March 2, 2010 by CH
If you want to know what people really prefer, watch what they do, don’t listen to what they say.
Canadian Premier Danny Williams goes to the US for heart surgery.
Commenter lena wrote:
Canada wins most gold medals.
Canada has better and free healthcare.
Oh no, you’re paying for it. And judging by the choices of those who are able to choose, you’re paying for an inferior product. D’oh!
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http://thedanashow.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/brock-lesnar-on-healthcare/
“Probably the lowest moment was getting care from Canada,” he said. “I hate to bash them, but … not to get on the political side of things, but our healthcare system is a little radical, but listen, we’ve got the best doctors in the world here. Our system does need some restructuring, but I don’t believe a total reform is the answer.
“They couldn’t do nothing for me,” Lesnar continued. “It was like I was in a third-world country. I just looked at my wife and she saved my life and I had to get out of here. I’m just stating the facts here, and that’s the facts. I love Canada. I own property in Canada, but if I had to choose between getting care in Canada or the United States, I’d definitely want to be in the United States.”
http://heymanhustle.craveonline.com/articles/news/79770-paul-heyman-brock-lesnar-is-not-going-to-shut-up-about-health-care
“Although the media has reported the story about Brock’s decision to bolt out of the Canadian hospital in Manitoba and have his wife Rena drive at 100 MPH to get across the United States border, no one has explained just how close the current UFC Heavyweight Champion of the World was to being forced into retirement.”
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He was really in a no win situation; either he get the procedure done in Canada and get ragged on for jumping the queue or go to the US.
Canadians generally fear us having a two tier system here but the rarely realize that we already have one but it requires us to contribute to US GDP for it. Many commentators like lena above have never had to use the healthcare system for anything other than a yearly physical.
Personally I think your government is taking you down the wrong path, you really don’t want what we have and now isn’t the right time for your nation to try it.
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You’re willfully missing the point. We do have about the best care in the world … if you can afford it.
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Hold on.
He had the surgery done in Miami only because his American doc is a specialist doing that particular procedure 3-4 times a day 5-6 days a week.
Every doc I know advises the exact same thing: have non-emergency surgery done by a surgeon who has lots and lots and lots of experience with the procedure you need. You never want to be some surgeon’s guinea pig.
This story has nothing to do with Canadian single-payer nationalized health care versus US private health insurance.
In fact, the article suggests the Canadian system is going to cover the cost of his having the surgery done in Miami, not Montreal.
Sounds like another win for the Canadians — would an American health insurer cover someone going abroad for non-emergency surgery if that’s where the best doc happened to be?
If you’re going to bitch and moan about Canadian health care, this story doesn’t exactly advance your cause.
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Has anyone’s stats gone up since reading roissy?
Every single one of my stats has gone up by a factor of at least 3 for me.
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Healthcare in Canada is probably better for the average person, or poor person, but for those with money the US is better. Affordability is the issue.
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The cost of healthcare in the US is artificially inflated through the cost of malpractice insurance, the middle class’s pay-in through huge health insurance premiums, and indigents’ abuse of emergency department visits.
Lasik surgery is a complicated procedure, but it’s a lot cheaper than going to the emergency department for an aspirin because it is performed under free market conditions.
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The US’s bottom 50% is far different than the bottom 50% in any other 1st world country.
Cut out all the betas & omegas in the bottom 50% of both the US and any other country, and the US has the best healthcare in the world, has a low crime rate etc.
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Canadians are such Newspeak Socialist drones
they even defend the superiority of their system
while a Premier borderhops to the front of the line
over a poor American.
No different then Soviet Premiers driving Cadillacs and swilling French Champagne as they told the proles to toe the line.
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Even if we concede that there are certain benefits to single-payer health insurance, does anyone really believe that our government is capable of delivering those benefits without sacrificing the level of quality and innovation that our health care system can deliver?
We are not Canada and we are not one of the Scandanavian countries. In terms of innovation, Canadian health care is heavily subsidized by the US. And even if you ignore the sustainability issues, there are any number of reasons why a small, homogeneous country like Denmark or Sweeden can do these things successfully. That shit is not going to work here. When our government takes a dollar of tax revenue and intends to spend it on outcome x, how much of that dollar actually reaches x? How much of it gets siphoned off by special interests and regularoty capture as politicians horse trade with their constituents hard-earned dollars? “Change you can believe in… ?” Try, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Roissy makes the right comparison. Women have convinced themselves, and their beta supplicants, that they really want “nice” guys who dote on them, while their behavior shows a revealed preference for the exact opposite. Likewise, plenty of people have convinced themselves that health care is expensive because evil, greedy insurance corporations are making huge profits off of sick people. Wake up. Health care is expensive cause… well, cause it’s expensive. The first thing I learned in my high school economics class was TANSTAFL: there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. It still holds true.
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Firepower gets the prize for being the first entity in any media I ever read for correctly writing “toe the line” and not (wrongly) “tow the line.”
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http://xkcd.com/552/
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David: “He had the surgery done in Miami only because his American doc is a specialist doing that particular procedure 3-4 times a day 5-6 days a week.
…
In fact, the article suggests the Canadian system is going to cover the cost of his having the surgery done in Miami, not Montreal.”
The Canadian doctors are inferior, because they don’t get paid as much. Good Canadian doctors move to the US.
The Canadian system will absolutely not cover this procedure. (The article does not suggest that it will.) If he has supplemental private insurance, then he may be able to get some reimbursement, depending on the policy. The provincial policies will not cover anything here.
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Thanks, PA.
I’ll admit I use it as a litmus test to see who can properly write English.
We English Degree holders have to stick together – lol – there’s so few of us left.
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Why does Canada have better health outcomes? In the US, most people have a health insurance company dictating to them what theyw ill pay for, so with single payer, you will have the same thing, but have universal coverage and it will be cheaper (why a tax is unacceptable but a premium is is beyond me – a premium is just a tax paid to a private insureer who has to extract a paper pusher profit first). If there was a ton of people dying from waiting in line, wouldn’t it be reflected in their demographic stats? Are Canadians clamouring to dismantle single payer? Note that it was one province that adopted it first and then the whole country followed when they had good outcomes. All this Canada and Europe bashing, calling them “socialist” disregards they are far more capitalist than us in a micro sense – far more Europeans and Canadians make a living at owning a small business (the US is only 22nd in the world in that stat) and universal healthcare is part of the reason.
Single payer is not socialized medicine. We have a system here that rewards wealth with choice as well. I am unclear why this isn’t evident.
If we had single payer, the money that I and my employer save on premiums would more than make up for the tax increase required to fund it and I could be paid that money in cash.
Single Payer would have no more problems with bureaucrats dictating care than private insurance does.
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We English Degree holders
Phew. Me no english degree holder. My B.S. is not of the EngLit variety. Although I took lots of Lit electives because I found it interesting.
I learned the “toe the line” expression in Basic Training, when the drill sergenants screamed at us to line our toes with the floor-tile during a barracks inspection.
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“Toe the line” makes more sense, although I can see why people would think it was “tow the line”. I wonder where the expression comes from.
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From here:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_phy_per_1000_peo-physicians-per-1-000-people
You’ll see the Canadians also follows the “American Model” of Doctor supply. That is refusing to allow schools for teaching doctors to open in order to maintain very high pay for doctors.
You see, doctors may VOTE for Open Borders, but much like women, they understand that Open Borders for THEM is bad.
See IMBRA.
In any case, since Canada is unwilling to let 40% or more of it’s population “just shut up and die” the number of doctors available for the top 10% of the population is somewhat more limited.
Still, since they don’t abandon the rest of the population, Canada has one of the highest life expectancies IN THE WORLD:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_lif_exp_at_bir_tot_pop-life-expectancy-birth-total-population
America, on the other hand, is 37.
But we do spend insanely more money!
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_hea_car_fun_tot_per_cap-care-funding-total-per-capita
American Medical Care, our thieves are number one!
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Americans are more likely to survive cancer, despite our admittedly poor diet and exercise habits.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba596/
We also have a longer life expectancy when adjusting for accidents and homicides, two things that should be controlled for when using life expectancy as a proxy for health care quality. This is even more amazing considering our generally shitty health habits.
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20061017_OhsfeldtSchneiderPresentation.pdf
The worst parts of the American system can all be traced back to government meddling. It’s the huge socialist element in our health care system that is dragging us down.
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U.S. System: If you have the money you’ll get the best if you don’t you are SOL.
Health insurance like other insurance works by spreading the risk. The larger the pool the lower the cost for everyone. In the U.S. insurers play the game of only insuring healthy people and trying to restrict payments based on technicalities.
In the seven years since starting my new job my premiums have doubled. They will probable double again in less than seven years. This is not sustainable.
A question for all you free market types, which I count myself as one: how many people out there want to leave their company job to start a new business but cannot do so either because they are uninsurable due to preexisting condition or simply cannot afford to self insure?
One reason Toyota chose to build a plant in Ontario instead of the U.S. is that they would not have to pay health benefits to the employees as Canada already provides healthcare.
Taiwan which is not a socialist haven researched how other countries handled healthcare when trying to determine which system they should adopt. They settled on a U.S. style Medicare single payer system.
The Dem’s plan is nearly the same as the plan the Republicans were offering to Clinton in the 90’s. Now its socialism, marxism fascism, etc. The Swiss and Dutch use a similar private insurance/public option mix which is in the House Bill.
The Fiscally Irresponsible Right in this country has stumbled on a great plan: if you screw things up badly enough and then block the next guy from trying to fix things, you will be rewarded in the following election. Brilliant!
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“would an American health insurer cover someone going abroad for non-emergency surgery if that’s where the best doc happened to be? ”
Actually, most US plans do. However, most US plans these days have high reimbursement rates for their “preferred providers”, lower rates (percentages) for others. But for the “others”, it does not matter if they are outside the U.S.
In fact, I suspect many insurers secretly love it, since
medical costs in other countries, including private
care in the UK and Australia, are lower than in the US.
On a different note, socialized medicine means that unless you are bleeding out, you WAIT!
I grew up in Europe with mostly socialized medicine. At age seven I was diagnosed with protruding front teeth
(not actually a big deal, granted). So my name was put in the stack for socialized orthodontia. I got the phone call at age
20, and told them where they could stick their “care”. NOT a floating legend, I was it, me, myself!
And yes, health outcomes in the US are great, if you subtract out homicide, suicide and obesity-related problems.
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lena,
the reason we have an employer-provided system like we do is because FDR enacted wage and price controls during wwii. corporate profits were taxed at really high rates and wages were fixed, so companies used their revenue to offer employees health insurance which allowed them to avoid taxes and compete for workers. that quirk was later made a feature through the tax code.
it was governement meddling that created this problem in the first place. what makes you think that more government meddling will fix it?
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Sex and (Democrat) healthcare? Both seem to involve getting f*cked.
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Oh, and with the new bill, you have to bring you own K-Y for both, too.
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Um, his “American” doctor is from Newfoundland. Now why would a Canadian doctor leave Canada’s super-awesome health-care system? Anyone?
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“We English Degree holders have to stick together – lol – there’s so few of us left”
there “are” so few of us left.
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J R blathered:
So J R, where are you free market types screaming for a revocation of that law? Since it’s such a problem and everything.
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“A question for all you free market types, which I count myself as one: how many people out there want to leave their company job to start a new business but cannot do so either because they are uninsurable due to preexisting condition or simply cannot afford to self insure?”
Firstly, you can get “Cobra” for 18 or 36 months. You
pay your ex-employer the same as he pays to the
insurance company, and you keep the coverage you had.
I have never been able to figure out when you get 18
and when you get 36. Oh, if you are fired/laid off,
you pay only a third. If you quit, you pay the full amount.
Then, most insurers (unfortunately not all) will let you
convert (after expiration of Cobra) to an individual
plan without prejudice (i.e. with your warts and all).
This is already true.
Some fixes would be good, however.
1) Reword the system so that the payments are tax-deductible even if you make them yourself. It is insane to allow employers to tax-deduct medical ins. but not individuals.
2) Make individual policies portable. There are a number of ways to do this; the employer could give you a budget to pay for your policy.
3) Rework policies so they have high deductibles but coupled to an MSA. This will force people to shop around based on price, and will mitigate the cost explosion.
4) Allow people to shop for medical insurance across state lines.
5) Abolish the silly “must cover x procedure” rules. My friend
is paying partly for the cost of caring for birth defected children. He and his wife are in their sixties….
6) Put clamps on the liability explosion.
AND ALMOST LASTLY BUT NOT LEASTLY:
Make Medicare into an MSA. Upon retirement, you get
an account; all you put in plus employers’ contributions
plus interest and/or cost-of-living adjustments. I did the numbers for myself, I would have about $300 000 at age
65 on average assumptions. You get to draw on this account
for medical expenses. This will create massive cost-conciousness!
You get out what you put in!
And, LASTLY:
Get rid of Medicaid. Get rid of mandates to the state. Let each
state handle this any way they see fit. That will also put
cost-consciousness into play.
The underlying issue:
I see the movie/commercial in my mind:
A droopy obese teenager talking to some politician
(use an Uncle Sam outfit for clarity).
Faintly in the background, armed men.
“Please, Sir, use overwhelming military power to
force somebody else to pay for my gastric bypass!”
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Via wiki’s “Healthcare in Canada” entry:
According to a September 14, 2007, article from CTV News, Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach went to the United States for breast cancer surgery in June 2007. Stronach’s spokesperson Greg MacEachern was quoted in the article saying that the US was the best place to have this type of surgery done. Stronach paid for the surgery out of her own pocket.[75] Prior to this incident, Stronach had stated in an interview that she was against two-tiered health care.[76]
When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, needed cancer treatment, he went to the US to get it.[77]
In 2007, it was reported that Canada sent scores of pregnant women to the US to give birth.[78] In 2007 a woman from Calgary who was pregnant with quadruplets was sent to Great Falls, Montana to give birth. An article on this incident states there were no Canadian hospitals with enough neo-natal intensive beds to accommodate the extremely rare quadruple birth.[79]
A January 19, 2008, article in The Globe And Mail states, “More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here. Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care.” [80]
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I’ve lived in the US for fifteen years and recently moved back to Canada. Both health care systems have their merits. To be sure, the best Doctors can be found in the U.S.
But alas, nothing in life is free. In the U.S., you might get surgery one day, and it might be by the best surgeon around.
You just might have to sell your house to pay for it.
In Canada you will still receive high quality service, and you may have to be put on a waiting list.
And it won’t cost you a nickel.
Enough said.
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Exclude Illegals and Welfare recipients (mostly Black and Hispanic) and the US has some of the highest outcomes (positive) for health care in the World.
As a practical matter, insuring about 20 million illegal aliens and about 10 million Welfare Recipients means taking health care access and money from the majority (White middle class) and giving them to foreign nationals and permanent welfare underclass folks of a different race and class.
Significantly impacting the outcomes of the majority population. The BNP in Britain is already telling White female voters they can have far better breast cancer screening and treatment, if they just get rid of Muslim immigrants (who require costly medical care). Socialized medicine comes down to slicing the pie so some people get screwed. Eventually that means the non-majority population.
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Comment_Whatever:
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/09/post-partisan-health-policy.html
You’re owned, son.
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Danny Williams is basically a national laughingstock, so whatever, I still can’t hear you over my HEALTH CARE BENEFITS.
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@Thor
you were put on a waiting list for protruding front teeth and not addressed for over 10 years. Yes that is not an optimal way to run healthcare. But how would you like NO CARE until you end up in the emergency room?
Dont get me wrong, there are many smart ways we can change the system but one party does not want to deal in good faith. Everyone talks about plans that are not even on the table.
Some of your alternate fixes proposed by republicans would make matters worse. Selling across state lines would only result in a race to the bottom in turns of coverage. Also, remove mandatory coverages would also create perverse incentives. Healthy people would choose cheap plans with little coverage which reduces the risk pool. This results in increased premiums which causes more people to leave the plan. A death spiral results as what is happening in California Read Krugman on this point.
medical liability contributes at most 1-2% of costs so that really wont do anything. Look at the Texas model. They have tort reform and premiums are still sky high.
COBRA is very costly since the portion paid by the employer must now be paid by you. never heard of COBRA extension out to 36 months.
@J R
yes if govt created a prob;em they can fix it too. but i don’t agree the FDR created the employer sponsored system. it was an end around wage and price controls and tax evasion.
For all those against healthcare reform: do you also have a problem with mandatory auto or fire insurance?
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lena & jacko – you are paying for your healthcare, through the much higher taxes you pay living there. And the system’s rationing is done through wait lists and denials of care – rather than by money.
A lot of Canadians have US health insurance – why? They want to avoid the wait lists. The US is currently the ‘safety valve’ for Canda’s healthcare deficincies. If the US goes to ObamaCare, Canadian healthcare will suffer – your safety valve will be gone.
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Poor Roissy. Some advice: politics may not be your forte. Please stick to your genius ramblings about men and women. It is there where you excel.
The true irony is: US government spending on healthcare is still higher as a percentage than Canada’s. So as an American, you essentially pay more as a percentage and still do not have universal healthcare.
So yeah, were paying for it. But your paying ten times more of it especially when you include all the ridiclous extra tests your hospitals charge you for. Of course, we still always have the option to go to the USA if we want and pay the same astronomical rates. Only one premier has and you make a big stink about it. How about all the millionaires that all over Canada that never elect to go to the USA?
As I always tell my poor republican American friends still stunned that I left the great USA for the babe haven called Canada, the only people in the world complaining about Canadian healthcare are American republicans who have never been here.
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Lena:
See my post to Comment_whatever backing up JR’s point. I’m going to own you on the “race-to-the-bottom” myth. Don’t let Krugman deceive you. He has turned into a hack.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/02/19/krugman-dont-know-health-insurance/
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Sam,
From the article, it’s unclear just who will be footing the bill.
If the surgery is deemed vital/urgent/he’ll-die-without-it, his provincial system picks up the tab, no matter that he had it done in the US.
If he didn’t want the more invasive procedure the Canadian docs proposed to do and had it done by an American doc using a more sophisticated method, then he — or his supplemental health insurance provider — appear to be on the hook.
The fact that he’s so casual about how he’s going to pay for it suggests the Canadian system is going to be writing a check to the Miami doc/hospital.
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Oh no, you’re paying for it.
..thats what she said!
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Democrats: Fucking America over to feel better about their tiny dicks since the ’60s!
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Do fucking idiots on this board know how tax works? YOU ARE PAYING FOR IT THROUGH YOU TAXES YOU IDIOT. It doesn’t matter it isn’t “free” health care if the doc, nurses and facilities run on tax payer money since you PAY for that.
US has better high way and infrastructure than Canada? Why?
US tax dollars go to towards things.
It will always be
USA #1.
Canada #whatever.
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If you look at individual racial groups in the U.S., they usually have higher individual outcomes than their peers in their home country. For instance, there’s Bergen county in NJ which has the highest life expectancy in the U.S. It is full of Asians. Life expectancy for women in that county is…wait for it…over 90 years.
The left is just terrible with statistics. Crime, healthcare, etc. A great one is infant mortality that people still peddle. In the U.S., the system spends millions to save premature babies. In Europe and elsewhere, they just say it’s not a baby and don’t count the death towards infant mortality.
There are plenty of problems with the U.S. system, but some easy solutions include taxing health benefits as wages to destroy the employer link and deregulating the market so people can buy actual medical insurance, instead of prepaid medical services.
The intractable problem will always be that people want a free lunch.
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@tina
“Healthy people would choose cheap plans with little coverage which reduces the risk pool. This results in increased premiums which causes more people to leave the plan.”
“COBRA is very costly since the portion paid by the employer must now be paid by you. never heard of COBRA extension out to 36 months.”
The first statement is simply false. What is true is that the maket, if not stymied by regulations, will actuarilly assess the riskiness of each person/family. You are even contradicting yourself, “cheap plans” cause “increased premiums”
And (not quoted) there is no reason to think that interstate
competition would cause a race to the bottom. People would buy the level of coverage they would want/afford. I would NOT
buy coverage for abortion, addiction, aromatherapy, chiropractors, whatever. But I would pick decent coverage
for things I am indeed likely to contract. The whole theory that
a large pool brings down prices is a fiction, in the general case. On the contrary, fixed price or “must issue” and
especially both, will create a horrible pool.
And who says COBRA is expensive? I asked the Human Remains office where I work. A COBRA would cost me
(I am a widower) $400 per month. Cheap! And on average,
I burn through a little more than that, without coverage I would have to go into more vigorous waist management.
Quel horreur.
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@tina
You are confusing the issue again.
“For all those against healthcare reform: do you also have a problem with mandatory auto or fire insurance?”
In most cases, auto insurance is only mandatory for the part covering third parties. Everything else is optional.
Additionally, even this requirement originates with the
various states, which are not barred from doing this by
the 10th amendment which limits only the federal government.
And, in many states, you can exempt yourself from the auto insurance requirement by posting a bond covering damage to third parties.
Fire insurance is optional – really – except that if you have a mortgage the lender usually insists that you have it, for the obvious reason. If no mortgage, you don’t need fire insurance.
[editor: nicely said. the left-wing’s talking points are really tiresome.]
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lena,
You have bought into pure propaganda. No-one is uninsurable because of preexisting conditions. Anyone can get health insurance, provided they are truthful about their medical history, but the cheaper insurance will not cover the preexisting condition. They can still get coverage for everything else. So if they get hit by a bus they will still be covered. Insurance, of any kind, is meant to manage unexpected risks, like car accidents and hurricanes. It is not meant to provide for EXPECTED risks.
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@Thor
Let me explain what you think is an apparent contradiction. When young healthy people leave one insurance pool to buy a cheaper plan with less coverage the people who remain in the costlier and more generous plan face higher premiums since the pool has shrunk. no contradiction.
you on the other hand state that “The first statement is simply false” concerning my claim that healthy people will leave to choose cheaper plans and then in the next paragraph you state “I would NOT buy coverage for abortion, addiction, aromatherapy, chiropractors, whatever. But I would pick decent coverage for things I am indeed likely to contract”. this proves my point that people would move to other plans leaving the less healthy to pay much more – a death spiral.
Yes Canadians and Europeans pay more taxes but what do they get for these taxes. Free healthcare, free to low cost education, generous unemployment and retirement benefits, childcare benefits, good public transportation, government mandatory vacation time.
$400/month for single male coverage is not cheap. COBRA for my family would be about $1500/month
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Love the blog, but this is just dumb.
Canada’s population is nearly 10x smaller than the US.
Suppose the healthcare systems were exactly as good as each other, relative to the population. In that case, Canada would have 10x fewer specialists.
So it’s hardly a surprise there wasn’t a Canadian specialist in this particular kind of surgery. And it certainly isn’t an indictment of the system as a whole.
Stick to the game/sexual market commentary.
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@Thor
Auto insurance isnt mandatory uuuhhhh except for third party liability. that is a pretty big exception.
you are right about fire insurance.
@destroy
health risks are unexpected. i want insurance in case i get diagnosed with cancer some time in the future. A preexisting condition was at one time an unexpected event. So if i was insured at the time i would be covered but if i lose my job and try to buy it in the open market i am out of luck. And what would old people do without Medicare? Nearly everyone has some sort of condition by the time they are 65. I guess they pay everything out of pocket. tell that to your grandma and she may need to move in with you to survive.
we need to insure at birth because you dont know what hand you will be dealt in life. healthcare reform seeks exactly to stop the gaming of the system, i.e. not buying insurance when young and healthy but buy it later as age exposes one to greater health risks or when insurance companies drop you with technicalities only when you start needing benefits.
i am not a socialist. i just think that this country can do better by providing a more of social safety net with slightly higher taxes.
[editor: why should i care about people who, if the shoe were on the other foot, wouldn’t give a shit about me? please frame your answer without reference to a supernatural being.]
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Roissy
I made no reference to a supernatural being. not knowing what hand nature will deal you has nothing to do with the SUPERnatural.
I dont expect other people to care about me although this world would be a better place if there was more empathy towards strangers.
[editor: would it? let’s set empathy at 100%, meaning everyone thinks of everyone else’s feelings in any transaction, fortune or misfortune. such a level of empathy would entail putting aside desires for material accumulation, as any friendly competition for necessarily limited resources would result in a highly empathic person feeling guilt for hindering the maximization of resources by the other party. and that other party would feel guilty for taking those resources. in other words, civiilizational progress would halt. dial down empathy from 100% and you have more progress. dial it too far down and you have low trust societies like africa and the middle east, and, increasingly, multicult societies of the west.]
the point is if you are at an initial state and have no idea what the future holds, i.e. if you will contract cancer, ms, etc. or wind up with great health, it makes sense to form a pool as large as possible so that individual contributions in the pool are kept at a minimum to cover those unexpected events.
[it makes no sense for me to form a large pool with people who smoke, drink to excess, drive drunk, pork out, take extreme risks in sports, or are old and knocking on death’s door, except if you define “sense” as meaning doing what will make the empathic emotional center of your brain feel better.]
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Roissy,
Please do not put words in my mouth. I said “more empathy” than “why should i care about others” attitude. i did not say dial it up to 100%. I agree that it is hard to empathize with people who are making the wrong choices in life.
[editor: i have no problem letting the uninsured die in the streets from their ailments, particularly self-inflicted ailments. this is how i feel. do you think your feelings have more value than my feelings?]
The risk factors you identify can be dealt with. First you add a premium or tax for unhealthy habits which are added to the pool. tax cigs, high fat high sugar foods. sports is a double edge sword. sports improve health but highly risky ones can result in higher health costs. while there are the brain and spinal injuries, most sports injuries are broken bones and knee or joint injuries, i.e. not too expensive. the health benefits and risks may cancel each other out. these things can be calculated and adjustments can be made.
[do you believe this is politically feasible? and if so, are you prepared to see the 60% of the population that is obese suffer higher premiums and taxes as they struggle to raise their families on a tighter budget? are you prepared to see the weak-willed writhe in torment and culled from the herd?]
Old people are only an issue initially. after that most people will have been paying into the system from a relatively young age.
it may make no sense now but you dont know what the future holds. i hope you stay healthy or insured.
i look forward to you insights on the female psyche.
[you will look forward to what i give you.]
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Dear America
When will you win your first war without any help from any other country.
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@lena
“Let me explain what you think is an apparent contradiction. When young healthy people leave one insurance pool to buy a cheaper plan with less coverage the people who remain in the costlier and more generous plan face higher premiums since the pool has shrunk. no contradiction.”
“$400/month for single male coverage is not cheap. COBRA for my family would be about $1500/month”
You are using confusing language. In your terms, one “pool” gets cheaper, another “pool” more expensive.
So those who are high risk pay more for insurance.
This is perfectly normal and fair. Acuaries are pretty good
at this, if they are left to practive their craft.
Now, you have a point somewhere, not quoted, about somebody who contracts a disease, and it BECOMES a pre-existing condition. I would pay a higher premium for an insurance that had a rider that diseases occuring AFTER the original issuance would not be “counted” for the purposes of calculating my premium.
And no, $400 dollars a month (which how much my employer sends to Blue X each month, for me, even if I get charged with some it) is a bargain, CHEAP, as I go through about that much in medication each month – yes I have some “conditions”.
Possible serious illnesses come on top of that.
No, the desire for government paid health care, or
some megapool that you are forced to join, is a quest
for a free lunch.
“Please, Uncle S, use overwhelming military power to
force somebody else to pay for my health care.”
The creed of those who love violence but are not
willing to use it openly.
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One more thing. People who otherwise would be on Medicare would have a kitty to draw from, their lifelong payments.
I would take a kitty of $300 000 over joining the current Medical system at age 65.
(There are some technical adujstments, such as working out what to do with people already on Medicare, and to what extent non-working spouses have a marital-property interest in the working spouse’s Medicare payments. But converting Medicare to an MSA makes sense.)
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@lena
” healthcare reform seeks exactly to stop the gaming of the system, i.e. not buying insurance when young and healthy but buy it later as age exposes one to greater health risks or when insurance companies drop you with technicalities only when you start needing benefits.”
Again, you got it wrong. The “gaming” is possible
PRECISELY because of government imposed rules
about “must cover” and limitations on tailoring
premiums to actual risk (based on age, pre-existing
conditions and whatnot).
In a free-market system, you would want to get
insurance early in life, and buy a rider that
conditions appearing after you initially joined
would not count against you.
And yes, paricularly when it comes to conditions
for which the person is largely responsible because
of his actions, (anything from extreme sports to drug use,
including tobacco/alcohol, to obesity) I would not care
if he “writhed in torment”. If you act like a dumbshit,
why should I get the bill?
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Man, I just got told. Nice reporting there, Nancy Drew.
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I do not think there’s any reasoning with American conservatives on this issue (or global warming). Despite all the hand-wring here, their opposition to universal health-care has more to do with ideology than statistics. We can marshal all the statistics from health economists, but. it. will. not. matter. These guys simply believe the government has a certain limited role, and providing health-care for all is an “inappropriate, illegitimate” function of government.
Suppose I could produce knock-down empirical evidence demonstrating superior outcomes if we were to change to a universal system? For the people on this forum, it probably would not matter because such a system “redistributes” wealth, a fatally “socialistic” idea.
We could rehearse the basic arguments that go a little beyond the pleasant microeconomic foundations in your principles class: imperfect information, non-reversible outcomes, urgency, and everything else mentioned in Kenneth Arrow’s famous paper. Health-care cannot be sold like widgets, which is why the glib lasik comparison above is non-representative, meaningless.
The question is fundamentally moral. Conservatives and most libertarians think its OK to force me to pay into national defense (or “defense”), but it’s not OK for them to pay into the public pot for health-care. That’s all there is to it.
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Conservatives and most libertarians think its OK to force me to pay into national defense (or “defense”), but it’s not OK for them to pay into the public pot for health-care.
Everyone in society benefits from a national defense, a national health insurance system only benefits those get more out of the system than they pay in.
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“Conservatives and most libertarians think its OK to force me to pay into national defense (or “defense”), but it’s not OK for them to pay into the public pot for health-care.”
apples, meet oranges
the government doesn’t provide defense for its citizens because of collective bromides like those that underlie “socialized medicine”, but because governments by their nature are invested with a monopoly on both the licit use of the force in the form of police, military, and jail and the threat of force, in the form of creating laws and the courts to enforce them and to enforce contracts. it is only by this mechanism that civilization can exist in any form.
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correction: collectivist bromides
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@Vince
“The question is fundamentally moral. Conservatives and most libertarians think its OK to force me to pay into national defense (or “defense”), but it’s not OK for them to pay into the public pot for health-care. That’s all there is to it.”
Yup. As noted above in another post, defense benefits everybody, and it simply is not possible to deal with the “free rider” problem.
Not so with heatlh care and most other shit the FedGov forces us to pay for.
Defense is included in the Constitution, mostly implicitly as “a militia” – taken almost for granted. There is no mention of health care, or a bunch of other stuff. And then there is the 10th amendment.
And yes, I believe it is deeply immoral to FORCE some people to pay for other peoples healthcare, and a bunch
of other support measures. And some of the recipients, individual and corporate, are quite wealthy, but have great pressure groups/lobbyist.
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Roissy
[editor: i have no problem letting the uninsured die in the streets from their ailments, particularly self-inflicted ailments. this is how i feel. do you think your feelings have more value than my feelings?]
no my feelings are not more important even though it does not bother you that unlucky people die in the streets.
[editor: are fat people unlucky?]
[do you believe this is politically feasible? and if so, are you prepared to see the 60% of the population that is obese suffer higher premiums and taxes as they struggle to raise their families on a tighter budget? are you prepared to see the weak-willed writhe in torment and culled from the herd?]
i’ll take what is on the table now and work to try to fix it.
[you can start by removing all the illegal immigrants from the country, as their numbers contribute substantially to inflating the ranks of the uninsured. for some reason, i don’t see you signing onto that.]
as i said before i would handle high risk behavior with tax policy not increased premiums.
[so you want to spread the pain around and force responsible eaters to pay higher taxes when they occasionally indulge in the sugary treat. and what makes you think all the fatsos (to pick a gigantor example at random) are going to alter their eating habits instead of scrimping at christmas so they can afford the higher prices of their fatty foods? i could easily see a cheetos tax hitting 250% to have any effect at deterrence.]
While obesity can be due to a lack of self control there are other contributing factors. One factor is the distorted price of unhealthy foods cause by farm subsides which favor grain production over fruit and vegetable production.
[editor: already making excuses for the weak-willed, eh? it isn’t expensive to eat healthy. fatties have their destiny in their hands. all they need to do is hit the veggie aisle and steer clear of the donuts. i agree the food industry is in bad shape but i would note the government is to blame for a lot of the mess. but liberals don’t like to hear that.]
Import restrictions on sugar favors high fructose corn syrup which is much worse than sugar in terms of contributing to the rise in diabetes.
[if unhealthy people are too dumb to read a label and avoid foods with HFCS in it, then their stupidity is not my moral crisis.]
But presenting actual facts still does not matter to extreme right wing as VINCE so eloquently summarized above.
[socialized medicine is an extreme left wing position.]
@thor
you are right i was not clear with my terminology. i should have stated that when young healthy people leave one insurance plan for a cheaper inferior plan the less healthy on left on the first insurance plan have to pay more which causes more to drop out etc.
that $300,000 lump sum medicare is really going to go far after one major surgery like heart bypass.
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forcing payment to fight illegitimate wars and a certain level of defense spending is no different than forcing purchase of health plan.
[editor: actually, it is. forcing purchase of health plans so the weak-willed and the indigent can have lower premiums is essentially a transfer of payments, making it a parasitic arrangement. the military by contrast makes real contributions to the gdp by protecting the territory in which productive economic activity occurs.]
you cant know ahead of time who will be struck down so you insure against it.
[this can be done with private plans. btw, it helps to clarify these discussions by establishing our premises early on. one, healthcare is not a right. a lot of lefties like to think it is, but if it were it would mean the government could force unwilling doctors to perform operations at the point of a gun. healthcare is instead a service good, and should be treated like any other service good. two, a big reason for insurance inflation is the employer middleman hiding the true cost from the customer. when people don’t see the true price of a product they tend to overspend.]
the free riding behavior is dealt with by tax policy.
[i prefer the dying in the street option. i guarantee that’ll change bad behavior a lot quicker than tax policy.]
even hayek thought provision of healthcare through the collective action of the government was legitimate.
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“American Medical Care, our thieves are number one!”
Corporate welfare, confiscatory taxation, redistribution: our thieves are number one!
“But alas, nothing in life is free. In the U.S., you might get surgery one day, and it might be by the best surgeon around. You just might have to sell your house to pay for it.”
Why shouldn’t you sell your house to pay for it? You got the best surgeon around to save your skin. Nobody forced you. And who do you think *should* pay for it? Oh right! Silly me. I should!
“yes if govt created a prob;em they can fix it too.”
Good God! How did you come to that conclusion? I’m fluent in female logic and even I can’t follow you. If the overhead light in your car shorts out, and the bungling incompetent you hire to fix it shreds the whole electrical system, do you then expect the imbecile to be able to*fix* it?
“And what would old people do without Medicare? Nearly everyone has some sort of condition by the time they are 65. I guess they pay everything out of pocket. tell that to your grandma and she may need to move in with you to survive.
God, I don’t know. Maybe people should plan for retirement. Maybe children should be responsible for seeing to the welfare of their own parents, just as their parents looked after them.
“it was government meddling that created this problem in the first place. what makes you think that more government meddling will fix it?”
Yes, yes, yes!!! But follow your argument to the end. Perhaps you might consider (one need not entirely accept) the work of people like Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Their books, not summaries or reviews. Apologies is you’ve already done so. Don’t mean to presume.
@Thor
Your solutions, though obviously very sensible and well thought out, are far too timid to actually *fix* the underlying problem, which is vastly greater than the healthcare debacle. However, I LOVED this:
“I see the movie/commercial in my mind:
A droopy obese teenager talking to some politician
(use an Uncle Sam outfit for clarity).
Faintly in the background, armed men.
‘Please, Sir, use overwhelming military power to
force somebody else to pay for my gastric bypass!'”
I think you’ve foreseen it precisely. Crystal ball? And yet maybe, just maybe, those armed men you see aren’t property of Uncle Joe, er, Uncle Sam, at all. If healthcare passes that’s it. It’s time to fly the black.
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“lena
Foreign wars. Yes indeed, there is the rub. And, indeed, Conservatives and Libertarians do indeed disagree (not just between the two groups) on what military actions are reasonable and which are not. How much pre-emptiveness should the US indulge in? There are no easy answers.
And calling wars you don´t like “illegitimate” does not solve the problem.
But for most other things the FedGov does these days, there IS an easy answer. Most of it is unconstitutional.
Some is hypertechnically constitutional because of the
infamous “Wickard v. Filburn” ruling, where FDR threatened to increase the number of justices to 20 and pack the courts with his martinets unless the court caved to his wishes. (Google the case!) Thus, Liberals are constantly terrified that the Supremes might reverse themselves (the court is NOT bound by its own precedents). A couple of hard decisions and it could be all over for the fedhuggers.
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@Black Flag
“I think you’ve foreseen it precisely. Crystal ball? And yet maybe, just maybe, those armed men you see aren’t property of Uncle Joe, er, Uncle Sam, at all. If healthcare passes that’s it. It’s time to fly the black”
Thanks for the kind words. But I did not need to
“foresee” anything, it is ongoing. However, when the
force is overwhelming and well known, there is rarely
any need to actually deploy it. Try to persistently and obstinately NOT pay taxes for example, and the armed thugs WILL show up. Ruby ridge is an example (and that was under GHWBush, not Clinton).
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“If the overhead light in your car shorts out, and the bungling incompetent you hire to fix it shreds the whole electrical system, do you then expect the imbecile to be able to*fix* it?”
you have the analogy wrong. the correct analogy would be if the gov came in and disconnected the wire to the light they would also be able to reconnect the wire.
I have no problem taking care of my parents if they need it. i just wonder how these extreme right wingers and libertarians would feel about it. americans got used to having grandma and grandpa taken care of by soc sec an
[editor: scrap social security and replace it with a $1,000 payout at birth to be invested in an index fund and redeemable at retirement. this would be a lot cheaper than what we have now.]
Thor you are something. fed health care is unconstitutional? says you?
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roissy
FYI: i dont look forward to everything you give me. your posts on the female psyche and game do interest me most of the time and the political talk is ok too sometimes.
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Boy, am I sick and tired of this Canada vs. America health-care debate.
Tell you what: I will provide a simple test of the effectiveness of the Canadian system:
1) Make it illegal for Canadians to buy health care in the US, outside of trauma care. Don’t want to be too heartless. Basically, Danny Williams should not be allowed to purchase his heart surgery in America.
2) All international drug sales of pharma products made in the US must be sold on consignment by the US government. The US government is required by law to get at least 90% of the US retail pharmacy price (not 90% of the price paid by those covered by insurance.) The proceeds are split between pharma and the government.
Any violation of pharma patent rights is met by trade tariffs.
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Poor Canadians: Access to Canadian Healthcare
Poor Americans: No Healthcare
Rich Canadians: Access to Canadian and American Healthcare.
Rich Americans: Access to American Healthcare.
So Canadians of both classes are better off.
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@ lena: Import restrictions on sugar favors high fructose corn syrup which is much worse than sugar in terms of contributing to the rise in diabetes.
Those import restrictions were put in place by the government. And it is the government you expect to solve all the healthcare issues. Go figure.
Secondly, HFCS is not the major issue in itself. The issue is the AMOUNT consumed. Even if you replaced all the HFCS in food with sugar the average person would still be consuming too much sugar and end up diabetic.
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I think others echoed this (predicted) objection, so I’ll quote this one as representative.
First, from a cost-benefit view, the United States overspends on “defense” to a ridiculous degree — to the degree it’s a form of statistical murder. People are irrationally concerned about a terrorist attack (3000 citizens dead in a decade) when heart disease and stroke claims many, many more lives. The government spends around a billion a year on anthrax while the flu kills tens of thousands.
One of the ironies of their rigid thinking is that conservatives and libertarians are willing to tolerate more confiscation in the form of tax collection provided the government sticks to its “legitimate” functions.
Second, philosophically, the anarcho-capitalist critique is a powerful one if we accept the non-initiation of force premise. Sure, defense (national, local police protection) is non-divisible, non-excludable public good, but it’s still MY money. Take those insane free-market beliefs to their logical conclusion.
Finally, we can split the difference. The argument is “defense benefits everybody,” but it does not benefit everybody equally; in other words, there’s redistribution of income. My income. If I’m a libertarian sci-fi writer based in Bumfuck, Idaho, then I why should I have to pay extortionist sums to the Feds to protect my modest property? Because attacks in metropolitan centers can affect me? Let me spend my money as I please, thank you very much.
National health insurance benefits everyone: more worker productivity because fewer people are calling in sick with preventable and chronic illnesses; people no longer tied down to their corporate jobs can start a business and unleash their entrepreneurial spirit on the free market.
But again, it does not matter. Even if we could agree on how to monetize days lost to toothache, and I could demonstrate that universal health-care is more efficient, it wouldn’t fly because conservatives are too emotionally invested in a particular set of “natural” rights.
I don’t think arguments citing the U.S. Constitution chapter and verse are too compelling. As an American, the ancestor worship in this country embarrasses me to no end. And again, when it comes to promoting the general welfare, investments in public infrastructure, things like sewers and universal education, have been critical to economic growth.
This is exactly how ANY health insurance works: the fit subsidize the sick, even in private employment. Microsoft’s young, healthy employees pay into a system that they, on the whole, do not make as many demands upon as older workers.
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[editor: i have no problem letting the uninsured die in the streets from their ailments, particularly self-inflicted ailments.
Agree 100%. Most illnesses are preventable. Smokers, alkies, fatties, recklessly promiscuous people, druggies, tanning bed/sun addicts, etc. bring it upon themselves. No sympathy from me.
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@lena
“Thor you are something. fed health care is unconstitutional? says you?”
Yup. No kidding. The US constitution lists what
the federal government is supposed to do.
Health care is NOT one of the things on the list.
Nor is a bunch of other stuff the federal government
does. And then the 10th amendment (the tail end
of the Bill of Rights) specifically spells out that the
federal government shall do ONLY that which is
specified in the constitution. The ninth amendment,
in a less precise but similar vein spells out that the
omission of any right of the poeple
(as specified in the constitution)
shall neer be contrued as meaning that the people
lack that right.
So it is not “says me”, it is “says the constitution”.
Try and read it! It is all over the net!
@Vince
” when it comes to promoting the general welfare, investments in public infrastructure, things like sewers and universal education, have been critical to economic growth. ”
Until recently, the federal government did very little
investing in the above (and still does only modest
amounts, the Interstate road system being the exception).
Even if you believe that this is a “government” job, sewers
and public education have been paid for mostly by
local communities, occasionally by individual states.
And the investment at least in education has been
largely wasted. California
schools are dummification institutions, up through high school at least, many other states are almost as bad.
“No child left behind”. Argggh. While I can sympathise with
GWB´s diagnosis (public education sucks), the proposed cure is ridiculous. The only way it can be implemented is by holding back 99% of the students to the level of the bottom 1%, doing advanced fingerpainting.
Oh, you call following the constitution “ancestor worship”.
Well, the alternative to following the rule book is mob rule,
which is what we are seeing, even if done in a formal
manner. The last 100 years has turned the US into
a hagfish-ridden carcass (google for hagfish) , leaving the outer form mostly intact while devouring the substance.
I will take “ancestor worship” any day.
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“We English Degree holders have to stick together – lol – there’s so few of us left.”
*ahem*
There ARE so few of us left.
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We are not Canada and we are not one of the Scandanavian countries.
The Scandinavian countries have a mixed system with public and private health care providers. On the Finnish public sector, specialized care works alright but policlinics suck. Just about everyone buys health insurance for their kids to cover ear infections and such. Serious illnesses like cancer are nearly always treated by the public regional or university hospital networks. Ditto for delivery. Public hospitals charge a couple of hundred euros for delivery and a three-day stay in a maternity ward, about a tenth or so of the real cost.
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[editor: i have no problem letting the uninsured die in the streets from their ailments, particularly self-inflicted ailments.]
You need a minimum level of public, free-for-everyone healthcare for one simple reason: Infectious diseases. Without control and ready, complete access to medication (full courses of antibiotics and antivirals, followups, etc.), you’re creating a breeding ground for super-resistant strains that can affect anyone, including you.
Controlling infectious diseases and managing the medications used against them is absolutely vital, and a worthy investment even from the self-preservation point of view.
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Thor, have you ever read Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience? I’m sure you have, but do you remember? He was jailed as a tax protestor; but he was also a something of a revolutionary, an individualist anarchist and a very interesting man: “That government is best which governs *not at all*; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”
When will we be prepared for it? When the country comes crashing down around our ears? How far off is that? He was not a big fan of democracy, either, for reasons which should be obvious to all, particularly right now.
And just a bit of housekeeping. I don’t like friendly fire, but search your memory. Wickard was the Commerce Clause case, the wheat case–remember? It was decided in the 40’s.
The “switch in time which saved nine” was the two pro-New Deal cases handed down during the debate in 1937: National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin SteelCorp., which sustained the National Labor Relations Board Act against a Commerce Clause challenge, and West Coast Hotel Co.v. Parrish, which overruled Adkins and deflated substantive due process challenges to state labor legislation. Justice Roberts was the one who punked out in both cases, and the golden age of Lochner was over. Centrists!
We need Janice Rogers Brown on the Court; that would go a long way to sorting this all out.
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Firepower’s
“I Get The Joke”
award nominee
for the entire week
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@Black Flag et al.
Freedom (and faithfullnes to the constitution,
in practice the same thing) has been eroding
at least since Teddy R. There are a number
of highlights (lowlights), you can pick your favorites
in many of ways.
And yes, the genuflections
to Labor have been among the many disasters,
including for Labor itself (I am reilly taking about
the low- or non-skill labor at the assy line, not
plumbers and electricians). So you get the effective
wages including benefits up to $70/h. And
GM goes bankrupt. Some victory. Something
similar happened during the depresion, it was
slowly clearing out by IIRC 1937, but then
FDR and his gang jumped in with a bunch
of ostensibly pro-labor legislation – as you say –
and managed to stretch the depression clear
into WWII.
I don’t think there is a fix, not until the US goes
through a major reset, hyperinflation, bankruptcy
(may be the same thing) or some other horror
before things can be straightened out.
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Are we are already paying for the irresponsible peoples healthcare through emergency room visits, and again when they are too sick to work through welfare?
We need to simplify the tax code in order to see how much the uber-rich and apex-elite are gaming the system. At that point, we might be able to make a more informed decision about “universal healthcare”. Right now the numbers are one big jumbled mess of phantasmagorical-meta-calculus, and that’s just how the elite want it to be.
As far as I’m concerned, it is predictably the middle class getting screwed the most, while the elite game the system and the poor leach off of it.
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Thor:
I do not believe public infrastructure is a “government” job, but a job typically best done by government (sans scare quotes). I mean, it’d be great if we could have competing freeways except for that whole natural monopoly thing.
I’m not terribly interested in a discussion of dual federalism; suffice it to say the social geography has changed since the founding of the republic. We no longer say “these are the United States” but “this IS the United States.” Robert E. Lee led the Confederate Army not because he agreed with slavery or secession, but because he was a Virginian first. We tend to identify as Americans before we are Georgians, New Yorkers, etc, especially here on the left-coast, and that’s thanks in part to Second Founding in the post Civil War-era (which brings us the 14th Amendment, with incorporation of the Bill of Rights to follow). While we’re on the subject…
Black Flag:
But do you know why he was protesting taxes? He did not want to finance the Mexican-American war, in large part because he feared it would expand slavery.
Thor again:
Well, this is half-right. As a Californian, I can testify to the insanity of public education. Of course, I prefer universal education (the 10th plank in The Communist Manifesto) to the alternative for three reasons: 1) they ought to have the opportunity to make something of themselves — a life determined by individual choices rather than arbitrary circumstances. 2) It’s an enormous benefit to everyone. Economists attribute 10-15% of the growth in GDP over the last century to education. 3) They should be in schools rather than factories. The same sort of logic applies for health-care, especially with regard to children.
As for Roissy, I don’t understand how he can complain against push-up bras and make-up, go on and on about biomechanics, yet fail to muster the slightest outrage at food-marketeers preying on maladaptive taste buds. In any event, isn’t great that the industrialized country lacking universal health-care is also the fattest.
The conservative intuition is that, given health-care, people are going to consume food even more recklessly. Is there evidence to support that claim? Do people figure, “yeah, I might get diabetes, but at least I’ll have cheap meds.” Is there no counterbalancing factor from seeing a doctor regularly who reminds them “Hey, you need to stop eating X, Y, and Z.” Men in white lab coats with prominent degrees on their walls are practically demi-gods in our culture. White middle-class, upper-middle class people take certain things for granted, especially off-hand comments like “the doctor says I need to…”
The documentary Food Inc. profiles a Mexican-immigrant family who complains about the prices of fruits and vegetables versus dollar menu fast food and 8 liters of soda for 5 dollars. They’re idiots. Idiots who have failed to do the math and take personal responsibility for lifestyle choices. Don’t consume over-priced carbonated sugar-water. It’s still a bargain to cook at home versus going to Burger King.
Give them a doctor. Tax the hell out of food. Make companies inform consumers by prominently displaying calories. Stop subsidizing corn.
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Danny’s nickname before he bullied his way in to the premier’s office was “Danny Millions”. He was a multimillionaire having made his fortune buying up small cable channels on “da Rock” and hiking rates.
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Disclosure: I am Canadian, and I think that public healthcare is very important.
America has better healthcare than Canada. The same way that a Ferrari is better than a Subaru. But the average man is better off with a Subaru, and the average human being is better off with public healthcare.
I dated this chick and she had ovarian cancer. She was on chemo, but it went metastatic and there was some in her brain. Chemo doesn’t reach the brain cuz of the blood-brain barrier, so they tried radiation, but that didn’t work.
Her options were the free Canadian drill (as in actual drill, into her head), or the $50,000 USD mini laser. A good friend of hers had died and that girl’s parents gave her the money for the US operation.
She would have survived either way. A bit balder and a bigger hole in Canada. Was she better off with US healthcare around? Yes. If she didn’t have access to a year’s salary (for most), would she have survived in Canada, and maybe not in the States? Yes.
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Liberals seem to think that death will be conquered if only we institute socialized medicine.
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@titan and The_King:
sorry for the late response. I used to think the USA was the land of the low tax, but this is not true. In fact, we pay lower taxes in Canada. Here is the proof:
USA: http://www.moneybluebook.com/2010-federal-income-tax-brackets-irs-tax-rates/
Canada: http://www.taxtips.ca/taxrates/canada.htm
Canadians pay less tax and receive high quality health care. Sure, we won’t be treated like royalty and a patient in a Canadian hospital won’t find his pillow fluffed with a mint on it in the morning. But it is still very high caliber and all for about fifty dollars a month.
Why is the monthly premium so low? How does that pay for a decent health care system, you ask?
Because everyone pays into it.
I don’t do this gloatingly; when I left the USA I knew it would be a decade before you got your shit together. And indeed you will once again be top dog in the world -just not until 2020, at the very least.
Use google, gentlemen. It’s not hard to discover that Canadians pay less tax. Moreover, keep in mind that after the crash on 1929 it was not until 1954 that the economy started booming again. That’s 25 years of misery, gentlemen.
If you think the problems facing the USA are simple and you just need to kick some ass, think again. It’s going to be a very very very very long time before you are Alpha again. 2020, maybe. But doubtful. Realistically? 2030.
I’m done here.
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Canadians pay less tax? I doubt it. You have to take in the
whole picture. Canada has a CanFed “product tax”, something
like a federal sales tax/VAT-tax, NOT shown on most price tags,
IN ADDITION to the Provincial Sales Tax. Both Canada and
the US have plenty of stealth taxes, payroll, excise, what
have you, so making good comparisons is hard.
It is even harder to make predictions, particularly about the
future. It may well be that US taxes will skyrocket soon,
to avoid utter bankruptcy and/or hyperinflation; a Euro-style
VAT at the federal level is likely.
Time to head out to the Islands!
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So who’s gonna AMOG the USA? China? Please they eat dogs and cats. Ever been to China? It’s a third world country, Thailand has better infrastructure and chicks.
USA will be ALPHA for a very very very long time. Why? The world’s best military. If USA refuses to pay China’s debts what are they going to do? Throw chop sticks?
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I don’t doubt for one second that the USA will be the undisputed heavyweight champion once again. It’s not a question of if, but when and how.
I’m also referring to a kind of alphatude, a sense of confidence and undisputed huge-cockness. Americans had it from 1945 up until Sept 11/2001. It’s been missing since.
My fear is that people take the easy way out and defer difficult decisions for future generations. Kinda like lifting up an ass cheek, passing wind and murmuring ‘fuck it’.
It seems to me a massive house cleaning is about to happen in the USA, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Roosevelt, or maybe LBJ. Social Security, Medicare, I don’t what, but some program is going to be either gutted or re-invented. I have a feeling people will be jolted. If you’re insolvent, can’t afford entitlements, broke and do not manufacture goods and services/produce wealth -something will give.
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@Vince
“suffice it to say the social geography has changed since the founding of the republic. We no longer say “these are the United States” but “this IS the United States.” Robert E. Lee led the Confederate Army not because he agreed with slavery or secession, but because he was a Virginian first.”
Bingo, thank you.
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@Roissy,
Please stop preaching this blasphemy of personal responsibility.
Us ER docs base our business model on ir-responsibility, impulsiveness, drunkenness, couch sitting, obesity, and coddling those easily panicked.
Taken to it’s logical end, you’d have everyone paying cash only for medical services they value. But, what about my employment stability ? I need the supply/demand mismatch to ratchet up my hourly. I need the “free” care, third party payments, and generalized confusion and chaos to generate unnecessary visits. I’ve got to eat too, ya know.
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