U.S. health care lies about Canada (Part 1)
Another American blowhard
Just who is this jerk, Rick Scott of propaganda-mongering Conservatives for Patients’ Rights? He and his group are fabricating negatives about Canada’s health care system and I resent this. I am an American who has lived in Canada for more than 35 years. I can vouch that the system is more than adequate and is not run by civil servants but by doctors who are able to treat everyone, rich or poor.
Mr. Scott, and other conservatives (code for rich) are against universal health care without any justification whatsoever. Their criticisms are in accurate and should not be broadcast.
Where are the ethics in network broadcasting? I saw one of Scott’s ads on CNN recently and wondered why the same curation of content was not imposed on CNN advertising messages as is upheld editorially. If CNN is unwilling to vet content, then where is the FCC?
The real story
Here are the facts as to why Canada’s medical system, far from perfect, is dramatically better than America’s:
1. It is cheaper even though it takes care of the entire population, or 10% of GDP compared with 15% in the U.S.
2. Canada’s health care system which fully looks after 32 million people costs roughly what the private-sector health insurance companies make in profits in the United States looking after less than half the population for excessive premiums
.
3. Canada’s health care system is cheaper still if the litigation costs of fighting over medical bills is eliminated as it is when the government is the sole-insurer. Estimates are that court costs and judgments add another 2 to 3% of GDP to the total medical tab.
4. Canada’s health care system enhances economic productivity. Workers diagnosed with illnesses can still change employers and be employable because they are not rejected by employers with health benefits due to pre-conditions.
more
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/francis/archive/2009/05/12/health-care-lies-about-canda.aspxNow part 2
U.S. healthcare lies Part II
Universal health care is a cornerstone of smart economic policy. Take, for example, the effect of guaranteed health care on economic activity, business expansion or the public's sense of wellbeing.
If a worker in Canada or Europe or Japan has lost his or her job this recession, it’s a psychological and financial blow.
But if an American worker loses his or her job, the family faces financial ruin if sickness strikes any member because they are without healthcare coverage. Bridge coverage is available but unaffordable for anyone but the wealthy.
Worse yet, if a major illness is diagnosed during unemployment, a workers becomes unemployable, bringing about a life sentence of poverty.
Little wonder, then, that consumer spending has ground to halt in the United States which makes the economic meltdown that much harder to combat or ever solve.
This underscores the fact that universal health care is not just smart and fair social policy but it is also smart economic policy.
more
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/francis/archive/2009/05/13/u-s-healthcare-lies-part-ii.aspxA little info about the author of the article, she is VERY conservative as is the newspaper this was published in, shocked the crap out of me to see it!