This is what can happen when the government has sole control on the purse strings:
Shhh! This is from a Canadian publication and they do not like Americans knowing about this.
Right, and health care in America is flowers and unicorns.
The National Post is a right-wing publication, BTW.
Growing up on the Canadian border and working for a Canadian organization while I was in high school, I don’t know too many Canadians who aren’t open about the issues within their system.
But they’ll sure as hell take it over ours.
I never said the American system is perfect. Just that a single payer model, like Canada, is not the utopia that those advocating it in the US claim it to be. But I guess that bothers some people.
Who said the Canadian system is utopia
I think many just feel it is an improvement on what we have and had
The real issues of government provided healthcare is not something that the press want to cover. They get access to the Obama administration by being compliant, not be being the journalists they claim to be.
UK system is in worse shape than either US or Canada. When was the last time you read a negative article about the NHS in a US newspaper. Never.
That’s because Americans know next to nothing about the problems with socialized medicine in Canada, or the UK.
Well, this American knows a lot about Canadian healthcare and having lived in both countries, there is no question in my mind which is better. I don’t know any Canadian who would trade what we have for the system in the U.S. No system is perfect, including what we have in Canada, but it certainly is a heck of a lot better than that in the U.S.
TomSr- I ran a tax compliance program that had me dealing with thousands of Canadian business people, truckers, accountants, lawyers, government officials, corporate officers. You name the range of people in society and I had to deal with them. I had many discussions with them about health care- zero were willing to consider the US system over the Canadian system.
And before you tell me about all the Canadians that come to the US for care the number is 1% of the patients come here from Canada for care but most of those were already here for vacation, business or the winter season.
That is 44,000 Canadians that seek treatment outside of Canada.
Over 6 million US citizens sought medical treatment outside the US.
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The real issues of government provided healthcare is not something that the press want to cover.
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Canada does not have “government provided healthcare.”
“When was the last time you read a negative article about the NHS in a US newspaper.”
I can’t remember the last time I read any article in a US newspaper about an internal domestic issue in the UK – negative, positive, or neutral. This is not a focus of the US press.
oldindie- do you recall what that liberal Maggie Thatcher promised the citizens of the United Kingdom about the NHS when she was seeking election
I read those articles
Mr. B. experienced Canadian health care while on a business trip… the $180 he had to pay for the ER visit at the time was less than $250 deductible (and definitely less than a typical ER bill of $500) for a similar ER trip in the US. The wait was very comparable, and the care he received was great. He sometimes jokes about driving across the border and paying out of pocket… Which we almost did - with our dog…
I have experienced health care systems all over the world. Although no system is perfect I can tell you that I would take the system in the UK or Canada over the US system hands down. The UK has long waits for common procedures but they are not life threatening and they are free to the patient. Which means the well off can have it taken care of privately but the poor at least have it taken care of without worrying about cost. When my son needed his tonsils out, it would have been a two month wait in the UK. But it would have been free. We paid privately and had it don within days. Meanwhile, health care costs in the US is the leading cause of bankruptcy. That does not happen in almost every other country in the world.
Right now I have a severe medical condition. Had the Affordable care act not happened, I would have met my lifetime max five years ago and been uninsurable right now. That means every other procedure I would have had since then would have had to been paid out of pocket. We would be bankrupt. I had health insurance for 59 years but right now I could not afford to keep living. After you have no more insurance, have declared bankrupty, where do you get health care? This would not be a problem in the UK or in Canada. Or any of the other countries I have lived in. If the ACA is repealed, I may have to leave the country. Or die.
I knew that posting this article would provoke a lot of defensive replies. 
But no one has responded to the issue raised in the article: That there are long wait times for medical services while at the same time as there are unemployed doctors.
And the one area where the US government has had full responsibility for providing health care, the Veteran’s Administration, hasn’t worked out very well.
The majority of vets like the VA and would fight efforts to end the system
Again none of these systems are perfect they are just better than the previous US system
Are you defending that system
Who said anything about ending the VA system? It is just another example of governmental administration not being sensitive to the needs of its clients.
Maybe they could remedy the backlog if everyone agreed to work just 10% harder for a while.
To wait a YEAR to have thyroid nodules removed??? I had that done. They were literally choking me. The longer the patient has to wait the bigger the nodules get and the more difficult the surgery becomes risking the nerves that affect the vocal cords.
Meanwhile with doctors unemployed or underemployed they are losing skills. The more procedures a doctor does the better he gets at it and patient outcomes improve.
Canada may have a cheaper system but you get what you pay for.
How long do you wait to have thyroid nodules removed in the US if you have no money and no insurance?