This is true. Canada's military is dwarfed by that of the US. However, don't completely disregard the matter of scale, since Canada only has about 10% or so of the population that the US has. I'm not suggesting that the disparity in military is only a matter of population scale, but it cannot be dismissed. When it comes to the health and welfare of a country's citizenry, I really don't think it should be run like a business to the extent that you pick and choose your "clients" and try to determine what is the least amount of care, if any, you can get away with. There is the matter of human dignity and the value placed on human life which is a matter of principle in any civilized society. (This is not to suggest that the most efficient means should not be employed.) For example, when the fire department is called upon to save lives and put out a blaze, they don't do a financial cost/benefit go/no-go analysis. Lives matter. And the same applies for rescue workers who are called upon to save a child who has fallen down a well. There is no lack of examples where considerable financial expense is incurred to save those in peril of one form or another. Why should medical care be any different? If you institutionalize the notion that some innocent lives are worth more than others, then you relegate your country to the back of the line of its Third World counterparts. And within your own borders, you'll be about as well regarded as the general who has absolutely no qualms about using as many foot soldiers as are available to be cannon fodder for the "greater good." (Joseph Stalin comes to mind.) Once you choose to devalue human life, a whole host of possibilities emerge, don't they?
When it comes the health and welfare of the citizenry, I would think that food and shelter would be higher on the list than health care, so why aren't you advocating that all grocery stores and all housing be gov't owned and run. I think if you'll check, you'll find it has already been tried and with quite dismal results. Any communist country comes to mind. It is no different with health care. The shortages that inevitably result with these controls are simply so much easier to hide in health care than when grocery store shelves are bare. And hide they do, especially in these ridiculous studies by world health organizations. The question is how to provide health care at the lowest cost and greatest availability to the citizenry, and the free market wins. One cannot leave out of the equation the care that is not being provided under a gov't plan. The notion, as has been expressed earlier in this thread, that insurance co's are not as efficient as a gov't run system is just simply so ridiculous that it doesn't even warrant a response. The comparison of free market health care to a general's cannon fodder is particularly odious, and could be much, much more accurately applied to something like, say, abortion. Now that is the taking of human life, and for no other reason than the convenience of the parties involved.
That is a misguided comment. There is a world of difference between an able-bodied person putting food on the table and being able to afford a ridiculously overpriced but necessary medical procedure. (Perhaps you would understand if your compassion for fetuses also extended to those living outside the womb...) You're almost right. The HMOs win. As an aside, I don't think that the US is in any position to pontificate about lowest cost medical care.
I agree. Humane treatment of humans demands that medical care be socialized and COMPLETELY subsidized by the govt. I am a citizen, I pay taxes, I am sick. Give me the medical care FOR FREE. You tax my azz off, I pay for everything else dearly, but GIVE me the medical care for christ sake. And i don't mean 2nd rate care, i mean FIRST RATE MEDICAL CARE. COST NO OBJECT
And this has already been taken care of, it's called welfare and food stamps, it's called homeless shelters and soup kitchens. People in this country don't die from starvation but thousands do die every year because they don't have access to healthcare. People in this country don't declare bankruptcies because of grocery bills but hundreds of thousands of families do declare bankruptcies due to Helthcare related expenses (and many of them actually did have Insurance and believed they were covered).
Is there a catastrophic plan that covers people that otherwise deal in cash with the doctors and dentists? I worked and had a shitty insurance plan, had two teeth extracted, they hit the insurance up for a few hundred bucks and are billing me for over a grand, which I have no intention of ever paying... so I'm out of work, need another tooth pulled, I shop around and I can get an extraction done for $175-$250 and I never will hear from them again... I'm realizing that what I want to do is pay cash for everything but the catastrophic situation but the umbrella policies seem to have to be secondary to other insurance.... maybe I can sign up for medicare, etc and get a catastrophic coverage... yes..... never use the medicare of course, the doctors pick your treatment according to your insurance every time... It feels really good to get the fucking insurance assholes out of my medical care, really good, I can deal with the doctor like a consultant, get more opinions, research using the internet/libraries, etc., shop for price and get treatment that is tailored to me, not some suckass insurance actuarial tables...... and the cost to me is a lot less!! Regarding all the uninsured people dying for lack of health care, how is that my problem? What did they all do before we had all this health care? It's like the Terry Shaivo thing, we have this new capability to keep her alive forever with machines so we have to? We don't have to just because we have the capability, the decision has to be based on something other than "we have the capability"... so we have the capability to fix a lot of problems for people, that alone does not dictate that we have to... I know so many needy people and 100% of them are not interested in making money, they just want somebody to feed and house them, and 90% of the people that we are feeding and housing are perfectly capable of making it on their own efforts if we cut them off.......
It seems that some folks here feel it should be everyone for himself, period. Therefore, unless you are willing to adopt a Third World attitude towards human life (and I expressly apologize to those Third World countries that do cherish human life), then you are automatically accused of being a communist sympathizer. For some people, there is no middle ground and only one slippery slope. They fail to see that the other side is just as slippery. On the plus side, such black-and-white thinking saves on a lot of...thinking.
What are you talking about?! How does the late Ms. Schiavo factor into this discussion in any way whatsoever?! Let's wait until you can't afford essential medical treatment for a loved one, such as a parent, child or spouse. Then let's have an accountant tell you that just because your loved one can be saved with an available medical procedure, "that alone does not dictate" that the procedure should necessarily be performed.
It's actually ironic that a significant number of third world countries do have universal heathcare as well. Parts of South America, 90% of Africa and most of the Middle East don't. We're in good company... It's also kind of funny that the opponents of Universal healthcare don't hesitate to drive on "free" roads, call "free" police if they are robbed, send our "free" army to defend us over there, fly from NY to LA using the "free" services of air-traffic controllers... But god forbid someone has a heart attack and Aetna or Signa don't make a profit off of it, that will be the end of capitalism as we know it.