FACT: Privatization is the only sustainable future for canadian healthcare.

[D.K.]

PS, I'm not extreme right wing. I'm realistic. In the current system, we have X dollars to allocate for healthcare. We have Z people. Therefore, under the equality of healthcare principle, each person gets X/Z dollars. Because Z has increased in recent years due to the baby boomers aging, now everybody gets less money. The lesser amount of money is sadly not enough to give everybody the level of care we've come to take for granted. Changes have to be made.

 

Privatization is one way to increase the bang for your buck, due to competition. This seems like a reasonable way to fix the system without sacraficing a standard of care.

[Wayward son]

Alright, so now poor and average families are going to be down $3500 compared to where they were before. Then just find a way to "take back" the money from the rich, problem solved. Happy now, Robbin hood?

 

No. Because these people still have to suffer through dealing with greedy insurance companies that have the end goal of denying coverage to every medical procedure that they can. There is no benefit to a system in which large insurance companies are raking in profit. In one system money is sent to the government which distributes it to hospitals. In the other system money is sent to insurance companies which take a large cut before distributing the rest to hospitals.

 

 

Don't try to use the halo of WW2 to justify your ideology. It's not like Hitler was fighting to take away everyone's healthcare or something. The men and women who fought and died in WW2 would not approve of you commandeering their efforts to justify your political beliefs. You took this arguement one step too far, this was offensive to me, and many others I'm sure.

 

It has nothing to do with Hitler trying to take away people’s health care – and I said that these views came after the war, not before or during. It happens when people are told that they are fighting for freedom, watch people get killed beside them, suffer injuries themselves and come home to find that while rich people became far richer during the war, they themselves are no better off or worse and the spouses and children of their fallen soldiers are worse off. So when they hear the constant refrains from the rich that poor people are poor because they are lazy or undeserving and the rich are rich because they are hard working and deserving they are less likely to fall for that nonsense. They have instead developed a sense of worth, that the sacrifices that they made for their country should result in more than the rich being better off. They get uppity and think wild and crazy things like that their own children are as deserving of health care and education as the children of rich. Several times the U.S. has had to put down their former soldiers with force like in 1932 when they used tanks, infantry, cavalry and Adamsite gas against 40,000 protesting WWI vets. The US didn’t bring in things like the VA single-payer health care system out of the goodness of their own hearts. The rich tried to repress it, but many social changes occured in every country that had heavy losses during WWII because their was a different mindset. Right-wing propaganda has drummed heavily enough for long enough that we now again have a disparity between the rich the poor that existed in the 1920s. The post war years saw the opposite occur - that wasn't a fluke and great things occured in this country when we felt that the rich should give something back.

 

The highest tax bracket in Canada was 70% until Mulroney decreased the taxes on the rich and increased them on the poor (the lowest tax bracket went from 6% to 17%). In the US it was 90% until Reagan decided that the rich shouldn’t have to contribute to the society that allowed the rich to gain their position of extreme wealth in the first place.

 

For several years before I went back to school I was in the highest tax bracket in Ontario (both provincially and federally). I thought that I paid too little in taxes. The complete hogwash that higher taxes will discourage people from working harder is, well, complete hogwash. As a simplified example If I could pay 25 grand in taxes if I made $100,000 is their still motivation for me to make more money if I will pay 60% of that extra income in taxes (much higher than the highest rate)? Absolutely there is. If I make an extra $10 grand in this scenario I may only bring home an extra $4 grand but that money is worth more to me compared to the lower taxed income I already made because a large chunk of that money went to my basic necessities and expenses. This additional money can either be blown on things that I love to do, or paying debts off faster (which saves me more money in the long run).

 

As for your Robin Hood/Ayn Rand/people are stealing my money nonsense, well it is just that. No one has reached any great position in their own lives without the help of many other people. Those who in turn do not want to give back so that others are given the same opportunities are purely selfish. You may think that if you end up making 10 times the minimum wage that you are 10 times more deserving and hard working compared to those who are making minimum wage, that you made it on your own and that they lack the discipline that you have. I can guarantee you that you are not and did not. You would not have made it very far if you lived in Somalia or Afghanistan. If you were a woman before we allowed woman to achieve. If you were a slave in the southern states. If you were a black under South African Apartheid. If you were a FN put through the residential school system, or if you grew up today on an isolated northern reserve. Your “achievements” are far more due to the circumstances that you found yourself in then any of your own “amazing” qualities. It is the same society which you hate that brought you those circumstances. The upper class in this country get enough benefits as it is with preferable interest rates and so many other things. They should pay more taxes because they, like everyone else, enjoy the benefits of living in a country with a progressive tax system.

[Brainz]

I am starting to think that a private OPTION should be available where the population is dense enough... e.g. BC/Ontario/Quebec. These provinces are dishing out a lot of money to cover their healthcare... it's costing a lot and the cost is only going to increase. But not everyone can afford it - some people have the money and should be able to pay for it. If it takes a load of my taxes, then yes. If it costs the guy who already owns a $1.5M house and $200K car that's fine with me.

[Head Squeeze]

I lived in a country where I had to pay for all treatment.

 

It was not nice.

 

Hence:

 

I agree with you. Paying loads of money for a minor surgery is just ridiculous. And for people who do not afford health insurance for all the members of the family, it becomes a debt trap.

[seeking1]

Lol, DK's first point breaks down courtesy of this:

 

Interesting, from NYT published today:

First Study of Its Kind Shows Benefits of Providing Medical Insurance to Poor

 

This is a complex topic, for sure; there are many studies we'd have to quote in order to have a rational level-headed discussion.

 

I am so glad I am not the only one who noticed this groundbreaking article.

[Wayward son]

some people have the money and should be able to pay for it. If it takes a load of my taxes, then yes. If it costs the guy who already owns a $1.5M house and $200K car that's fine with me.

 

When wealthy people start paying for their own medical care they no longer care about or have a stake in the quality of medical care that the government provides. The same thing goes for private schools. You can be sure the UK DPM Nick Clegg and PM David Cameron - both having grown up going to the most expensive private schools in the country (same goes for their wives) - are running the UK without any exposure to what public schools need or are like. If you don't know, it is pretty hard to care.