justintime
Well-known member
I was not going to step into this debate, as I live in Canada. We have had so called " free" health care here for probably 40-50 years now. It has some very good points but it also has some bad. Personally, I think the solution is somewhere in the middle.
Yes, there are waiting lists for some procedures but that is getting much better. If you have an emergency situation, there is immediate action. A good friend of mine was rushed to emergency two hours after coming home sick from work. He was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer, and he had surgery the next morning. If you break you leg and it requires pinning or surgery, it is done immediately. We have absolutely no worries about what any health care we need is going to cost us. That is actually a good feeling to have, but we pay for everyone's health care through increased taxes.We have a 5% sales tax provincally and a 5% Goods and services tax federally, and farmers can claim back almost all the GST paid on farm related expenses. I have talked with several US friends, and I do not see much difference in the income tax paid between Canada and the US.
What I don't like about our health care, is that because of it being government funded, there has been an increasing level of upper layer of administration. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
I have friends in the US that have had some family health concerns over a long period of time. They eventually had to sell their three generation farm to pay part of their medical bills, after a family member had several major health issues, their health insurance rose to a level that they could not pay the premium. To me, that does not seem right, but I know it is also an isolated case.
In my own family, I have seen the benefits of our system, as well as the down falls. My mother was diagnosed with liver failure, after having hepatis from an unknown source. She was told that she would need a liver transplant so my parents moved to Edmonton, which is 600 miles from here to her to receive a liver transplant. Fortunately for us, my sister was head of the transplant unit at the University of Alberta hospital, so my parents were able to stay with her and her family. She had here transplant which was totally successful, however she died a few months later from complications to her lungs. That was 16 years ago now, and my sister had access to the files where the healthcare costs were maintained. If we had not had so called free health care, we probably would have lost everything, as the bill would have been over 1.2 million dollars.
I have also had two major surgeries that were done immediately and each time, I was in Intensive care for over 12 days each time.While I was very sick, it was a good feeling to know that my healthcare was not going to affect us in anyway, other than having a little work pile up on the farm.
As I said, I do believe that the real answer to healthcare is somewhere between our two systems. I feel that we will eventually see more and more movement where some procedures will be done on a two tier system. This means for example, if you want to wait for your turn, you can go into the public system line-up. If you want to pay for it yourself, that option will be available to you as well. We are starting to see this with things like hip and knee replacements, MRI scanning, etc.
As far as the quality of our health care, I believe it is excellent, just as it is in the US.
Yes, there are waiting lists for some procedures but that is getting much better. If you have an emergency situation, there is immediate action. A good friend of mine was rushed to emergency two hours after coming home sick from work. He was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer, and he had surgery the next morning. If you break you leg and it requires pinning or surgery, it is done immediately. We have absolutely no worries about what any health care we need is going to cost us. That is actually a good feeling to have, but we pay for everyone's health care through increased taxes.We have a 5% sales tax provincally and a 5% Goods and services tax federally, and farmers can claim back almost all the GST paid on farm related expenses. I have talked with several US friends, and I do not see much difference in the income tax paid between Canada and the US.
What I don't like about our health care, is that because of it being government funded, there has been an increasing level of upper layer of administration. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
I have friends in the US that have had some family health concerns over a long period of time. They eventually had to sell their three generation farm to pay part of their medical bills, after a family member had several major health issues, their health insurance rose to a level that they could not pay the premium. To me, that does not seem right, but I know it is also an isolated case.
In my own family, I have seen the benefits of our system, as well as the down falls. My mother was diagnosed with liver failure, after having hepatis from an unknown source. She was told that she would need a liver transplant so my parents moved to Edmonton, which is 600 miles from here to her to receive a liver transplant. Fortunately for us, my sister was head of the transplant unit at the University of Alberta hospital, so my parents were able to stay with her and her family. She had here transplant which was totally successful, however she died a few months later from complications to her lungs. That was 16 years ago now, and my sister had access to the files where the healthcare costs were maintained. If we had not had so called free health care, we probably would have lost everything, as the bill would have been over 1.2 million dollars.
I have also had two major surgeries that were done immediately and each time, I was in Intensive care for over 12 days each time.While I was very sick, it was a good feeling to know that my healthcare was not going to affect us in anyway, other than having a little work pile up on the farm.
As I said, I do believe that the real answer to healthcare is somewhere between our two systems. I feel that we will eventually see more and more movement where some procedures will be done on a two tier system. This means for example, if you want to wait for your turn, you can go into the public system line-up. If you want to pay for it yourself, that option will be available to you as well. We are starting to see this with things like hip and knee replacements, MRI scanning, etc.
As far as the quality of our health care, I believe it is excellent, just as it is in the US.
