Health care question.

Surgery postponed indefinitely for 1,000 Kelowna patients

• Cathryn Atkinson, April 8, 2008 [Globe and Mail]

Majority of Que. dentists quit health-care system

• March 27, 2008 [CTV.ca]

Why Ontario keeps sending patients south

• Lisa Priest, February 22, 2008 [Globe and Mail]

Will Socialized Health Care in the US Kill Canadians?

• Don Surber, March 3, 2008 [Acton Institute]

Wait times for surgery, medical treatments at all-time high: report

• October 15, 2007 [CBC News (Canada)]

The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care

• David Gratzer, Summer 2007 [City Journal]

Cancer patients question why PET scan not covered

• May 28, 2007 [CBC News]

BC Medical Association: Waiting Too Long for Hip and Knee Surgery Costs $10,000 Per Patient-Maximum Wait Times Should Be No Longer Than 6 Months

• June 28, 2006 [CCN Matthews]

Ont. physician turns away patient for being 55+

• March 17, 2006 [CTV.ca]

Canada inches toward private medicine

• Rebecca Cook Dube, August 8, 2005 [CS Monitor]

Doctor defends private cancer clinic

• Gillian Livingston, July 15, 2005 [Canadian Press]

Dogma trumps truth in health-care issues

• D’Arcy Jenish, July 7, 2005 [Ontario Business News]

Why Canadians Purchase Private Health Insurance

• Walter Williams, June 20, 2005 [Capitalism Magazine]

Doctor welcomes health ruling

• June 9, 2005 [CBC Montreal]

Patients shouldn’t wait more than 8 weeks for cardiac defibrillator: experts

• May 24, 2005 [Canadian Press]

Grads fail to slow doctor shortage

• Jennifer O’Brien, May 21, 2005 [London Free Press]

Free Canadian health care comes at cost

• April 10, 2005 [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]

Canada’s drug tab reaches $22 billion, report suggests

• Sheryl Ubelacker, CP, April 6, 2005 [London Free Press]

Canadian health care is free and first-class – if you can wait

• Beth Duff-Brown, March 19, 2005 [The Associated Press]

Pediatricians, parents warn of shortage of community-based care for children

• Colin Perkel, March 4, 2005 [The Canadian Press]

Access to specialists difficult: study

• February 16, 2005 [CBC Calgary]

Doctor shortages, frustrations vary from region to region, survey shows

• February 15, 2005 [Canada.com]

Montreal leads the country in offering private health care

• Aaron Derfel, February 12, 2005 [Montreal Gazette]

Canada falling short on medical imaging

• February 9, 2005 [Macleans.ca]

Creative incentives required to retain older doctors

• Dr. Charles Shaver, January 20, 2005 [Toronto Star]

MRI gap defies cash fix

• Mark Kennedy, January 14, 2005 [National Post (Canada)]

A boy’s plight, a nation’s problem

• Lisa Priest, January 13, 2005 [The Globe and Mail]

Where’s proof private clinics cost more?

• Tom Brodbeck, December 4, 2004 [The Winnipeg Sun]

Surgery backlog tops 5,500 at kids’ hospitals; One-year waits common

• Aaron Derfel, December 3, 2004 [The Gazette (Montreal)]

Hospital wait lists to get worse, Carriere says

• Chris Traber, November 14, 2004 [Yorkregion.com]

Frustrated patients can’t handle ER waits

• Jennifer Stewart and Jeffrey Simpson, October 28, 2004 [The Halifax Herald Limited]

Private medical clinic opens in Montreal …it answers, “an ever-increasing demand from the public for greater accessibility and quality of health services.” - October 13, 2004 [CTV.ca]

Canadians have higher death risk than Americans after heart attack: study

• Sheryl Ubelacker, September 20, 2004 [Canada.com]

Canadian medical tourists in India

• Jeremy Copeland, September 20, 2004 [CBC News]

Doctor shortage cripples Canada’s free health care

• Clifford Krauss, September 18, 2004 [Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune]

Canada’s Once-Proud Public Health System in Crisis

• David Ljunggren, September 14, 2004 [Reuters (Ottawa)]

Hospitals to cut, again

• September 5, 2004 [Toronto Star]

Canada’s Medical Nightmare

• Robert J. Cihak, M.D., September 1, 2004 [Health Care News]

Canada faces shortage of doctors

• August 19, 2004 [MSNBC]

Canadians losing faith in health system: poll

• August 16, 2004 [CTV.ca]

Ontario hospitals a health risk

• Michael Hurley, August 8, 2004 [Toronto Star]

Need surgery? Here’s how long you’ll wait “It’s inhuman. The quality of my life is horrible and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.” - Jason Fekete, July 28, 2004 [Calgary Herald]

Docs, nurses fed up Canadian doctors and nurses are fed up with inter-governmental “bickering” that is dragging out wait times and causing more pain and suffering for patients. - July 28, 2004 [Winnipeg Sun]

Free Health Care? …in some cases, patients die on the waiting list because they become too sick to tolerate a procedure. - Walter E. Williams, July 24, 2004 [CATO]

The truth about Canada’s ailing health-care system All the major candidates in Canada’s recent national election acknowledged that the country’s health-care system is failing Canadians. - Robert J. Cihak, July 13, 2004 [The Seattle Times]

Health-care crisis looms, even with new money Canada’s health-care system is “five to 10 years” from the breaking point – even with cash injections from government, says the new president of the B.C. Medical Association. - Doug Alexander, July 5, 2004 [Vancouver Sun]

Emergency room delays a strong campaign factor “Go into the emergency room — it is the most pitiful piece of work you ever seen in your life.” - David Bruser, June 22, 2004 [Toronto Star]

Canadian Health Care in Crisis Analyst visits NC to describe how single-payer health care really works in practice. - Donna Martinez, June 17, 2004 [Carolina Journal]

Quebec cancer patients sue over wait Women waited months for radiation; lawsuit could cost system $50-million. - Ingrid Peritz, March 11, 2004 [The Globe and Mail]

Health care: no waiting lists ‘You get knee surgery within two days … try and get that in human hospitals.’ Canada’s [private] pet health-insurance industry is projected to grow at roughly 50 per cent a year… - Robert Scalia, November 30, 2003 [Montreal Gazette]

For some, surgery abroad a welcome answer

• Daniel Girard, November 29, 2003 [Toronto Star]

Canadian Doctors Eyeing United States

• Clifford Krauss, October 17, 2003 [The New York Times]

The Top Ten Things People Believe About Canadian Health Care, But Shouldn’t

• Brian Lee Crowley, October 9, 2003 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

Canadians’ health at risk, CMA says

• Valerie Lawton, September 26, 2003 [Toronto Star]

Burnout is now doctors’ ailment Almost half of Canadian doctors say they’re burned out, emotionally exhausted and blame medicine for putting a drain on their family life. - Karen Palmer, August 20, 2003 [Toronto Star]

New MRI clinic in row over poaching While she insists she’s not making any money off the venture, she says it provides an income allowance for her and her husband, the other principal in the company. - Theresa Boyle and Robert Benzie, July 28, 2003 [Toronto Star]

Price Controls and Overall Drug Spending The Canadian system, however, tends to push up overall spending on prescription drugs, despite the low prices for some brand name ones. - John Melby, July 2, 2003 [Buckeye Institute]

Gore Endorses Canada’s Medical System

• William L. Anderson, November 29, 2002 [Mises]

How Good is Canadian Health Care?

• August 2002 [Fraser Institute]

Canadian Health-Care System Is No Model for Prescription Drug Reform

• May 1, 2001 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

The Ghost of America’s Health Care Future Lives in Canada Today

• James Frogue and Robert Moffit, December 25, 2000 [Capitalism Magazine]

Socialized Medicine: The Canadian Experience Explores several lessons that can be drawn from the Canadian experience with socialized medicine: Socialized medicine, although of poor quality, is very expensive; Political compromise is the result; Socialized medicine is both a consequence and a great contributor to the idea that economic conditions should be equalized by coercion. - Pierre Lemieux [The Freeman]

Canadian Health Care …if Canadians knew as much as they think they do about the economic and moral workings of Medicare, they might not be as enthusiastic as they are about their cherished right to ‘free’ health care. - Andrei Kreptul, August 30, 2000 [Mises]

When Patients Become Victims - The Crime of Government-Run Health Care

• Merrill Matthews Jr., Ph.D. and Kerri Houston, May 1, 2000 (PDF format)

Socialized Medicine Leaves a Bad Taste in Patients’ Mouths

• Lawrence W. Reed, February 23, 2000 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

Canadians Dissatisfied With Socialized Medicine

• January 26, 2000 [NCPA]

Memo to Al Gore: Canadian Medicine Isn’t Cheap or Effective

• William McArthur, former chief coroner for British Columbia, January 28, 2000

Loved to Death: America’s Unresolved Health-Care Crisis As Canada’s national government slashes spending on medical care in order to reduce the deficit, local provinces are reducing medical staff. In Ontario, pregnant women are being sent to Detroit because no obstetricians are available. Specialists of all kinds are in short supply. Patients have to wait eight weeks for an MRI, ten weeks for referral to a specialist, and four months for heart bypass surgery. - Michael J. Hurd, November 1997 [Liberty Haven]

Is Canadian Health care a Good Model for the U.S. to Follow?

• Michael Walker, August 1994 [Liberty Haven]

Health of the State (commentary by a cancer survivor) I tell you this not to alarm you, to elicit sympathy, or to bore you. I tell you because the episode has been, for me, a salutary lesson (just in case I needed one) in why the government should not be allowed anywhere near a syringe, a dressing, a scalpel, an oxygen mask, a tissue sample — anything to do with health.

Michigan Shouldn’t Copy Canada’s Health System

• Lawrence W. Reed, July 29, 1991 [Mackinac Center for Public Policy]

Want me to continue still? This might be cherry picking but there is a whole heck of a lot of cherrys to pick from.

“I will no longer respond to you because your level of intellegence is not even worth my time to try and educate.”

If only you were bright enough to appreciate the irony :)

“You can’t answer any of my questions, but I can answer yours.”

On the contrary, I addressed everything, including the big list of irrelevant nonsense. The list of irrelevant nonsense that I told you you would be dumb to copy and paste in my second post here, and yet you still went ahead and did so. What’s even more astonishing is that you’ve done it a second time, even though I explained in plain English why it was stupid and pointless.

You know your ‘socialised’ American education is pretty damn shoddy, you might be winning me around to your point of view after all…

Slavaim, you lost. You asked for somthing I gave it to you and you lost. I will no longer respond to you because your level of intellegence is not even worth my time to try and educate. We Americans have a constitution which this health care violates, something you will never understand.

No one will ever get it perfect, I am not saying that the current system is perfect but its the best that we have. You can’t answer any of my questions, but I can answer yours. When someone gets screwed by our current system at least there is a justice dpt that might be able to fix it. No where in the constitution does it say that the government has the right to take money from me and give to another. That is exactly what health care is trying to do. They have screwed themselves on it, I shouldn’t pay for their mistake.

I have gathered everything I needed to know right here, the democrat party does not care about the low and middle class. Health care will be rationed to the upper class only. They are going to kill charity, business and the American dream. Thankyou, you have managed to vote this country into a 3rd world country.

“BS…I have to listen to the scanner 8 hours every night…People call the ambulance for sprained ankles, headaches, vomiting, “don’t feel good”…it’s pretty obvious that these aren’t people who are paying their own medical bills (or have to explain the ambulance to an insurance company).”

So you are able to diagnose people health status and their insurance status from listnening to your scanner? For 8 hours every night no less? You really need to get out more.

As usual, flietofspam is spot on. You can always find a horror story. I am sure there are just as mand, or probably more horror stories coming from our private insurance system.

The cost of healthcare is a major factor in our crumbling economy, and the only way to fix it is through a public option. Private insurance has proven to be completely inefficient and ineffective.

“I just heard that England just decided to stop treating women with breast cancer as it is to expensive there by signing their death warrant. This is what will happen here. “

You just heard? Got a link?

“Does anyone out there think that a Kennedy or any politician or wealthy person will have the same health care as us common people in this Socialized Medicine that the Democrats are proposing? “

Yes

“Are you kidding me? a headache needs a diagnosis? a sprained ankle merits a hospital ride?”

Yes a headache very well might need a diagnosis. My point was that phrannie was saying she knew what these people’s ailments were and whether they had insurance or not, simply from hearing stuff on her scanner.

“Free health care in the hands of people like you scares me. “

At the hands of people like me? I am not a doctor. The care will be no different, just how it is paid will be different.

“I just heard that England just decided to stop treating women with breast cancer as it is to expensive there by signing their death warrant. This is what will happen here. “

You ‘heard’ it did you? And do you have a credible source for that?

“This doom and gloom is coming from people who have bothered to research it. You dont know how many people have died as a result of underfunded overpopulated hospitals. If our health care is so bad then why do people come from all over the world to take advantage of it? Even from countries where it is free.”

and you’re conveniently ignoring those that have ‘died’ (since you like to be so dramatic) from not checking out the various problems they have for fear of the medical expenses, which I can assure you is more of the problem than the one that you cite for our system. I’m sorry but it’s completely immoral that people could rack up huge debts simply because they’re sick, again another fundamental flaw in your system that we don’t have to content with. Your health care is better because you spend much more as a proportion of your GDP on it, so there is more specialised care available, not because a private health care system is fundamentally more efficient. It’s funny I have used the NHS twice in the last week, the one that is ‘falling apart’ in the minds of republicans. It was a minor problem, I booked an appointment with my GP and got one within a working day. I went to have an x ray, it was a walk in centre, and didn’t have to wait more than 15 minutes to have it done. No expenses to worry about. Bear in mind too, that even though we have problems with waiting lists here, if there is something seriously wrong with you that needs immediate or urgent care, you will have it seen to straight away. I don’t think it’s much of a big deal to wait for something that isn’t important. So stop with the nonsense about people dying because of ‘over populated’ nationalised health service. It’s just rubbish, and you will always find odd examples to back up your case, but in the vast majority of cases it’s not an issue.

Having already admitted “We are out of money” he says “will require additional sources of revenue”…meaning… ‘steep tax increases’ - he said, it’s not socialized…you want to see Socialized medicine, look at Britian…yet his plan is modeled after theirs, duh - he wants to tax money coming in to ALL charities…reduce the money given !, duh…you think those giving will give less, duh - it’s free, free, free !!…NOT…but listen to what he’s saying, not doing ( 1.8 million in job loss - 9.4% unemployment rate…oops, he promised it wouldn’t go over 8 )…’The One’, ‘His Arrogance’ has spoken…so say the Sheeple…just more ‘Change’ - not the kind I had hoped for nor is beneficial to America…hope people wake up and take the blinders off before it’s too late.

America does have the best health care for those who have good insurance or can afford it. For those who lack either of these our health care system often fails us.

The number one cause of bankruptcies in the US is not people who recklessly run up their credit cards, who buy a home they can’t afford, or workers who loose their job. The number one cause is catastrophic medical expenses. We have a system in place that does provide free health care for indigent Americans but when someone in a family without health insurance gets a major injury or illness it doesn’t kick in until they spend their life savings.

America is the only industrialized nation that lacks socialized medicine. In other countries when someone is injured or sick they are treated and they spend less than we do per capita for their universal health care than we do for our patchwork system of private insurance, medicare, Medicaid, state programs, etc.

There are horror stories about people who have had problems with the health care in other countries but there are lots of horror stories for patients here as well.

Yes it is splitting hairs if we call a particular system socialized or not. Of course in our current environment they would never be able to call a program Social Security because the first word tooo scary for those who think that any form of socialism is a slippery slope that will inevitably lead to totalitarianism.

It works great in canada,

Living 50 miles from the Canadian border, and this town having a big Medical Center, I can tell you they hop, skip, and jump across the border for care here…It’s not working so great that when they really need care NOW, and they don’t want to stand in line to get it.

*It is right now that people overuse emergency rooms because they can’t afford to go to a private doctor.

BS…I have to listen to the scanner 8 hours every night…People call the ambulance for sprained ankles, headaches, vomiting, “don’t feel good”…it’s pretty obvious that these aren’t people who are paying their own medical bills (or have to explain the ambulance to an insurance company).

I have a good friend in England, who was lucky enough that her husband had insurance above and beyond NHS…her son needed surgery on the tubes in his ears, or he’d be deaf by 8 years old. The waiting list was two years long…ONLY because she had hubby’s insurance was her son’s hearing saved.

We are going to go from the best medical care in the world, to mediocre…but that will fit right in with our lowered standard of living…

p

So you are able to diagnose people health status and their insurance status from listnening to your scanner? For 8 hours every night no less? You really need to get out more.

There’s plenty of chatter between abulance and hospital, since they HAVE to respond…Diagnosises “Patient appears to have a sprain”…”Patients heartrate, pulse, breathing, all fine…has vomited twice”…”Patient says he hit his head two days ago, but headache has not gone away”…

SO no, I don’t do the diagnosis…keeping track of scanner traffic is part of my job…so I do it. “Getting out more” is not part of the job…and would very likely be frowned upon by my employer.

p

There may be some equally bad, and even an equal number of “stories” about private insurance carriers…but they stem from individual experiences…You don’t see stories that involve THOUSANDS of people from one story…and the stories here don’t involve waiting for services, while they suffer…paying for them afterwards is the “horror” here.

With Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance there are 261 million people covered by insurance of some sort…51 million who don’t have any. I’d think there’d be a far more effective and less expensive way of getting those 51 million covered than revamping the whole system for 300 plus million people.

By letting the government chose and nit pick treatment basically means one has to move mountains to get the best treatment, simply because it’s not on the “list” (hopefully acts of Congress won’t be involved here, or the wait will run into the next decade)…in the UK, prostate cancer is the biggest killer of men, but advanced treatment technology isn’t covered by NHS.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1572683/NHS-U-turn-on-prostate-cancer-treatment.html

Some people in the UK want a choice to opt out of NHS…when they cannot get what they need from them, they want to use their funds to save their own lives…

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3137669.ece

The UK is short on Dr.’s…and right now Obama is facing a shortage of Dr.’s, to serve all these people , so what happens in the interm…the 10 to 12 years it takes to get thru school? That’s IF they can bribe the best & the brightest to even go to school (another taxpayer program lurking in the shadows, to pay people to become Dr.’s, I wonder?)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/31/nhs.health

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/health/policy/27care.html

Let’s just hope that the members of Congress actually read the frigging bill before they vote this time around…and it might be worth reminding them, on an individual basis, that they are elected…they weren’t “hired”…

p

tseirpeht, I am sure there are even more and worse stories from our private insurance system. As slavaim stated, you are not weighing any of the negatives of our system. You are cherry picking.

“The best I can tell the horror stories I hear about socialized medicine exist mainly in the minds of those ideologically opposed to it.”

You got it…

I just heard that England just decided to stop treating women with breast cancer as it is to expensive there by signing their death warrant. This is what will happen here. Does anyone out there think that a Kennedy or any politician or wealthy person will have the same health care as us common people in this Socialized Medicine that the Democrats are proposing?

This doom and gloom is coming from people who have bothered to research it. You dont know how many people have died as a result of underfunded overpopulated hospitals. If our health care is so bad then why do people come from all over the world to take advantage of it? Even from countries where it is free.

What’s with all the paranoia and doom and gloom. Countries abroad have had national health care for ages and the countries/health care system haven’t imploded. In fact in my country it’s an awful lot fairer and better than in the USA

Remember amblessed you don’t want to use too many facts. You might scare off the libs, you need to start off slow then work your way up to it.

As usual you fail to answer the question. If you don’t have an answer, don’t repsond.

THANKYOU RIGHT ON JAKE!!!

Actually, Phrannie the key word to those “diagnoses” that you hear over the scanners are: appears, seems to have, possible “fill-in-the-blank”, etc. Emergency personnel, like nurses such as myself, can not diagnose. It is beyond our scope of practice. We can have our licenses taken away–permanently–for diagnosing– it is called “Practicing Medicine w/out a License”. Yes, they do have to give a mini report to the medical personnel at the ER that they will be turning their patient over to. This is a summary of what they subjectively and objectively know about that patient at that point and time. This gives the ER a chance to prepare for what they believe is coming in. “Does a headache need a diagnosis’? Uh..yes, it actually does. For someone who has never had headaches before, a headache that is excrutiatingly painful could potentially be a stroke or a brain tumor. These can only be diagnosed with an MRI. Does a sprained ankle need a diagnosis?”. Uh, yes again. Pain tolerance is different from person to person and one patients pain threshold may be significantly higher than any other given patients. That patient who “appears to have a sprained ankle” could have an extremely high pain threshold and he/she could have torn ligaments, tendons, etc. and requiring surgery if the ankle is actually broken. Point:: not all injuries, reports of pain, are nonemergent. More are worse than you realize.

As a nurse I would not WANT the responsibility of being legally able to “diagnose” even the most simple ear infection. If I wanted that responsibility, I would have gone to Med school and I know plenty of my collegues who feel the same way. Although I have been spot on in my “beliefs” (gut reaction) on what was ailing my patients prior to seeing the Physician—the thought of having to do that for “real” (again. I use the word legally–because in the medical field it is all about legality) scares the sh* out of me. As mentioned before, even a cut that appears to have a minor infection could turn out to be MRSA/VRSA showing its ugly head for the first time in that patient. If the wound is not cultured, there is no way of determining exactly* what type of bacteria/fungus it may be.

There is an ENORMOUS shortage of nurses in the US and patients waiting for beds in hospitals because all of the wards are full is soo not uncommon here as well as the articles that were listed. Although I can not cite sources— I know from personal experience! Discharge one patient and immediately start admitting a new one. Sorry if you don’t believe personal experience but we certainly don’t have time to run around w/ video cameras or voice recorders documenting what we are doing all day. 12 hour shifts? What’s that? Nurses routinely work longer than their assigned shift. Lots of things keep us from leaving on time. New admits, paperwork(and paperwork,and paperwork—dont let those computers in the rooms fool ya) charting on each of your patients usually every 2 hours in a lot of facilities. Nurses are staying over and hospitals don’t want to pay OT. The nursing shortage will take several years to catch up w/ the giant influx of new grads —but think here…do you want someone right out of nursing school being YOUR nurse after your heart surgery??

One can look anywhere on the internet and find stories (real accts now, not made up) where patients have had the wrong body part removed. I know you all have heard of that. Why do you think they have YOU place an “X” on the area/limb you are having surgery on. They say it is to make sure YOU know exactly what your surgery is and where it will be at. BS!! Ask an OR nurse! Lol

Filet..perfect answer: healthcare is fantastic here —as long as you have the $ for private insurance. A person that has private insurance, lying in the ER waiting to be admitted because, well once again all of the beds are full. Now, you have a Medicare patient also waiting for a bed as well. Have any idea who will get the next available bed?

And finally, on a different note.,,,I would like to address my medical coverage while I was on Active Duty in the United States Navy. One word: GREAT!!! Looking back, I see that it was probably the BEST health care I have ever had excluding the coverage I have now. I paid $49 to have my daughter while on AD–my paid 6 week post-delivery time off. When I had problems during my pregnancy I was seen quickly and admitted before I knew I was going to be. (U get my drift. Lol). Although the military doesn’t pay for “civilian glasses” you have access to free eye care and exams, where you can take your prescription and have it filled at LensCrafters. The healthcare, dental, and eye care I received during my enlistment was superb. Can’t “shut me up”! (=

“How well has social security worked out for us?”

Actually it works pretty well. Nothing is perfect, and it needs reform. But even in the private sector, inspection and reform of practices is required from time to time.

“How about medicare?”

It too works pretty well. It was working even better before Bush tried to “fix” it. In fact, medicare is far more efficient than private insurance. It is actually the perfect model for a single-payer system.

“How about socialized medicine for our military? “

I assume you mean VA care? This is simply an issue of funding. If we had universal healthcare, we wouldn’t need to fund the VA separately for health care.

“How about government spending money on projects on why the grass is green? How about government spending money trying to understand the drinking habbits of the Chinise prostitute? How about government spending money on a porn act where one women inserts her foot into another wo… oh nevermind. “

You tend to spout this meaningless crap when you have completely failed in making a coherent argument.

“So you are able to diagnose people health status and their insurance status from listnening to your scanner? For 8 hours every night no less? You really need to get out more.”

Are you kidding me? a headache needs a diagnosis? a sprained ankle merits a hospital ride? Free health care in the hands of people like you scares me.

You want to lower the cost of health care?

1. Close the boarders, keep them from getting free health care.
2. Stop frivolous lawsuits like a guy smokeing who sue’s his doctor after refusing medication and treatment suffers a heart attack. (I may not be a medical expert but its not exactly rocket science to figure out)
3. Allow nurses to diagnose ear infections, and other minor (easy to spot) problems. This way clinics could open up for 20 dollars a visit. They would be open now if it wasn’t for democrats trying to hurt the lower class (no surprise there).

Once again democrats are trying to screw over the lower class and blame the evil rich for it.

no, because it’s daft, I told you not to quote odd instances, which many of those pertain to. As for other things, many of them are extremely complicated and multi faceted issues, a little more complicated than ‘national health has failed’. Others may well support your point, no one ever said the system was perfect, merely better than the negative aspects of yours. But there is no balance whatsoever, you trawled for media for negative news stories pertaining to national healthcare, the media never reports anything positive. Further you have completely ignored the negative aspects of your current system. So don’t try and insult my intelligence with this nonsense, bring something sensible to the table or expect to be ignored. How dare you waste my time with this mental excrement. What’s even worse is that you likely copy and pasted the list from some biased republican website. Do some work yourself, come up with a sensible argument, and stop with the scaremongering and idiocy.

If I was to quiz you on the background to those stories, outside the internet, you know damn well you wouldn’t be able to give me anything. I wonder if you have the courage and honesty to admit it.

Also no one ever said ‘socialised’ (daft term used for emotive effect) health care is perfect, it’s about weighing up the negatives and positives of both systems. There are huge negatives to the current US system, which its proponents in making their argument have completely ignored. I’m sorry but I see getting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt for simply being ill a slightly greater concern than the money wasted by hypochondriacs.

Oh and I agree, I have an ankle sprain and I wouldn’t disregard it so quickly :) It’s already taken way longer than a broken bone would have taken to heal.

Stop with you gloom and doom scenarios. We already are paying way too much for healthcare. Why should insurance companies be profiting from sick people. In the end, and single payer system (which unfortunately is not on the table at the moment) would reduce health costs dramatically. It works great in canada, regardless of the lies being spread about their system by the right wing. Our private insurance system is the most expensive in the world. And that is not because we are getting superior care, it is because of overhead and profit.

“Finally how are they going to handle the massive numbers that are going to visit the emergency rooms for head achs and paper cuts?”

As usual, you have no idea what you are talking about. It is right now that people overuse emergency rooms because they can’t afford to go to a private doctor. If they had insurance they wouldn’t need to go to an emergency room unless it was truly an emergency.

Every time I meet a Canadian I ask them what they think about their medical system and everyone I talk to says their system works well. Sometimes people do wait 6 months for elective surgery but how many Americans postpone such operations indefinitely because they can’t afford it?

The best I can tell the horror stories I hear about socialized medicine exist mainly in the minds of those ideologically opposed to it.

I consider myself lucky to have health insurance through work since many people in my field no longer can get it this way but I pay nearly $500/month to cover myself, my wife and daughter. With this I still pay as much as $100/prescription and I I have to joust with my insurance company all the time to get them to provide the benefits I pay for. Sometimes I get the impression that they make me jump through so many hoops in the hope that I’ll just give up and pay it myself instead of dealing with their bureaucracy.

How well has social security worked out for us?
How about medicare?
How about socialized medicine for our military?
How about government spending money on projects on why the grass is green? How about government spending money trying to understand the drinking habbits of the Chinise prostitute? How about government spending money on a porn act where one women inserts her foot into another wo… oh nevermind.

“We are not a socialized country.”

Who is maintains our roads, bidges, highways? Private enterprise or goverment?

Who maintains our schools? Private enterprise or goverment?

Who maintains our police? Private enterprise or goverment?

Who maintains our military? Private enterprise or goverment?

Who matains our public parks and historic sites? Private enterprise or goverment?

We have plenty of socialsim here already. Somethings work well in the private sector and somethings work well with the government. Health care should be a right, not a privalage.

nor are european countries.

Socialized medicine is not the answer for our country. We are not a socialized country.