Pliny

"Universal coverage" sounds great like most socialistic plans. It is a Utopian concept and I think people should be wary of any "perfect" plan that satisfies one and all. There isn't one in any area of life. I see nothing wrong with working towards an ideal but "no change" becomes the hue and cry of those feeding off any socialist plan because it is "universal" so what would could possibly require change. Once the structure and heirarchy is The result is stagnation and mediocrity with a little bit of tyranny and intimidation towards any invitation to change, much like any monopoly would stifle competition. A"legalized" monopoly is inviting tyranny and I don't think cost is the big factor any more. Solutions to keep it working are becoming draconian, such as limiting treatment based upon lifestyle and some doctors are advocating that. If the American system can teach us anything it is that change is necessary along with choice so that there is incentive to change. There is a necessity for both systems to change but only the American system has the ability to adopt change. The Canadian system is too "perfect" at least for those on the delivery side and those with chronic illness for there to bring change.

I would say this is the case. Whether the government or the insurance companies are the payers of the bills doesn't make too much difference. Costs and not health are the main concern. The biggest supporters of our health care system are those employed in the industry. They are the ones resisting any change other than - guess - more funding. People with chronic illness would also be strong supporters without doubt. We cannot sustain this free system as it stands and change is already occurring. Last year in Quebec the Canada Health Act was challenged as I am sure most people are aware and private care can be made available to purchase if one wants. Not in the rest of Canada yet unless you want cosmetic surgery, right Riverwind?

I would be very ineterested to know why they had to wait to see a specialist. Did they live remotely..?...no specialist anywhere nearby..?....couldnt make the trip for other reasons until 4 months later? They could have saved themselves $40G's as most Prostate Cancer is very slow growing. To me something is missing here. They live in the Peace River area in Alberta. That was my understanding but it may have been 4 months to start treatment which they did not want to wait for and which they didn't feel would have been adequate. Like most people they wanted the best for their health, not just what was offered by the monopoly here in Canada, they did the research and settled for some treatment in Atlanta.

Right - do you have a cite? My understanding that cross border health care purchases are an insignificant amount when compared to the total amount spent. That would make that argument a red herring. That is a complete falsehood. The dubious ban on private medicine in Canada only covers procedures that would normally be covered. Plastic surgery is not covered which means you are free to get it in Canada if you want. Furthermore, I suspect that plastic surgery is a small part of the total amount of money spent on medical care in Canada and the US. Every citizen in Canada is covered with no deductible, no maximums and no co-payments. That coverage is superior to what most Americans get even if they have a good plan from their employer. Now there are some problems with waiting lists for some types of procedures in Canada, however, those problems are not a huge issue for most people - especially when you compare it to the nonsense that many Americans have to put up with when forced to deal with an HMO. I couldn't find any statistics on foreign purchases, not just Canadian, of American medical services doing a quick search but I have two brothers-in-law that did not want to wait four months, not for treatment but just to see a specialist, for prostate cancer and both went to the States for immediate state of the art treatments not available in Canada even if you did wait. they spent $40,000 American each. I have no idea how many seek treatment in the US but I would like to know. The amount may be insignificant in comparison to the total but unless you have some statistics I think it is at least deserving of a mention. It is against the Canada Health Act to purchase medical services privately in Canada, with the exception of Quebec since 2006. You should know that. Much of what is called private healthcare in Canada is funded publicly. Some things such as ambulance rides are private but subsidized publicly and private insurance such as Blue Cross provide for the greater percentage of private expenditure. Here is a good article I found on it. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/healthca...vs_private.html Makes it quite unclear what private healthcare is. Read the article carefully. I am not here to argue the American system is great, by the way, but the Canadian one isn't either. An interesting statistic I found at the WHO site is that the per capita "government" expenditures on healthcare is $2120.90 in Canada and $2724.70 in the US. The US is by far not a totally private system. Medicare and Medicaid account for approximately 40% of total healthcare spent in America. Is your handle Riverside because you work or live there? Oh pardon me, it's Riverwind. Forget I asked that but if I am not mistaken you have some stake in the medical profession?

I haven't read the whole thread here but I read the first and last pages. I think the argument of cost that has been tossed around, the "Americans pay more but they get more." argument is not Are the total costs of medical expenses in Canada included in the argument, i.e., is what Canadians purchase in the US in medical services included in our total costs or is it just what is paid out from Health Canada. If the latter is the case then it is not valid to argue that Americans are paying more. Lots of our healthcare dollars are spent in the US. Is that amount also included in the total American cost of healthcare. How many people from other countries fly to America for expensive medical treatments? Americans unarguably are getting more. Another, I think valid point, is is to ask what percentage of American healthcare expenditures are elective or cosmetic. We do not have the choice of purchasing any elective or cosmetic medical procedures in Canada whatsoever. Obviously, we Canadians are getting less and paying more. It may seem a bit of a radical point of view but healthcare insurance, whether private or public, is, in my view, just insurance that the providers of healthcare will receive compensation for their services. In the private sector, health insurance companies can be held accountable, and will fail if they do not provide their service according to customer demand. The monopolistic system in Canada is not accountable and all failures are inevitably attributed to "lack of funding" as it trundles along unheeded. I might even argue that Canadians live longer because they have less access to medical care and not better care. When a person has to look after himself he does. If he can't do it himself he forges relationships that enable him to do so as to the best of his abilities. If all he needs to do is wait in line for services from the government that is what he will do and he will have plenty of time to gripe and demand better service - which inevitably means "More funding is necessary". He also, under the socialized system, loses his ability to forge symbiotic and loving relationships. I'm more on the American side than the Canadian but both systems undoubtedly have problems.

Here, I tend to disagree. It is not in each individual's interests to be community-minded and co-operative. Rather, it's in each individual's to let other people co-operate and do the work and then show up and mooch. Families have their own way of dealing with moochers: it's called nagging. I agree Free markets and the price mechanism are what bring about this co-operation. The market provides us with what we cannot easily provide for ourselves and is very efficient by nature. When would a price mechanism not work? The market of course doen't exist in totalitarian states nor is there a price mechanism. As regards an individuals interest if he is in business I would think if he wishes to prosper that he would wish all but his competition to prosper in order for them to provide the market for his products or services.

You advocate this? Accepting any actions to be moral without judgement? No. I am saying these things are the result of open-mindedness.

I would like to make comment regarding a point that was brought up by someone earlier in the thread. I could search it but being lazy will attempt to just recap it. The poster brought up the difficulty of organizing people in a community or society and how difficult a thing that was to accomplish. I would say that in the context of today's individual, who leaves responsibility to the State or "someone else" to get something done, does make it a tough row to hoe. In the absence of the nanny state where importances for the community or society are determined it is essential that co-operation occurs. In the absence of cooperation the accomplishment of nothing is the result. If the nanny state isn't taking responsibility the society will have to accomplish their needs and wants themselves. It is in everyones' interest to be community minded and co-operative. The individual would have a completely different mindset and outlook toward the community than those in a welfare nanny state. The nanny state kills the sense of community. Certainly, some people in the community attempt to organize things for the community and as the poster suggests it is like pulling teeth to get participation today. We hardly get to know our neighbours let alone attempt to organize events or create a society.

Certainly an open-minded response. As you say open-mindedness harbours the danger of indecisiveness. I cannot think of a better system for indoctrination than encouraging complete open-mindedness, perhaps a more direct system, but that may require some form of physical persuasion or heavy pressure constantly applied. I hope you are not confusing closed-mindedness with truth? Knowing something as truth and accepting something as truth are two different things. Opinion must be seperated from fact. One is close-mindedness and the other is knowing. Moral relativity does its best to encourage open-mindedness. No one can be entirely right or entirely wrong. It invites equivocation and indecision. Better for authority to make a determination rather than think for ourselves. We may arrive at a conclusion that leaves us alone and out in the cold - a scary thought for the open-minded.

Pretty hard to indoctrinate open minded people. Maybe we better determine what an "open mind" is first. Open-minded seems to me to imply the careful weighing of data to make decisions about things. Does it imply ever finding anything out first hand? Actually, open-minded to me isn't particularly a positive attribute. A lot of assumptions come out of open-mindedness based upon ones' favourite source of information, or one's acceptance of authority or one's position or social status. In which case open-minded people tend to not give much credence to things that may upset the status quo. They usually have to wait for their peers opinions. Which explains why heliobactar pylori took ten years to be determined to perhaps have some causal effect as regards ulcers and some stomach cancers and even some pancreatic cancers. Gosh! The media is strangely silent about that. They seem to really light up when a drug seems to reduce cancer in a control group by fifty percent. That would be only one out of a thousand in the control group and two out of a thousand in the placebo group. It doesn't say anything about cures even - just prevention. It didn't prove a thing really. But a "cure" for cancers caused by the heliobactar pylori bacterium gets a mere mention. Are we so open-minded it fades into the wood-work. I guess being open-minded means our health care system should not be touched and the American healthcare system is so bad. When in reality the world standing for both systems is fairly close. Canada 34th and America 37th, I believe. (Stats are at the WHO website.) But don't dare dis our healthcare. Nor can we comment on the quality of education without being lambasted about the hardships of teaching. If they actually taught instead of "moulded" their behavior, which is the point, we would be better off.

We could go further and say human emotion is not new. There are always those that like to see the big guy get taken down a peg. Unfortunately, the American government is doing more to fuel the anti-american rhetoric than win friends. I can understand how Rue thinks America is a confusing country - a little too diverse for his liking. Americans lack standards and sameness. Just a little "light-hearted satire" but mostly true.

Sorry. I think there is a word there in your first sentence that is not right. Shouldn't that read. "Generally people move toward the left as they are further indoctrinated." I wouldn't contest that. Actually, since the question is about left and right in politics it demonstrates an "educated" concept of the political spectrum. Left socialism and right fascism are both, in their extremes, totalitarian states. Are these democracies choices - which form of socialism is preferred? The problem is that politics is mostly discussed within the context of left and right as they are defined. Ultimately, left and right today offer the same thing to a democracy - leaving office with a larger and more intrusive government than when they took office, and the illusion of choice.

Right, I forgot the successful past of private police? Private military? Private national/provincial parks? Private fire departments? Let's be realistic, the government has a place. Private police - Pinkertons was quite successful until policing was taken over by the state. Private military - Mercenaries were used to fight a lot of wars. Private national/provincial parks is an oxymoron. If they were national or provincial that would imply they were public. Disneyland and Disneyworld are successful and popular private parks. Private fire departments - most were volunteer fire departments. I suppose if there were enough fires the community would hire someone to be on alert all the time. There is a place for government, in my view, but not running my life with laws it doesn't understand and can't explain to me and are basically unjust. Do I not deserve the same treatment under the law as any other law-abiding citizen in Canada? If you agree then tell me why the percentage is different on my income tax than someone elses? I'm sorry but our current tax laws are about favour and privilege of some over others, not fairness or justness. Social "compassion" is the job of the society, not government.

Not all, I'm afraid. At the administration level, I'll agree. As to the passing of laws and allocation of individual rights, it should never be in the hands of someone with more self-interest than interest in the group. Not sure about whom you are talking, for everyone I know harbours no such illusions. I agree that the making of laws and the allocation of individual rights should never be in the hands of someone with more self-interest than interest in the group. There are several levels of government. A federal government in my view has no business engineering society. It can't know what every group or individual wants and it can't deliver what every group or individual wants, except in a very broad sense as may regard the nation as a whole, and once it starts granting favour to one over another it can no longer deliver justice. Once it cannot deliver justice it has no right to make laws or form government. We, in western society, passed that point a long time ago. As I said before I am not an anarchist although I feel it a better utopian ideal to strive for than the socialistic ideal of state totalitarianism - where, incidentally, one or maybe even a few, reach the anarchistic Utopian ideal. "Everyone you know harbours no such illusions." Well, as long as they don't support the current level of socialism you are in good company, I guess. Most people I talk to do support it but don't think we are a particularly socialist country.

The fact is that anything the government does can be better done by the private sector. And no, volunteers would not do what government does now. If you are working from the actual definition of socialism which is, "the attainment of the totalitarian state through evolutionary means", you can observe that process occurring. If you think democracy a protective mechanism against socialistic advances you would be mistaken. Once the public coffers are opened to public vote the advancement of socialism is guaranteed. Many Canadians don't see Canada as being socialistic. "We don't have an NDP government and we still have democracy." If you look over history you see a definite trend and it isn't towards smaller government. I will let Clearwest answer the examples of "how voluntary exchange must be replaced with force. I would only add that a differentiation must be made between mutual consent and agreement as opposed to force. It is true Micheal, corporations exist in an unnatural way, they are given privilege or "special status" as you call it, by the state.

Although I consider myself Libertarian I am not, as some Libertarians claim to be, an anarchist. Men tend to organize to accomplish what they cannot accomplish themselves. In a road building problem such as suggested by margrace he/she likes the concept of having the road built, maintained and snow-ploughed, through her/his taxes by government. Everything is taken care of as regards the road and she/he can enjoy putting her attention on other problems. I don't know if he/she is entirely happy with the maintenance and the snow-ploughing provided by government through his/her taxes but I'm sure it is adequate because he/she fully supports it. I suppose that if the demand were there and the poeple had enough vitality and innovation and entrepreneurial skills to satisfy the demand they would do it. Perhaps it would involve pooling resources and organizing and a drive to achieve the objective but it would get done. The way social-problems are solved today is to form an interest group and lobby for an allocation of funds from some level of government or else nothing gets accomplished. So I understand margraces point of view. Sort of an apathetic, government is the only entity that can accomplish the resolution of social problems and special interests that whine and yell and scream loud enough will get them to do something maybe half-constructive with our pile of pooled resources.

Who iswe?

I agree the UN should be abolished. Obstacles that stand in the way of achieiving this global government are nationalism and religion. Both of which are constantly being eroded. I don't say that to defend nationalism or religion I am just stating a fact that globally, the UN is working to centralize its power. The father of the Kyoto Accord, our own Maurice Strong, stated that our only hope for the planet is that industrialized civilizations collapse and it is our responsibility to bring that about. Sound like good government?

Hi betsy, That is great news. The Kyoto Accord was designed under the direction of Maurice Strong. I recently read an interview with him done by the Western Standard and can only conclude from what he says that his policies and directives would be very harmful to humanity. If you despise humanity I suppose you would support him and the Kyoto Accord. Seems like Harper has something on the ball.

Hi Clearwest, That was a good introductory clip for Libertarianism. Thanks. What more need be said