHIP (Ontario’s plan).
It’s hard to compare some things. Emergency care is comparable, but in Canada is super cheap. We can’t compare non-emergency care well because many Canadian doctors don’t take US patients for medically necessary non-emergency care because their malpractice insurance won’t cover it, and because they’re busy if they provide for a government plan.
No it ain’t perfect, it’s only better.
If you’re from Ontario and don’t get traveler’s insurance, as long as you are covered at home, you get coverage that amounts to about $400CDN per day for emergency, not nearly enough to cover the bills in the US, but if it’s serious they’ll help you to hustle home ASAP, thereby reducing your costs hugely even if you forgot to buy traverler’s insurance
See you ain’t from here, so you don’t know what the Fraser Institute is? It’s a proponent of privatizing our healthcare system, the whole thing, so 20% can go without coverage, costs can rise, people can avoid going to the doctor until acute care is necessary, all that fun stuff that is --Clearly-- justified by our rich people going on a jaunt to the south to avoid waiting a week or two for non-emergency care so our specialists aren’t overwhelmed and everyone gets care.
We could have a system where a larger percentage of people seeking medical care leave Canada because they can’t afford it in Canada. Like we have in the US, where in 2007 an estimated 750,000 people left the US for care they could afford elsewhere. Is that a higher percentage than even the Fraser Institute could dredge up for their purposes?
Yes, yes it is.
Healthcare in Canada is not perfect, it is however better for people. I’ve used both systems, insured and uninsured in the US, covered and not-covered in Canada. Care was excellent in both countries, but…$$ and…compassion. On those factors, Canada’s system whups the US system.
> No it ain’t perfect, it’s only better.
This.
The idea that we cannot criticize if our system isn’t utopia is so… childish. Also I think my sincere caring for Americans to have a better system gets read as negative all the time. And its not. I sincerely wish people had access to health care. Everyone. I don’t see how that is controversial.
Have you ever traveled to Europe and needed medical care? Unlike in the U.S., you can get a same-day appointment and walk out with medication for no or low cost, despite not being a taxpayer in their country.
That reminds me of David Sedaris explaining French dentistry. When he was done he went to reception to settle up, and they accused him of bribery for trying to pay the dentist.
Social Security was passed in 1935. The next Presidential election the Republicans won was in 1952. In fact, between 1935 and 2015, the Republicans have won 7 of 20 Presidential elections - only those with a Nixon or a Bush on the ticket (Nixon being Eisenhower’s VP, George HW Bush being Reagan’s, obviously). GOPers like to talk about this grand conservative tradition, but honestly, if you look at Eisenhower’s and Nixon’s policies objectively, the only really conservative Republican presidents have been in the Taft-Hoover period and in the Reagan-Bush period; the former ended with the Great Depression and Social Security, and the latter may end with the Great Recession and the ACA.
That’s what has the RNC shaking in its boots about the ACA, that analogy; and it’s why it was a terrible strategic mistake to call it “Obamacare.”
A french friend of mine very nearly flew home to get dental work done, because it would have been cheaper than here. She ended up finding something approaching reasonable, but the fact she contemplated flying home and getting the work done there is telling.
Here’s one of the big explainers there, for me: fundamentalist Protestantism.
The idea that how hard you work shows your moral character isn’t a big deal for Catholicism (most of central/south America), and Canada here seems to benefit from its long association with England (and the Church Of), but it’s a key component to fundamentalist Protestantism (and Calvinism specifically), and it introduces a fundamental anxiety in life:
if I suffer (especially economically), it is, somehow, my fault. I’m a loser. I caused this.
When faced with internalizing such thoughts, there’s usually a great resistance. Surely, it’s not my fault! It must be because someone else is Doing Bad.
So then you get Mexican Rapists, and Muslim Terrorists, and whatnot. If other people aren’t doing very bad things, then I have to either accept that I’m to blame for my station, OR I have to deny the moral code I’ve inherited. Both of those things are MUCH more difficult than believing in Mexican Rapists.
OT, sort of… but have you seen the movie The Witch?
Apart from it being a super creepy horror movie, much of the dialogue was taken from historical documents of the early north american colonists, letters, diaries, transcripts, etc. And the existential horror they lived with, as “true believers” is amazing and horrifying to watch. A father attempting to console his young son over the death of his baby brother “…but he’ll be in heaven now won’t he father?” “…we just don’t know son, we just don’t know…” - a baby! They’re talking about a baby!! That maybe went to heaven or maybe went to hell… a baby!
The world you live in is not the one Americans do.
That intense Puritan guilt runs deeply in America to this day, definitely. There’s still religious belief among some that an unbaptized baby hasn’t been committed to Christ, and thus might very well not be accepted into heaven if the dude at the pearly gates is feeling petulant that day. I have a weird memory from when I was a kid: we went to Disney World and when my mom saw the price difference between “child” and “adult” (age 13) she told them I was 12 to save a bundle of money. We walked in and she immediately collapsed, crying from guilt, and sobbed, “what if that was the final lie I could tell before I get sent to hell instead of heaven? They keep a TALLY!!”. I think that’s the moment I thought “holy crap, I could never live like that, in constant paranoid fear.”
…thats heart breaking. Your poor Mom… did she ever reconcile things or does she still believe?
