Canadians Set the Record Straight on Health Care
In Canada, they have a program called Medicare. It works a lot like our program called Medicare except it’s open to people aged 0-64 as well as to senior citizens. It’s also funded at a somewhat lower level on a per capita basis, so relative to the US there are some shortages of advanced medical equipment. On the other hand, nobody ever goes bankrupt because they got sick, or dies because they’re too poor. Here some Canadians try to set the record straight on Medicare:
Obviously, there are a lot of details and ins-and-outs. But it’s basically pretty easy to keep straight. Canadian Medicare is pretty similar to American Medicare, but our Medicare is for old people and there’s is for everyone. So if you like Medicare, you’d also like Medicare. And if you hate Canadian-style socialism, you ought to favor dismantling Medicare.
36 Responses to “Canadians Set the Record Straight on Health Care”
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August 28th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Would be a lot easier if we were actually proposing something along those lines.
August 28th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
…old people and there’s is for everyone.
Canada? There’s no their there.
August 28th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Coherence has no place in politics.
For all we care, Canada and the UK are our socialist enemies–the modern day soviet empire. We failed to contain their threats, and now the domino effect is leaning on us to become socialists too.
*single-handedly cocks shotgun*
Now let’s go hunt some socialist ninja Nazis.
August 28th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
And the Graun has decided to retrace the journey in The Grapes of Wrath from Oklahoma to California, talking poor people who voted for McCain because they don’t trust government, and medical charities who pray for people who can’t afford their medication.
That’s the problem, really: a country with lots of people who vote for pols who’ll say “I’m going to fuck you over, but not as much as that guy over there.”
August 28th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
#1 Anthony is correct. It would have been an easy sell to get Americans behind “Medicare for all.” I’ve seen several polls that show a large majority of support for such a plan.
“Pragmatic” liberals like Yglesias think it’s more realistic to promote “mandate/regulate/subsidize.” Because we all know how average Americans feel really good about government mandates, regulations and subsidies.
August 28th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
On the other hand, nobody ever goes bankrupt because they got sick
Sure they do, you get sick, you can’t work, you lose your job and the bills pile up until you go bankrupt.
August 28th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Who did we vote as the “Greatest Canadian?”
Not Wayne Gretzky, not one of the Fathers of Confederation, not one of the great Prime Ministers, but rather…
Tommy Douglas: father of Medicare and grandfather of Kiefer Sutherland.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
“…old people and there’s is for everyone.
Canada? There’s no their there.”
Awesome.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Woodrow Lloyd actually introduced Medicare AND he’s not genetically responsible for Kiefer Sutherland.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Yeah but I heard Woodrow Lloyd liked to torture kittens.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Of course, for that to translate into the political will to pas it, we would have to actually be living in a democracy.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Sure they do, you get sick, you can’t work, you lose your job and the bills pile up until you go bankrupt.
If you want to put it ever so fucking literally, no-one goes bankrupt on account of being treated for their sickness. Which may, or may not make them better.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Hating Canadians as a people is OK too. And the French. And Muslims. And those weird people two doors down that have funny smells coming out of their house when they cook dinner. It’s all their fault. Doctors shouldn’t have to help them. Just sayin’………..
August 28th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
“If you want to put it ever so fucking literally, no-one goes bankrupt on account of being treated for their sickness…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You, sir, have never heard of a moneyectomy?
August 28th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
It would have been an easy sell to get Americans behind “Medicare for all.” I’ve seen several polls that show a large majority of support for such a plan.
This is because the corporate-funded teabagging army of mass hysteria has been scarifying against the mandate/subsidy/regulation model for months and opportunistically fearmongering about Medicare cuts.
If the Dems had seriously proposed Medicare for all, the same people would be demonizing socialist Medicare expansion and opportunistically singing the praises of mandates and subsidies (which, after all, are a windfall the insurance industry).
The goalposts are rigged to move in whichever direction is the opposite of a Democratic President taking credit for universal health care. Surely you understand this.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Sure they do, you get sick, you can’t work, you lose your job and the bills pile up until you go bankrupt.
OK, sure, that can happen, *if* you lose all your household income. In the US you can get sick, keep your job and income, and *still* go bankrupt from the medical bills. Or your nonworking spouse or parent or kid gets sick, you keep working but go bankrupt from the medical bills.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
It’s also funded at a somewhat lower level on a per capita basis, so relative to the US there are some shortages of advanced medical equipment
But in any event, Canadians quite sensibly avail themselves of the excess capacity of the spendthrift fools south of the border, so the “shortages” are even less of an issue than is commonly supposed.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Or to simplify things further for our apparently dense jmo:
In Canada, if A, B, and C all befall you, then yes, you can eventually end up bankrupt. In the US, though, often all it takes is A.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada’s doctors
By Jennifer Graham (CP) – Aug 15, 2009
SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country’s health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country – who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting – recognize that changes must be made.
“We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“We know that there must be change,” she said. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”
The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there’s a critical need to make Canada’s health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.
His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that “a health-care revolution has passed us by,” that it’s possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and “that competition should be welcomed, not feared.”
In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.
He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This “activity-based funding” would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said.
Doig says she doesn’t know what a proposed “blueprint” toward patient-centred care might look like when the meeting wraps up Wednesday. She’d like to emerge with clear directions about where the association should focus efforts to direct change over the next few years. She also wants to see short-term, medium-term and long-term goals laid out.
“A short-term achievable goal would be to accelerate the process of getting electronic medical records into physicians’ offices,” she said. “That’s one I think ought to be a priority and ought to be achievable.”
A long-term goal would be getting health systems “talking to each other,” so information can be quickly shared to help patients.
Doig, who has had a full-time family practice in Saskatoon for 30 years, acknowledges that when physicians have talked about changing the health-care system in the past, they’ve been accused of wanting an American-style structure. She insists that’s not the case.
“It’s not about choosing between an American system or a Canadian system,” said Doig. “The whole thing is about looking at what other people do.”
“That’s called looking at the evidence, looking at how care is delivered and how care is paid for all around us (and) then saying ‘Well, OK, that’s good information. How do we make all of that work in the Canadian context? What do the Canadian people want?’ ”
Doig says there are some “very good things” about Canada’s health-care system, but she points out that many people have stories about times when things didn’t go well for them or their family.
“(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now – if it keeps on going without change – is not sustainable,” said Doig.
“They have to look at the evidence that’s being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada’s doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you’re getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it.”
Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Re: But in any event, Canadians quite sensibly avail themselves of the excess capacity of the spendthrift fools south of the
The number of Canadians who come to the US for healthcare is vanishingly small. The rightwing stats sometimes quoted on this neglect to weed Canadians who already live, work or vacation in the US and so quite naturally use US healthcare while they are here. Deliberate Canadian medical tourism amounts to no more than a few hundred people a year. Out of a population of 30 million that’s so trivial as to be meaningless.
August 28th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Campy the copy-paste-bot forgets that because Canada’s Medicare is basically owned by the Canadian people, it’s a subject for ongoing debate.
As I said the last time he splashed this paste into to a thread:
Note that nobody goes on a healthcare system fact-finding trip to the US. That’s because a) the US doesn’t have a healthcare system; b) everyone knows that what it does have is a pile of shit.
August 28th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
pseudonymous in nc Says:
August 28th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Campy the copy-paste-bot forgets that because Canada’s Medicare is basically owned by the Canadian people, it’s a subject for ongoing debate.
As I said the last time he splashed this paste into to a thread:
He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.
Note that nobody goes on a healthcare system fact-finding trip to the US. That’s because a) the US doesn’t have a healthcare system; b) everyone knows that what it does have is a pile of shit.
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You bet it’s up for ongoing debate. I just thought that as long as we were allowing Canadians to dispell myths about their healthcare system you might want to know that the president of the physicians association that has to operate in the system chooses to chararacterize it in the following terms:
-this country’s health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
-We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,
-there’s a critical need to make Canada’s health-care system patient-centred
-a health-care revolution has passed us by
-it’s possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage
- Canadians have to understand that the system that we have right now – if it keeps on going without change – is not sustainable
============================================================
Sounds to me like they’re way past the myth stage and looking reality right in the face
August 28th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
#22: There is nothing about the Canadian delivery system that cannot be cured by money. We spend far less (either per capita or as a % of GDP) on health than the US but we have universal coverage, albeit with wait times – largely for elective surgeries. If Canada spent at the rate the US does, we’d have next-day surgeries, gold faucets in our hospitals and massage (with release) for one and all.
August 28th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
20: There are two categories of Canadians who come to the US for health care. There are those who are dissatisfied with either the wait or treatment and are prepared to pay out-of-pocket for treatment in the US (eg. the brother of a good friend of mine chose to go Detroit for an angioplasty rather than wait a week to have it done in Canada). There are also those who the health care system sends over as part of overflow, and I don’t think this is a trivial figure. Here is an article in the Detroit Free Press on how the Canadian health care system is incorporating US services into its delivery.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Of all the single payer systems – the absolute worst are Canada and the UK. Thesystems in Switzerland,Germany, France, Japan, Austrailia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark – THOSE are the ones that should be brought out into the open.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
A lot of us Canadians living in the US have had to answer for that damn article pasted at #19 to our conservative American colleagues. It is nothing more than a single inflammatory quote.
Keep in mind that the CMA is essentially a doctors union representing doctor’s interests first and foremost. The previous CMA president (Day) and I believe the outgoing CMA president (Ouellette) have financial interests in a couple of only a handful of the private clinics operating outside the public system in Canada. A more interesting story, for me at least, is why these privatization advocates continue to be elected to head the CMA.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Oh, is the Canadian Medicare like ours in that it doesn’t pay hospitals enough to cover costs? Peep the graphs:
August 28th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
http://www.aha.org/aha/content/2005/pdf/05fragilehosps.pdf
(Sorry everybody, it didn’t like the link I put in above)
August 28th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
And Campy the camper dodges again, too busy whacking his equals key.
August 28th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
And then there is the horror that is NHS, as reported in the Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6092658/Cruel-and-neglectful-care-of-one-million-NHS-patients-exposed.html
August 29th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
A re-post of a submission that appears to be relevant to this thread:
”
In 1999, I was experiencing what felt like severe indigestion that wouldn’t go away after two hours. I drove myself to Emergency and within a matter of seconds after setting out my symptoms, I was being treated by a team of doctors and nurses for my heart attack. There followed four days in the Critical Cardiac Unit where I received the most absolute professional care.
The cost in the US – tens of thousands of dollars. The cost here in Canada – ZERO.
Last year, I was found to have a genetically defective heart valve that required open-heart surgery. In coming to that conclusion, I underwent several very expensive diagnostic procedures for which there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAITING PERIOD. The operation itself involved a team of surgeons, a team of anestheticists, a team of profusionists and several nurses. Again, ABSOLUTELY NO WAITING PERIOD. After the surgery, I spent ten days in intensive post-op care.
The cost in the US – hundreds of thousands of dollars. The cost here in Canada – ZERO.
If I had been compelled to use the US medical system, there is little doubt that, owing to my financial circumstances, I would now be a dead man.
Why does the wealthiest nation in the history of the world have such a dysfunctional health-care system?”
August 29th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
pseudonymous in nc Says:
August 28th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
And Campy the camper dodges again, too busy whacking his equals key.
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August 29th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
I notice that no one talks about the amount Canadians pay in taxes to pay for their “FREE” care. The average family, which I would assume means the middle class in american terms, pays on the average of 48 % of their income to give them access to free care and long wait times for elective procedures –oh yes, I forgot, they consider cancer as elective care.
August 30th, 2009 at 1:56 am
For those on the left, there’s one more thing to consider: Canadians, like Americans, complain about taxes. But one advantage Canadians have is they can point to their health-care and say “I’m getting something that’s important to me for my taxes”.
While statistically, it might be nonsense, the emotional reality is quite real.
I think this makes Canadians a lot less predisposed to hate the concept of taxes and resent our higher rates a lot less.
August 30th, 2009 at 4:46 am
Jeanne said: “I notice that no one talks about the amount Canadians pay in taxes to pay for their “FREE” care. The average family, which I would assume means the middle class in american terms, pays on the average of 48 % of their income to give them access to free care and long wait times for elective procedures”
Well , happily no.
According to http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html the top marginal tax rate in Canada is 29% for federal taxes and 17.5% for provincial taxes (most are a bit less) which gets you just under 48% but only for income over $120,000. So middle income people pay a lot less than this on average. They also get social seccurity benefits that favour the middle class more than the US social security system.
Please learn to distinguish between marginal and average tax rates.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Don’t forget PST & GST. Then there’s the added taxes in goods and services to cover all the taxes imposed on business so they and their employees can pay their taxes. A sad comment to 30 years of living in the US is watching it become socialist following the trend of Canada through the end 60’s, 70’s and beyond. I’ve watch the quality of health care in Canada that my family deals with and have had to shake my head. The US was (and is) a great country but everyones lax thinking and making arguments they don’t have the information on really is amazing. I like the pie charts above that show the private sector is subsidizing Medicare. Just wait until health care is determined by a budget committee. The socialist want you to side with them because it gives them more control over your life. The nature of socialism is why be responsible for oneself, let someone else be responsible. The system here could use some changes, but I really don’t see anything proposed that will be for the positive. Ask the question first, what made this country rich, admired and sought out over the years by the masses. It wasn’t socialism, you can’t bring down the top to pick up the bottom. It was by hard work, diligence and people working for what was right. Not by people spending other peoples money. Read sometime how strong Canada was supporting the UK through 2 wars the US never joined in immediately and ask what Canada could sustain now. It’s lost it’s reserve, as the US is chosing to do. Canada also had a budget reprieve over the last 5 decades, it did not provide for it’s defense, it lived under the US’s umbrella and paid very little for it once the nature of the Soviet Union was exposed. Otherwise everyone there would be speaking Russian now, but memories fade quickly. There was a saying in Canada in the 70’s better red than dead, they started to not even like the prospect of their own freedom. Oh well, pretty soon China will be the big kid on the block and most of these discussions will be moot, it will all be censored and shoved down our throats, LOL.