Bee just showed me this rather provocative and volatile interview between Michael Moore and Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/56446/

I admit that Moore does come across quite aggressively here, but he relevantly speaks about the topic between his "I told you so"s.

Thanks for that clip!! I've just finished watching it and I have to admit that It makes me sad. How do you get the other side to give you a hearing? How do you present a case in a way that gets the maximum viewership? I agree.. the cold hard facts need to be looked at - but IMHO presenting the facts for what they are and allowing the people of America to then determine their own responses and conclusions, may be a more "palatable" way of approaching the other side. I understand Mr. Moore is cheezed off, and I can appreciate how tired he is of whistle blowing without results. But that in itself would cause me to look at my approach. One can be saying truth, but sometimes it's in the WAY we say things more than what we say.

Also, I haven't seen the movie yet, so i'm not sure what he's claiming but comparing Cuba to the US in health care isn't really apples to apples is it? I have a friend who visited Cuba for vacation and had to have a medical done by a Cuban Dr. for Scuba Diving, and he was charged 10$ USD for it (he said he was there almost an hr). He said he felt like a JERK because that was all the Dr. could accept by law, and he knew very well he deserved a HECK of a lot more for his services.

I started this post, and haven't posted anything since as I'm still processing...haha

Whether you agree with Michael Moore or not, a movie that can be a catayst for change is always a good thing in my mind. What stirs the passions can lead to proactive participation for change.

My basic premise was not to compare the different health systems really. I'm sorry so many people here in the US have to pay so much for their health insurance. I guess my belief is that no one should pay anything, and the costs incurred through medical expenses should come from the tax base.

Another aspect I guess which leads me to so much dispair, is the disrespect that is given to those that don't have any health insurance. At one time, the people in the USA, cared for their "neighbours". There was a sense of "community". I find in many places, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. People are so caught up in what "they" have, vs. what "everyone" can have. Like....I have to look out for "me", damn the rest.

There is definitely something wrong with the health care system when people are "delighted" and "estatic", about their premiums being reduced and/or subsidized from $1000.00 a month to just $700.00 a month, as I read in an article of a family of five in the North East sometime last week.

Hopefully their will be some changes in the health care system with a new government in the ensuing years. This current government is in "bed" with the pharmaceutical industry and big business HMO's.

There has been some wonderful comments and debate on this thread. Thanks so much for contributing to help me in my processing!

Carla

I couldn't agree more with this. I am often questioned about our medical system and how I like paying higher taxes to pay for others needs, ie social programs, medicare, etc. This is how I see it: I have a federal job, make decent money and pay a good chunck of taxes. Less than 8 years ago I worked in the administative field and before that the service/hospitality field. My income was basically peanuts and I was single then. I worked with people that made the same amount of money as I did(minimum wage or slightly better) and had families to support. Some worked 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet - hard working people. Those people did not have to worry about trying to pay health insurance on top of just paying the mortgage. I sleep well at night knowing that their children will get their medical needs met without their family losing their home. Big deal if I pay 10% more tax (or what ever the difference is). Sure there is flaws and abuse of the system .... there is flaws and abuse of every system but does that mean that it doesn't work in principal?

The thing is, you don't even pay more there to get everyone covered than people pay here to cover some. So, it's a win-win. The only one's on the losing end would be the insurance companies and HMO's. I couldn't care less.

I am so sorry, Griffon.

Sorry, HA, but that would be an incorrect assumption. Or.... to wit...

I think what I was most pissed about was that CNN made it sound as if those countries serving universal health care paid a disproportionate amount of taxes compared to the United States.



I find it so disheartening that some people can't feel compassion for those that lack health insurance. I can't tell you the number of individual Americans that tell me they don't understand how we can offer health insurance to those that can't even pay for it. So many of my friends in the United States right now are good people who work hard to earn an income, yet their employers don't offer health insurance and therefore they can't afford to see a doctor when they get sick. They want accessibility to health care but they can't afford to pay the premiums - and on top of that they work through the illnesses because they can't afford to take time off.

As a student that makes below minimum income guidelines with my PT job, I get my BC MSP premiums fully paid for by the government and I qualify for the maximum deductible under Fair Pharmacare. I've never been so grateful to hear people say, "I don't mind that I pay higher income taxes for other people's health care." (Thank you for that. ) I don't see how someone's income can quantify the amount of health care that they're allowed to have - as far as I'm concerned, an illness is an illness and they should be given the same treatment as everyone else. And when the time comes, I'll be damn happy to pay higher income taxes as long as I know that someone else is benefiting from that service.

Which is how they've been presenting it from day one, that if the US offered "socialist" healthcare everyone's taxes would go up to 50% or more, and they'd lose their civil rights somehow

The Federal tax rates in Canada:
Federal tax rates for 2007 are:
15.5% on the first $37,178 of taxable income, +
22% on the next $37,179 of taxable income (on the portion of taxable income between $37,178 and $74,357), +
26% on the next $46,530 of taxable income (on the portion of taxable income between $74,357 and $120,887), +
29% of taxable income over $120,887.

The Federal tax rates in the US:

Marginal Tax Rate Single Married Filing Jointly or Qualified Widow(er) Married Filing Separately Head of Household
10% $0 – $7,550 $0 – $15,100 $0 – $7,550 $0 – $10,750
15% $7,551 – $30,650 $15,101 – $61,300 $7,551 – $30,650 $10,751 – $41,050
25% $30,651 – $74,200 $61,301 – $123,700 $30,651 – $61,850 $41,051 – $106,000
28% $74,201 – $154,800 $123,701 – $188,450 $61,851 – $94,225 $106,001 – $171,650
33% $154,801 – $336,550 $188,451 – $336,550 $94,226 – $168,275 $171,651 – $336,550
35% $336,551+ $336,551+ $168,276+ $336,551+


Plus, several states have income tax charged on top of the federal, like here in North Carolina:

If your income range is between $0 and $12,750, your tax rate on every dollar of income earned is 6%.
If your income range is between $12,751 and $60,000, your tax rate on every dollar of income earned is 7%.
If your income range is between $60,001 and $120,000, your tax rate on every dollar of income earned is 7.75%.
If your income range is $120,001 and over, your tax rate on every dollar of income earned is 8.25%.

So I'm paying a heckuva lot in taxes already, plus I get dinged every week specifically for Medicare, and what do I have to show for it? Nuthin' really. I pay more than $300 in insurance premiums, which apparently do me not much good until I have paid my $1000 annual deductible, *then* my insurance company will start paying for my doctor visits :mad: Yeah, I just got a bill from my doctor's office, and a notice from the insurance company that they didn't cover my visit.

What's the freakin' point of paying so much for insurance if I can't use it?

**edit** the bolded tax rates above is the income level I was at when I last had a job in Canada. The same income level in the US is a higher tax bracket **

Oh totally - this was something I think MM debunked quite well in Sicko.

As a percentage of income, I take home about the same as I did in the UK (though I live in high-tax California, it might not be the case in, say, Michigan, but it wouldn't be dramatically more).

If me or my husband got really sick, we would be financially worse off. We already have to pay a couple grand to get him some much needed root canals that go above and beyond what our dental cover pays per year.

The bottom line for me is that people in the US who have really great coverage would not be so affected by whatever the shortcomings of universal care would be. They would be the ones that can afford private cover, just like in the UK. True, they would still pay for it through their taxes but people still pay for education who send their kids to private school. Is education a "privilege" that the poor shouldn't have access to?

Just as an aside, dental isn't covered universally in Canada. Generally people pay a part portion for private coverage for things like dental, drugs etc.. either through their employer or pay for the whole thing themselves. Even then, for something like a root canal, the co-pay is still like 50% and there is a cap on what they will pay per year.

Most dental coverage I have seen here in the US is sort of like that. Verious coverage levels - 100% for preventive care (cleanings and exams), 80% for basic care (fillings and such) and 50% for major care (root canals, crowns and such). And those plans do have deductibles (50-100 bucks) and annual limits (2-3K) as well. No difference there...

Our dental coverage here through my husband's employer seems fairly common from talking with friends who have coverage - 90% on preventative and cleaning plus a $35 copay. 80% for basic care, fillings, 50% for caps or crowns or root canals - all with the $35 co pay, up to a maximum reimbursement of $1000 a year. Oh, and that is only if it is an in-care provider. If it is an out of care provider then there is a cap on the amounts they pay rather than a percentage and the caps are very minimal so we end up paying the difference on top of the co-pays. My employer's health care benefit picked up my dental costs back in Canada - 90% coverage regardless of what work it was, no co-pays and no restrictions about who I could and could not use and if there was an annual maximum I sure as heck never reached it and have no idea what it was, if there was one. I do know that root canals even without coverage were a heck of a lot cheaper in Canada than here, with coverage.

We have dental through my employer, at $83 a month for family coverage...two free cleanings a year, 80% on basics, and 50% on major stuff. Orthodontics is $1000 max lifetime meaning I can only use it once and it will only pay $1000 on our daughter's orthodontics. Maybe some insurance companies see orthodontics as cosmetic, but y'all should see our daughter's teeth...really pitiful. Her braces are a necessity. Oh well...at least it pays some. *sigh*

So apparently Canadian Nurses are being given a free viewing from Atlantis to see Sicko!

Wozers!

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2007/07/...urses-free.html

I just saw Sicko today........ it makes me sick just to think about it...... how can a country that claims to be the best place in the world to live treat humans like this. My husband's insurance company wanted another $500.00 per month for me to be added to his plan..... we don't have the money...... I don't have any coverage. I wanna go home! I don't feel safe here at all!

So today at my retail job I had two customers:

One of them complained incessantly about how the Canadian government is "sucking the taxes out of everyone" and how they are just trying to make money,

The second one and I had an argument about socialized medical care in Canada. He said that we pay high taxes and still have to pay scads of money on top of that, and that the United States' privatized medical insurance businesses have equivalent, if not lower fees. I said, that's if you get approved by the HMO. At least the poor in Canada have access to health insurance, some in the States don't. He said, that's only the few in the States that don't work for a living.

Gah!

Right. I have known enough hard working people w/o health insurance. Those that make but $8.00 or so an hour usually have a bit of a hard time shelling out upwards of $75.00 per week for health insurance. Interesting also that at that particular company, coverage for managers (who made a fairly decent salary) was quite a bit less expensive than for rank and file hourly staff. Or how about the employer that forced first line managers into making sure that hourly staff only works up to 35 hours per week so that they don't qualify for full time status (which was bestowed only onto hourly staff regularly working 36+ hours per week) and hence cannot enroll into the company sponsored plan at all because it is open to full time staff only.

But yeah, just those that don't work for a living. Oh the ignorance...

Obviously someone who has no freakin' clue.

I pay so much in weekly premiums for health insurance here that I can't afford to go to a doctor because there's not much money left!

I pay about $4000 per year in health premiums alone (does not include dental premiums) PLUS I have a $1000 deductible that I have to meet before my insurance will actually start paying for anything! Each doctor visit costs about $100. When my take-home pay is not even $200 a week, and I still need to eat and pay the phone bill and power bill etc etc etc, where's that $100 supposed to come from?

I make $9 an hour and work 32 hours per week (hopefully back up to 40 hours after the summer slow-down...but I may not even have a job if the "summer slow-down" doesn't pick up!)

I'd like to know where the lower fees are, because I'll move there tomorrow!

I think something a lot of people need to remember is that Michael Moore is notorious for "pulling the wool" over the populace's eyes.

Does the American healthcare system cover everyone? No, not at all. Can health insurance companies (HMOs, PPOs, etc) selectively choose their clients unfairly and charge high prices? Absolutely. Does the American healthcare system (in general) cost more than other healthcare systems overall? This is highly probable.

However, there's another side to look at: In the United States, healthcare (assuming you can afford it) is exceedingly quick, meaning practically no wait time for visits to a physician, for procedures (i.e. MRIs, catscans, PET scans, etc) or surgery and advanced technlogy. Many cities in the U.S. have more MRI machines than Canada has in it's entire country!

Now, let's look at the Canadian model, which is what Moore was holding up as the example America should aspire to be...

First of all, there is NO SUCH THING AS FREE HEALTHCARE! It doesn't exist. Not in Canada, nor anywhere else in the world. You pay for it with your taxes. The reason you may (incorrectly) view it as "free" is because you're not paying for BASIC services upfront, need health insurance and/or a co-pay.

Second, it's difficult to really lump the Canadian model of healthcare together, seeing as it's run differently by each province. For instance, my fiancee is from Alberta. They don't put as much stock into healthcare as some of the other provinces. Privatized healthcare is also allowed there, and in fact, there seems to be a fairly big push in Alberta for more of privatized healthcare as well.

Now take an Ontario Canadian couple whom I heard about on the news, where the husband needed an MRI and perhaps some surgery performed. Apparently, Ontario doesn't believe in privatized healthcare -- at all. So this man was forced to rely on the single-payer system government-run healthcare, which meant he'd have to wait a minimum of eight (8) months to be first seen. The couple decided they'd have better luck in the United States and went there, paid for their procedure and it's a good thing they did since the man had cancer. Fortunately, it was in the early stages so it could be treated effectively; however, the physicians noted that if this man had been forced to wait, the cancer would've spread and become much more serious and he would've most likely died. Needless to say, this Canadian couple is no longer a fan of the Canadian healthcare system.

Look, I'm not trying to "rip apart" Canadian healthcare. I think it's a good thing that everyone is covered on some basic level. However, I strongly disagree with the practices above in that Ontario wouldn't allow someone who was WILLING to pay for private healthcare to receive it.

My fiancee and I have spoken about healthcare numerous times, and she agrees that both healthcare systems have their advantages and disadvantages. She's said that the Canadian healthcare system is good for people who can't afford private healthcare, but the problem is that it's extremely underfunded and there can be monstrous wait times. Likewise, I've said that the American healthcare system is good for those who can afford it (due to the reasons I specified in the third paragraph up above), but does leave quite a few people "out in the cold."

To be fair, the U.S. does have state-run hospitals, free clinics and emergency rooms, which are required to see any patient who comes in (but if you arrive complaining of a headache and someone else enters with a gunshot wound, be prepared to wait). After all, the ER is designed for "worst case" scenarios, and a gunshot wound is significantly more serious than a headache, no matter how bad the headache may be at the time.

All I'm saying here is that no one healthcare system is perfect. Could the American healthcare system be improved? You bet. Could the Canadian heathcare system be improved? You bet. Personally, I'd like to see a melding of the two, where we take the best of both worlds and use that. It probably won't ever happen though, but it's a nice thought.

I think the rationel behind not allowing private healthcare is that creating a two tier system will create a withdrawl of the current Dr's our of our current system into the new system, where the money & funding available is better. They are trying to stay the course and say it's all or nothing. If a Canadian wants to pay for private services, the option of going to the US is always there.. On this point I have to say I agree with ONT.. it's all or nothing, either you put all your eggs in the publically funded system, or you have to privitize things.. it will get off balance and screwy any other way.

The wait times are a problem in Canada.. It's a system with issues for sure, but the fact is you do not have to worry about the cost of surgery, pregnancy, etc. The cost of drugs yes, but the actual cost of care when you are ill no.. I think that is worth holding onto as a nation, and trying to find solutions to the Dr shortage, and the cost of health care in Canada. t

It is in the best interests of any country to have a healthy population. Does that need to be stated? Apparently so. You want a vibrant, efficient economy? You need healthy people. That's from the bottom up. You need the bloke driving the school bus to be healthy. You need the blokes emptying your rubbish to be healthy. You need the people maintaining the sewer system to be healthy. OK, you get the picture.

So, I am willing (hear me, IRS) to PAY MORE (!) to ensure that EVERYONE is covered medically. I am willing to do this because, selfishly, I want my rubbish taken away. I don't want the bloke on the school bus putting off getting his heart checked out. I don't want shite flying out of my loo. And because I believe that a rich, civilised country should demand that health care is a right.

We put certain things above money. We do not pay mercenaries to defend the nation. We don't have private security firms to police the cities. We feel that these are too important to be profit-led, and we put faith in our administrations to fund them properly and get the job done.

The NHS has problems, no doubt about that. But the basic system isn't flawed. In the UK you will get treatment. Here, you may have to fight. Because you are paying into a system that stays in business by denying claims.

Universal health care will not mean lack of choice. There will still be that privately-funded hospital to go to if you wish. Beyond that, how much choice do you want, realistically? For example, I shop at the local Pick 'n Save cos it's close to home, has pretty much all my weekly needs, and is good value. Shopping for health care is not much different. For routine work, you are most likely to chose your provider on the same terms as you do your supermarket.

America is the Can Do place, right? Prove it. You've heard all the gripes about what's not right with the Canadian/British health care systems. Show us how it's done. Provide the best fcuking universal health care in the world. Enough with the "Oh, it won't work" shite. Git r done (I believe the phrase is).

Well said!