Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Medical care in US vs Canada

Actually EVERY single Gr.11 student I teach knows that our "publicly-funded" healthcare system - is funded with taxes.

NOTHING a government provides - is "free".

Just because we are Canadian - doesn't mean we're all stupid up here you know...

Oh,, so you're a TEACHER.. Well, THAT explains tons.... "THOSE THAT CAN, DO... THOSE THAT CANNOT, TEACH."
Old proverb and as true now as it was when first spoken.

Actually EVERY single Gr.11 student I teach knows that our "publicly-funded" healthcare system - is funded with taxes.

NOTHING a government provides - is "free".

Just because we are Canadian - doesn't mean we're all stupid up here you know...

I'm gonna assume that your smileys were an indication of a joke, and that you really don't believe that. I'm sure you realize that the fact that you learned to read, write, perform a valuable service in the Navy, and became a gunsmith had a lot to do with the hard work of teachers. I'm sure you really didn't mean to bite the hand that fed you.

Damn, I didn't realize what an awful place Canada is to live in until reading this thread, thanks for the information. Everything and everyone is better south of the 49th, what a revelation.

As part of their education - like I said - they ALL know that NOTHING a government provides - is "free".

They ALL understand - our system is PUBLICLY-FUNDED.

It's actually what we call it up here in Canada.

"PUBLICLY FUNDED HEALTHCARE."

We Canadians aren't STUPID - and we aren't BRAINWASHED.

I won't continue to debate with people who suggest that about my fellow Canadians. There simply is no point.

I, or anyone I know, has never had any major problems with health care here in Canada. My mother had a double hip replacement two years ago with no problems, and my 8 year old was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes last year. Both received great medical care. Cost of all care was $0.

All of my sons diabetic supplies are covered through my health care plan with my employer.

I'm sure misdiagnosis happens on both sides of the border.

What causes over half of personal bankruptcy in the US?

Cheers,

Rob

Our system is far from perfect, however, it's all we have. I'm with 7STW on this one. I needed an emergency appendectomy ... I got it. I needed gall bladder surgery ... I got it. I needed another little procedure ... I got it. Nothing out-of-pocket except a portion of my meds just to get over the surgery risks, pain killers etc.

Good luck with your forthcoming health care program ...seriously.

Hey fellas, I am a little curious about the reasons some of you folks in the US are so dead set against universal Medicare.
I saw some US ads and statements made about the Canadian system that were waaaaay over the top. Listening to them, you would think we're all dying in the streets.
I live in Alberta. Revenues from our oil resources and taxes pay our Medicare premiums. My wife just had 1/2 of her thyroid removed. She saw our GP 3 times, the surgeon twice, had an ultrasound, the surgery and a night in the hospital with 2 followup visits and associated tests. Cost to us...ZERO.
I have a bad back. CTscan, waited 5 days. MRI, waited 9 days. Cost zero.
We can choose what doctor to see and when and how often. Whenever we need to see the doctor we simply ..go. Money NEVER enters the equation. A "pre-existing" condition does not exist here. That is a term used by insurance companies to bar needy people and keep healthy ones in fear of losing the expensive coverage they have.

Anyway, I hope you folks sort it out for the best.

Regards,
Gary
Calgary, AB

In Canada - the answer would be YES!

A few years a back there was a write in poll conducted to see who would be named "The Greatest Canadian".

After a year of collecting votes - the winner was named.

It was Tommy Douglas - a Baptist Minister - who became the first Democratic Socialist leader in North America - and the father of Canada's public health-care system.

Here's a bit of what he did. His every waking effort seemed to be aimed at finding ways to help the poor. He believed it's what Jesus preached.




Premier of Saskatchewan:
The Leader-Post announces the CCF victory, 1944.
Despite being a federal Member of Parliament and not yet an MLA, Douglas was elected the leader of the Saskatchewan CCF in 1942 but did not resign from the House of Commons until 1 June 1944.[29] He led the CCF to power in the 1944 provincial election, winning 47 of 53 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, and thus forming the first democratic socialist government in not only Canada, but all of North America. As premier, Douglas attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953.[30]
Douglas and the Saskatchewan CCF then went on to win five straight majority victories in all subsequent Saskatchewan provincial elections up to 1960. Most of his government's pioneering innovations came about during its first term, including:
the creation of the publicly owned Saskatchewan Power Corp., successor to the Saskatchewan Electrical Power Commission, which began a long program of extending electrical service to isolated farms and villages;
the creation of Canada's first publicly owned automotive insurance service, the Saskatchewan Government Insurance Office;
the creation of a large number of Crown Corporations, many of which competed with existing private sector interests;
legislation that allowed the unionization of the public service;
a program to offer free hospital care to all citizens�the first in Canada.passage of the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, legislation that broke new ground as it protected both fundamental freedoms and equality rights against abuse not only by government actors but also on the part of powerful private institutions and persons. (The Saskatchewan Bill of Rights preceded the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations by 18 months).
Premier Douglas was the first head of any government in Canada to call for a constitutional bill of rights. This he did at a federal-provincial conference in Quebec City in January 1950. No one in attendance at the conference supported him in this. Ten years later, Premier Lesage of Quebec joined with Premier Douglas at a First Ministers' Conference in July 1960, in advocating for a constitutional bill of rights. Thus, respectable momentum was given to the idea that finally came to fruition, on 17 April 1982, with the proclamation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[31]
Thanks to a booming postwar economy and the prudent financial management of provincial treasurer Clarence Fines, the Douglas government slowly paid off the huge public debt left by the previous Liberal government, and created a budget surplus for the Saskatchewan government. Coupled with a federal government promise in 1959 to give even more money for medical care, this paved the way for Douglas's most notable achievement, the introduction of universal health care legislation in 1961.
[edit]Medicare
Douglas's number one concern was the creation of Medicare. In the summer of 1962, Saskatchewan became the centre of a hard-fought struggle between the provincial government, the North American medical establishment, and the province's physicians, who brought things to a halt with the 1962 Saskatchewan Doctors' Strike. The doctors believed their best interests were not being met and feared a significant loss of income as well as government interference in medical care decisions even though Douglas agreed that his government would pay the going rate for service that doctors charged. The medical establishment claimed that Douglas would import foreign doctors to make his plan work and used racist images to try to scare the public.[32][example needed] Their defenders have also argued that private or government medical insurance plans covered 60 to 63 percent of the Saskatchewan population before Medicare legislation was introduced.[citation needed]
Douglas is widely hailed as the father of Medicare, and took the opportunity to take his cause to the federal stage. Thus, in 1961, he retired from his position as Saskatchewan's premier and turned over the job to Woodrow Lloyd, taking leadership of the federal New Democratic Party.
The Saskatchewan program was finally launched by his successor, Woodrow Lloyd, in 1962. The success of the province's public health care program was not lost on the federal government. Another Saskatchewan politician, newly elected Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, decreed in 1958 that any province seeking to introduce a hospital plan would receive 50 cents on the dollar from the federal government. In 1962, Diefenbaker appointed Justice Emmett Hall�also of Saskatchewan, a noted jurist and Supreme Court Justice�to Chair a Royal Commission on the national health system�the Royal Commission on Health Services. In 1964, Justice Hall recommended the nationwide adoption of Saskatchewan's model of public health insurance. In 1966, the Liberal minority government of Lester B. Pearson created such a program, with the federal government paying 50% of the costs and the provinces the other half. So, the adoption of healthcare across Canada ended up being the work of three men with diverse political ideals - Tommy Douglas - a Socialist, John Diefenbaker, a Conservative and Lester Pearson - a Liberal.

I'll give you that some people, some of the time - call our lack of fees at the Dr.s office - or hospital - "free".

I'll also say - each and everyone of them knows they pay for the service we get through taxes.

I get your point - it is one of semantics only, however.

n007, don't go gettin' yer knickers in a knot. I'm not slangin' on Canada in general, just relating an observation my daughter made, and an observation I've made myself on the part of MY profession, which has been greivously abused by governments across Canada for decades.

Canada is a great country. I don't live there any more because I can't practice my profession there in the manner in which I was trained to do.

Don't believe what you read from the CBC. They are known locally as the Communist Broadcasting Corp.

Don't believe what you read from the CBC. They are known locally as the Communist Broadcasting Corp.

Here is another 'semantics only' point, from the taxpayer funder CBC no less:

Canada�s universal and free system of health care is one of this country�s most widely respected and valued social institutions. Since its inception in Saskatchewan in 1961, publicly funded medicare spread to the rest of Canada during the 1960s and was officially enshrined in the Canada Health Act passed by Parliament in 1984. The Canada Health Act outlaws user fees for medical treatments and extra billing by doctors for their services.

According to most opinion polls, support for this country�s health-care system is nearly universal, with almost 90 per cent expressing general satisfaction with it. This is in stark contrast to the United States, where a large majority of Americans have indicated considerable discontent with their privately run health-care system. To many Canadians, free, universal medicare is one of the hallmarks of Canadian society and is an example of its values of social justice and equity.

http://newsinreview.cbclearning.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/dec09ushealth.pdf

Call it a semantic argument if you wish, but it is these semantics that create the 'nearly universal' support for it.

Introduce transparency and accountability and see where the overwhelming support goes.