james t kirk

I have no idea.

But, the whole enchalada comes out of there, and we have been running budget surpluses for about 10 years straight now and paying down the debt.

Once the debt is gone, they will have a lot more money for Health Care.

highthief

I await the well considered "only socialist nations pay down the national debt" response.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Charlatan

Count down... 10, 9, 8, 7...

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

james t kirk

Followed quickly by the old, "we pay for your national defense" response.

aceventura3

I don't understand what you want. The general consensus is that the Canadian Healthcare system is better than what we have in the US. Many people here would like to adopt the Canadian plan. I want to understand it. I am not very interested in comparing it to a broken system in the US, that seems pointless.

My gut tells me that we would be better to move in the direction of requiring every able American to "purchase" healthcare. I think it is a joke that we make sure that virtually every automobile and every building is insured but not every human life. Think about it some more and you find that in most states a guy who rides a motorcyle is force to wear a helmet, because of 'costs to society if he gets hurt', but he doesn't have to have health insurance using the same logic.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

flstf

I would agree if I thought that putting our medical care in the hands of insurance executives instead of our government would result in better, less expensive care. Maybe it would, but I have some doubts that they would have our best interests in mind or be able to control hospital costs.

As I understand it today they get hospitals, etc.. to agree to an amount for certain procedures for those who carry their insurance and the hospitals sometimes charge the uninsured 2 or 3 times that amount. I don't know how well it would work if insurance executives had everyone covered.

joshbaumgartner

An observation of the future? You say 'will do'. Is that an indication that currently the opposite is the case?

Canada is a very small country vs. the United States. I would expect its contribution to the science to be proportional. Do you have any numbers to back up your claim that they are not 'doing their share' on the research side of things? Or is this just inflammatory material.

Europe, and France in particular, have made major contributions which would mean even if Canada is slouching, the fact they have public health care isn't necessarily to blame.

joshbaumgartner

Well, I disagree with helmet laws, so my proposal would be their elimination. Your automobile doesn't need to have insurance, you only need insurance against the damage your automobile may do to others. I don't know what the insurance laws for buildings are where you live, but my understanding (please correct me if not the case) is that buildings only need to be insured for the same reason, that is to cover damages that may be caused to inhabitants other than the owner. If you buy a house you have to insure it so the mortgage company is protected, but if you own it outright, I don't think such insurance is mandated, at least not that I'm aware of (not in that situation myself, so I could be wrong). Certainly, though, I would argue that such insurance should not be mandatory if the only risk is to your own well-being.

aceventura3

My fault for confusing the issue. My main point with those examples - we have able working men in the US who will insure a $30,000 car before they will insure their children. Yet, we complain about the uninsured in this country.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

aceventura3

Currently in the US we have a hybrid system. Large percentages receive healthcare coverage from government, some through corporate employers and others with no insurance who rely on emergency room care. I think a true competetive private market with active consumers will do a better job than a centralized "one-size fits all" system. My bias is always with having a choice.



I admit to not having numbers on the amount of R&D done by Canadian drug companies. My concern, however is with the US. If we pass national healthcare, and that causes taxation at such high levels that it stops R&D - I think that is bad - it has to be factored into the real costs of such a plan.

So my question about Canada and its R&D activity has to do with how has taxation to pay for national healthcare affected investments in R&D. I don't have the answer, but it doesn't seem like you have the answer either.

It doesn't seem like anyone has any answers other than to say healthcare in Canada is better than in the US. O.k. I guess that settles it. Thanks

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

james t kirk

Research into pharmaceuticals is not directly related to Universal Health Care as I see it.

Maybe I am wrong.

On one hand, you have the big pharmaceutical companies who carry out research in the name of making a buck should they develop a drug that actually works (without causing you to die as a side effect of something completely different).

On the other, you have a government run health insurance plan where everyone is insured, and "making a profit" out of sickness is eliminated from the equation.

Canada has plenty of research going on right now in disease treatment I can assure you.

It used to be that a great deal of research was carried out by government institutions, universities, etc. Now, more and more, if not exclusively, drug research is done by the big pharmaceutical companies. The catch word of the day is "public private partnerships" which basically means that the tax payer pays and the pharma companies do the work and of course, keep all the profit.

Back 50 years ago, the result of government research was vaccinations for polio, scarlette feaver, TB, small pox, etc. Antibiotics were discovered in British government run facilities.

Now, I can't think of too many big discoveries that have been revealed to the world since everything went private.

Being the conspiracy theorist that I am, I figure that the pharma companies don't want to CURE anything. They just want to come up with a "treatement"

They would rather have you swallow a beaker full of pills to alieviate the symptoms of AIDS rather than cure it or vaccinate against it.

I hardly believe in the nobility of the Big Corporations, sorry. Probably due to my exposure to big corporations.

I have no problem with companies making a buck, but I see how they go about doing it on a daily basis and it is hardly noble.

aceventura3

In the best enviroment for healthcare don't you agree that you would have investment in research and development in prevention and in order to bring down longterm costs? I think R&D and good healthcare are closely related.

Also, think about laser eye surgery. In the US this proceedure was pretty much not covered by insurance. However, there was a market for it and the private sector responded. Proceedures improved and costs came down. This would not have happened accept for active participation by consumers. If left up to insurance companies they would not have covered it, if left up to government they would have not provided coverage. However the private market had an opportunity to rspond.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Charlatan

Laser eye surgery is not covered by Universal Healthcare in Canada. It is a private market procedure.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

joshbaumgartner

Public spending being around 1/3 of the total roughly based on the last numbers I saw, the other 2/3 being private healthcare spending.

A good universal healthcare system is not a 'one-size fits all' system. There is no reason to limit consumer choice.

A couple of assumptions that aren't necessarily valid. I mean it is true, it could be done that way--I don't think anyone would deny there are many ways to do universal coverage poorly. But it is certainly dependent on how the system is set up, and how the tax code is amended to pay for it. It is very certainly possible to do it in a way that companies in fact see a reduction in cost with the increase in taxes more than compensated for by the elimination of the health care benefit premiums they are paying now.

Right now, as a country, the US pays $5,274 per capita for a system that close to 40% of the people don't have adequate access to, while most other developed nations pay $2,000 to $3,000. The US number is 10.0% of the GNP, and out of 21 other major developed nations, only Germany (10.9%) and Switzerland (11.2%) pay more. Most are closer to 9%. France has a very comparable system, at $2,736 per capita costs (9.7% of GDP) and a quality of care comparable to that most covered Americans recieve, but which covers all French. Each system has its unique situation, but it is clearly a mistake to assume that to transition to a universal care system from our current system would automatically entail a rise in costs and/or a reduction in quality.

No, I don't have the numbers either, and I'm not even saying you're wrong, just that I wouldn't presume Canada (or anyone for that matter) to be slouching in R&D without having some stark data first.

Canada may or may not be better than the US in healthcare provision, but I don't think the right approach is to say Canada is better, let's go with it. Even if Canada's system is doing better for them than our system is for us, it doesn't mean their system will work for us. What we can do however, is to look at their system, at what it does well and where it fails, and take those lessons into our approach as we develop a better system here in the States.