ASU2003

I am a little wary of both sides. People pushing privatization usually will make a lot of money on the deal. People pushing state run care don't have a good way to pay for it, or think it will all be perfect for 1/5 the cost as today.

I think we should have both systems. And I would break it down like this. If you can choose which doctor to go see, then it should be covered under private insurance. If you have to see the closest doctor (read: emergency), then a small tax (income/sales?) would cover it.

It wouldn't be the utopian, perfect solution, but it would be a start. One of the biggest worries that I have if I gave up my health insurance, is if I got into a car accident or something where the bill was very high. It is rare and people don't purposely hurt themselves badly to abuse the system or think they need to get their dollars worth out of it.

From there, we can discuss transferring more services if it is working ok.

Willravel

According to the numbers available here even the highest taxes don't reach 30%.

50% of 30% is 15%.

Ustwo

There are more taxes than just the income tax involved.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

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Willravel

Canadian TFPers, please explain to your neighbors to the south: what kind of taxes do you pay?

Martian

You're both wrong. Sort of.

Ustwo is right in that the rates quoted on wikipedia above aren't the whole picture. Those are only federal rates and just the income tax. We also pay provincial rates (which, unsurprisingly, vary by province) and sales tax on most goods.

From the Canada Revenue Agency Website:

The highest rate of income tax is in Manitoba, where one might pay (29% +17.4%) or 46.4% total income tax. Bear in mind, however, that this rate applies only to income in excess of $123 184. Thus, if I made $200 000 this year, I'd pay the top rate on ~$77 000 of that, which if I lived in Manitoba would be 46.4%. The rest of it I would pay according to the sliding scale, meaning that in the end I would pay significantly less than 46% to income tax.

The other major tax is sales tax, which also varies by province. The federal rate is 5%, where here in Ontario we pay 8%. If we therefore assume that as an Ontarian I make less than $36 000 per year and that all of my income goes towards taxable goods and therefore I pay full sales tax on it I pay 34.5% in total taxes. The reality is different, of course; services such as phone and cable are taxable, but rent isn't and neither, as far as I know, is third party insurance (home, auto, etc). The reality is that I pay significantly less than that in taxes (and this isn't even taking into account any tax credits I may qualify for; for example, rent counts towards a credit on income tax as well as not being applicable for sales tax). So I have no idea where 48% comes from.

Our healthcare system is far from perfect and I'll be the first to admit it; on the other hand, it's far from going bankrupt, despite what CBS tells you. Occasionally things ged backlogged and sometimes mistakes are made. Even still, wait times aren't all that significant; usually tests and services can be provided in a timely manner and it's exceedingly rare to hear of a high priority case that doesn't get treated in a reasonable timeframe.

Canadians do have private healthcare to an extent, as the article noted. I have additional private insurance that covers dental, eyecare and prescriptions that OHIP doesn't cover for me. For 100% vision coverage, 80% dental coverage and a flat $13 co-pay on all of my prescriptions (some of which run over $100), I pay a princely sum of $9 per week. Do you think I could get such high quality coverage for less than $500/year if OHIP didn't cover much of the essential services, particularly when one considers that I have a chronic condition?

In the end, I reckon you lot will do what you want. If privatized health care is really working out for you, than good on ya. I'll take my free commie hospitals, thanks.

__________________
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I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
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- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

host

Here is data anticipating most taxes in order to attempt as close a comparison to what our experience in the US is, as far as federal, state. and local taxes:

http://www.taxtips.ca/tax_rates.htm

The tax rates increase as income increases. However, the increased rate only applies to the increased income. For instance, the lowest federal tax rate is 15% (in 2007) for income of up to $37,178. The next rate is 22% for income over $37,178 up to $74,357. A person earning $60,000 would pay the 15% rate on the first $37,178, and 22% on the remaining income.

...in addtion, on a $70,000 pre-tax annual income, a provincial tax, ranging from $4,400 in BC
to $9,200 in Quebec is also levied.

http://www.taxtips.ca/pst/pstrates.htm
Sales taxes range from zero in Alberta to 13 percent in Nova Scotia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_Canada
Sales taxes in Canada
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
In Canada there are three types of sales taxes: provincial sales taxes or PST, the federal Goods and Services Tax or GST, and the Harmonized Sales Tax or HST.

Every province except Alberta implements a Provincial Sales Tax or the Harmonized Sales Tax. The Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories and Nunavut do not have any type of regional sales tax. The federal GST rate is 5% effective January 1, 2008.


[edit] Harmonized Sales Tax
Main article: Harmonized Sales Tax
The Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) is used in certain provinces to combine the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) into a single, blended, sales tax. Currently, there is a 13% HST in the provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. The HST is collected by the Canada Revenue Agency, which then remits the appropriate amounts to the participating provinces.


[edit] Provincial Sales Taxes
Separate Provincial Sales Taxes (PST) are collected in the provinces of British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island. Goods to which the tax is applied varies by province, as does the rate. Moreover, for those provinces whose provincial sales tax is applied to the combined cost and GST, provincial revenues decline or increase with respective changes in the GST.


When I was a business owner, as recently as in 1997, the cost of providing group medical insurance (an HMO style plan with an "in network" list of medical providers to chose from, with minimun copays for doctors visits, primary physician approval was necessary to access covered visits to specialists, except for gynecological services.)....we elected to pay the total cost as a benefit to our employees, and family coverage was $450 per month, and the annual cost to our "C" corp was $50,000.00. New hires were eligible for coverage, with no pre-condition exclusion, on the 31st day of employment,

A small business, structured as a "C" corp, can fully deduct the cost of providing employee medical benefits, including coverage of majority stockholders, with an active role in operating the business.

We also paid annual wokers comp.insurance premiums of $20,000. Most of that coverage is insurance protection for medical treatment of on the job injuries, so it should cost much less in a country with a single payer system.

Ustwo, with the cost of providing group employee benefits today, either you're offering a lesser plan, do not offer employer paid family benefits, or if you are, you're requiring a sizeable employee payroll deduction as a condition of paying your employer portion of family coverage.

Fifteen years ago, we were excited about the potential of the reforms espoused by Hillary Clinton, lessening the burden to our business of employing family medical coverage. Our expense was running at nearly three percent of our business's gross revenue.

I cannot fathom how, if you're paying for most of your staff's family coverage, as well as your own, you could be opposed to reform. We have a broken system, just in the misplaced expense and busy work of finding who pays.... a bill for medical treatment.... a worker's comp or auto insurance carrier, the patient, medicare or medicaid, or a private medical insurer, and then the issue of eligibility for medicaid paid long term nursing home care, "look backs" related to attempts of the elederly and heirs to "shelter" inheritance that rightfully, should be sold to provide care before becoming medicaid eligible, or assets that should be surrendered to medicaid, in exchange for it's coverage, instead of illegally sheltered , Huge numbers of uninsured, yet the highest average cost per patient for care in the world, wihout being even in the top ten of highly rated medical care environments.

pr0f3n

You obviously haven't worked for the VHA in the last decade or so.

http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/summary/141/12/938

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/...ct/348/22/2218

The available evidence shows health care works best when the government is a regulatory body for providers and a mandatory insurer (administrated internally) for patients.

Ustwo

Better than it used to be does not equal good.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

pr0f3n

They're out-performing Medicare. What metric would satisfy you?

__________________
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
Friedrich Nietzsche

loquitur

There's also the free-riding aspect of other countries' health care systems. Many of them (yes, Canada included) keep costs low by, in effect, shifting R&D costs to the US.

Willravel

TY, Martian and host.

So we're all now understanding that 48% statistic is right out. Further mention of the erroneous 48% statistic will get the poster sacked. Then the sackers will be sacked.

pr0f3n

This is a common misconception. Most raw medical research in technology and pharmaceuticals is done in the public sector. Private companies do the application and manufacturing work, but this is basically a red herring because it's not going to stop should we switch to UHC.

__________________
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
Friedrich Nietzsche

host

Got anything to support that claim? The US pharma market was, in 2006 $252 billion in sales, more than 40 percent of the entire, $605 billion world market.

The pharmaceuticals business is the most profitable of major industries. Companies doing business in the US, employ more than 90,000 "detailers" to call on 120,000 issuers of prescription drugs, US physicians.

I find no data to support your contention that R&D budgets, compared to what is spent on marketing, just in the US, is of major consequence. I've found your "shifting R&D costs argument", pushed by conservative talkshow hosts Medved and Prager, but I see no data to support it. What do you think it costs to keep an army of "detailers", that size....the most prolific prescription writers are reported to have 65 of these people a week at their doors...1300 visits in a 200 day year, in the field? The compensation for these 90,000, plus expenses, plus the lunch they bring in daily to the staffs of care providers offices, plus the packaging, product, and distribution costs of the drug samples that they drop off on their office calls....none of those costs are related to the TV, print, internet, and promotional "doo dad" media blitz costs incurred by big pharma to inform us about their products.

I submit that your notion of R&D cost "shifting", is a shift of profits to marketing, and not into R&D, and that using the notion is the product of a "K" street lobbyist /republican politician misinformation, "Op", a smokescreen to dissuade growing drug purchases from Mexico and Canada, that cut (so far..) inconsequentially into Pharma profits that would otherwise be spent on marketing, not on R&D.

If there is such a great concern about activities drawing money out of R&D, why not support legislation to limit some of the marketing done by Pharma, putting them all on an even keel? Could it be because the advertising industries political influence is as great or greater, than big phrama's?

Musn't let anything interfere with locking the consumer into a restricted source to purchase medicine, that will bleed him dry, one at a time, with the resulting least political consequence, than to choose to diminish in any way, the big money flowing to the largest, best organized, and most powerful political lobbies, is there?