<p>You have lost hope, not me. I am still very proud of this country. I am Pima, Bullet and I have lived overseas and it is natural to return to your home country. The older you get, the more you want to be near family. It is natural, add into the fact that if they work for a multinational company I would be the first one to say to Bullet after we had kids, and our parents getting older, let’s go home. OOPS I am pretty sure that’s what we did ;)</p>
<p>mini…
Where do you get your info regarding waiting lists for cancer surgeries for patients with cancer in relation to elective surgery in Canada.
Just took part in a forum for women with breast cancer involving women from all over US and Canada. What I experienced in 3 days (mammogram, biopsy, MRI) and surgery scheduled one week later, took many in Canada 3 months.</p>
<p>"bullet – we’ve lost a lot of our hope, and more important many foreigners have lost all their hope in us. I personally work in a huge multinational company and we’re seeing more and more Europeans/South Americans returning home. "</p>
<p>I think that is a very good thing. I volunteer very closely with many Mexicans who happen to be here illegally. The best thing for them (as they will tell you) would be a better life at home, with their own culture, history and intact families. That won’t happen as long as we allow ourselves to be a partner in their countries’ ethnic cleansing.</p>
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<p>I have! I live in one now and having experienced both the Canadian system and the U.S. system, where we had the absolute best health insurance possible. As I’ve said every time this discussion takes place on CC (and it seems like it’s weekly!), I’ll choose Canada every time. Fearmongering is not productive.</p>
<p>keymom, I find it very difficult to believe that anyone in Canada has to wait three months for diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer. Unfortunately, I know many friends who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and none of them has had the experience you are indicating. One of my Ds has gone through cancer diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care for the past three years and she has received timely and excellent care. As I said before, fearmongering is not productive.</p>
<p>I also knew women in the UK who would pay to go to France to get their procedures done.</p>
<p>Well than you had a better experience than me! It is also not only about the care, but the cost to every American.</p>
<p>Also I know people who gave birth in the UK. Give birth in a LD room with 4 other women, and then sent to a ward. Forget about birthing suites and private rooms, which all of my children were born in…so were the babies born to women with no health insurance.</p>
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<p>Then how will universal health care affect you if you don’t live here? Not to be mean, but you will not have to deal with the medical system in the US.</p>
<p>In case anyone’s interested in the treatment of Senator Obama’s speech by the unabashedly right-wing NY Post, they gave him a very positive opinion piece and published the entire speech, including a very nice (large) picture of the Senator in the prime center page of the paper. The whole page.</p>
<p>Keymom-I posted TWICE the speech of the Chief Executive Office of AETNA, one of the nation’s largest insurers, delivered last July. It was HIS data, not mine, that indicated the length of waiting lists in the U.S. for cancer surgery are now longer than elective surgery in Canada. And he is hardly a flaming communist</p>
<p>Bulletprima - your costs would actually go down with UNIVERSAL, single-payor - and every single study I have seen over the past 25 years says the same. Mainly because there would be an end to insurance underwriting, systematic delay and denying of care in the hope that folks would change insurance before their conditions became more severe, intermittent insurance status which means that folks enter new insurance plans with huge neglected needs, and the cost of providing health care to the almost 100 million intermittently insured (40-50 million uninsured) in emergency rooms. Most of these reasons are why my single-payor plan is cheaper (there is also no marketing, and no “profit”). It wouldn’t cost the nation an extra penny to cover all the uninsured, but not under HillaryCare or ObamaCare, which would simply provide extra TRILLIONS to their friends in the health insurance agencies and their lobbyists.</p>
<p>Hunt - the single-payor system I am enrolled in works on FREE MARKET principles - doctors and health systems actually have to compete with each other - on the basis of quality - for my patronage, something which is virtually unheard of under our current corporate socialist system.</p>
<p>The amazing thing to me about Obama’s magnificent speech from yesterday, is that I don’t believe it is self-serving at all. It was a big risk for him, and I think he is taking a chance that the issues he brought up will constitute a small step in the right direction for race relations in the US, but it might not be the big step he needs for his campaign. To me, he is an amazing leader of great character, but how many people are really going to have the openness of mind to see that?</p>
<p>“Hunt - the single-payor system I am enrolled in works on FREE MARKET principles - doctors and health systems actually have to compete with each other - on the basis of quality - for my patronage, something which is virtually unheard of under our current corporate socialist system.”</p>
<p>I was kidding.</p>
<p>“To me, he is an amazing leader of great character, but how many people are really going to have the openness of mind to see that?”</p>
<p>since he’s the likely nominee, I’m guessing a lot. Also a lot on this forum.</p>
<p>bullet, I too am proud of this country, but I’m not proud of where it’s been the past eight years nor in the direction it appears it’s going. I also don’t think that having pride in the country means you suspend all critical thought about it.</p>
<p>And the reason I see many Europeans returning home is two-fold: healthcare – and a higher standard living and higher quality of life for the middle class.</p>
<p>Okay let’s be honest didn’t we hear this a couple of decades ago in reference to HMO. That was going to be the magic pill. Last I check, doctors still can opt out of it, or take limited number of patients.</p>
<p>By being a state employee, you as a collective group have more clout. The small business owner (independent restaurant, electrician, retail store) cannot get that break. </p>
<p>I do agree that Hillary or Obama’s program will cost, thus back to my comment that the avg. tax payer will pay 44% more in fed. taxes. At the end of the day, we all want to be altruistic, and would love to see everyone have insurance, but it will be hard for American people to bite off on paying $$$ per month for that person. The way they avg. voter will see it, is you are now taking $$$ away from my family. If the GAO is right, my family would have to pay hundreds of dollars per month for this program. As we are all here because of college age students, where will I make up that difference when the college comes calling for their money?</p>
<p>I do not live in a pollyanna world, and I know these comments might make me look ruthless, and uncaring. This is not true, it is just how my world will work. I cannot afford to pay 5K a year to a program, that I will not be at all involved with. Sorry, but I am nowhere near the ability to pay it. I don’t own porsches, and take trips around the world. I am just a wife, and mom that has to look at what I can afford. I can either afford to put that to my kids education, or pay it in taxes for a program that will not ever be something I will use.</p>
<p>“and a higher standard living and higher quality of life for the middle class.”</p>
<p>What would that mean to you? Most middle class people have tv, cable, cell phones (pretty much every gadget), access to education, a place to live, healthcare (although some might not like the cost, but it is available). What specific things would make a better quality of life for the middle class (this is a serious question)? For me it would be a shorter commute and less taxes, handsdown. I think I am best able to spend my money and want to keep more of it. I think Senator Obama is a good man, a personable man, but a liberal man who wants to take my money and spend it.</p>
<p>Lucky you-you make more than $250,000-that’s who will lose the tax cut with his plan-as I understand.</p>
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<p>How could that be in re toward standard and quality? </p>
<p>Petrol, gasoline is 2-3x more than we spend…BTW the rails do not exist in towns 45 min. away from London, at least in NYC, Phila, or DC, there are mass transits, plus SLUG lines.</p>
<p>Housing is much more expensive. I have friends that live outside of Cambridge and they are spending more to rent a 1200 sqft home (typical for the UK) than I do for my mtg pmt on a 2500 sqft.</p>
<p>Add in their VAT, plus, poll tax, and the television tax, it is very expensive to live overseas.</p>
<p>I have Brit friends who come stateside every 2 yrs to buy their fill of clothing, cameras, and linens. The dollar is worthless now against the Euro, so they are able to buy even more. I have a couple of clients that are in Europe and Asia right now, and crying, because they work for American companies overseas and are paid in dollars, thus they are being hit hard</p>
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<p>If you are talking to me, Bullet and I do not make anywhere close to that, we are typical middle class income earners, and the tax cut does not have any effect on us.</p>
<p>We are not talking about a tax cut, we are talking about how the GAO has stated for this plan to be implemented EVERYONE will PAY 44% more in taxes. This is about the cost of the plan, including the person flipping burgers, in essence, if you bring home a pay check, your federal withholdings will go up 44%. Totally different than your end of year filing!</p>
<p>zoos - the problem in today’s economy is that the american middle class (generally defined as those earning $25,000 to $99,999) is having trouble affording or getting access to all those things you listed. Middle class wages are stagnant and declining in the face of dramatically rising health/energy/education costs. The gap between the haves and the have nots is growing astronomically. Today’s America is a great place for millionaires… not-so-great for the middle class which serves them.</p>
<p>"is having trouble affording or getting access to all those things you listed. "</p>
<p>Really? Can you back that up? I don’t see it at all. At least explain what specific things you’re talking about? Also, I am genuinely interested in what you think would make a better quality of life for the middle class. For conversational reasons, not to attack.</p>
<p>I find 25K hard to believe as middle class</p>
<p>Here is the Federal Poverty guideline for 07</p>
<p>
[quote]
2007 HHS Poverty Guidelines
Persons
in Family or Household 48 Contiguous
States and D.C. Alaska Hawaii
1 $10,210 $12,770 $11,750
2 13,690 17,120 15,750
3 17,170 21,470 19,750
4 20,650 25,820 23,750
5 24,130 30,170 27,750
6 27,610 34,520 31,750
7 31,090 38,870 35,750
8 34,570 43,220 39,750
For each additional
person, add 3,480 4,350 4,000 [/quot]</p>
<p>So a family of 4 who makes less than 21K would be eligible for welfare and medicaid, but 4K more and they would be middle class?</p>
<p>Didn’t we skip low income, which is not the same as poverty.</p>
<p>I grew up with the thought there were 4 income levels, poverty, low income, middle income and upper income. I do not like placing the word class, because to me that is how you act as a person. You can be low income, but have much more class than Donald Trump.</p>