theloniusfleabag

Dear Charles Anthony, Not really meant to be an attack on the USA, simply a comparison between two similar economies with two different approaches to healthcare. If it were Ontario that had a fully private medical system and that led to the majority of personal bankruptcies, I would have mentioned them. I thought that he would know better than I, so it is his naivete in question more than mine. I also asked him about increasing the number of surgeries done by each doctor to help alleviate wait times, and he told me that the problem is an acute shortage of anesthetists, not a shortage of doctors or facilities. I would expect that quadrupling thier salary might encourage more to enter the profession, but as it stands...yes. Doctors make damn good money now, and there are less entering the field than before. Why do you suppose that is, if everyone's sole thought is the dollar? Tuition fees are one aspect that may be a deterrent, med school is expensive and long. With our 'immediate gratification society', many don't want to be in school for 6-10 years and $100,000 in debt when they enter the workforce, so only those with the desire to become doctotrs pursue it, and less with the desire to become rich are doing so.

Dear Charles Anthony, They are dying in line now, which is one of the reasons why I am in favour of a two-tiered system. It works for the Liberal Party Membership dues! Some of them will, if they can afford it. Usually, medial treatment is not refused if you can't afford it/have no insurance, but it is my understanding that insurmountable medical bills are the #1 cause of personal bankruptcy in the USA. I spaoke with one of my customers yesterday (he is a surgeon in Calgary), to bounce the idea of 'tax exemption status' for family doctors, or the idea of a substantial raise commensurate with taxation levels, to see if that would help 'keep more doctors in Alberta'. First, he told me that no doctors are leaving, it is just that many are either retiring or cutting back their hours of work, and fewer are entering the profession. He said 'money isn't an issue'. Something like 50% of new doctors are women, and many are only working part time, so they can raise families and such. Ironically, one can make way more money pretending to be a doctor on TV than one can make being a real one.

Dear Charles Anthony, Drug companies may survive, but the patients may not. Why is there 'Healthcare'? Is performing a life-saving operation on an accident victim the same as the application of botox? If Healthcare is to be driven by the profit motive, then they are, it is simply filling a market demand for those with the money to pay. Insurance is no guarantee, Blue Cross/Blue Shield has been caught shredding claims. As with the thread on Auto insurance, forcing people to turn to private insurance is like throwing them to the wolves. Not always, but enough to make me leery.

Dear Charles Anthony, If they are, then so too must they be invalid as an example. Yes, I was looking for a laptop for my wife, they start at about $2000. I don't recall a 286 (a 386 was our familiy's first real computer) costing a couple month's pay...but I could be wrong, I didn't buy it.

Dear Riverwind, Have you seen the price of new cars recently? Or computer chips? If you can provide an example of prices going down in a field because of tech advances, I'd be interested in hearing it. Healthcare is not based on the profit motive, and in my mind, except for cosmetics, it should never be.

Dear Charles Anthony, No worries, it was quite funny. I remember the '2 friends' commercial, it was for shampoo...Faberge , I believe. You could be right, but the gov't isn't willing to take the chance. What if, god forbid , everyone saved that money...in 'income trusts' Well, one can always... I found it odd that you would espouse the elimination of income tax in favour of other taxes, but I am in agreement. No, taxes cannot magically create these things, but they do lead more to peace and harmony within your own population than anarchy would.

Dear Riverwind, I see a potential problem with 'reducing the demand for medical assistance by making it unaffordable'...

Dear Charles Anthony, Left-wing. Because less money would be going into gov't coffers...As to your original question before the edit, "Why", (replaced with) All 'taxation' is 'left-wing', because taxes are ostensibly for the 'common good'. The 'right-wing' (with anarcho-libertarianism being penultimately 'right') would espouse 'everyman for himself'.

Dear Remiel, That is the theory, and I think it is perfectly plausible.

Dear Charles Anthony, Yes, but then taxes overall would have to be raised to pay for it...(one would be saying to the doctor; "We have to raise your taxes to give you a raise in pay..." I think it would be better to simply take the small hit of eliminating their taxes altogether. Without replacing the lost revenue with another tax (or a higher rate of another tax), it is 'right-wing'.

Dear August1991, I think a better comparison might substitute 'Amish' for 'Swedish'. Not that the Quebecois have more in common with the Amish than Swedes, but rather an 'distinct identifiable culture' instead of an enclave of ex-pats.

Dear Higgly, Only a little bit, I was rather thinking of Ravi Shankar.http://www.amazon.com/Ravi-Shankar-Project...a/dp/B0000000IE

Good lord, you are either retarded or trolling as a bandwidth leech. Choose one, it can't be anything else. Greg himself has stated that the spammers are manually signing on. This forum does have the validation code 'test', you would have taken it to sign up. Again, you are either incredibly thick or pretending to be.

Dear August1991, Here again, you are an enigma. You seem to be suggesting that competition is bad, and that the state's interests should usurp 'market forces' for it's own benefit. Any firm will support any party (well, within reason) that enables maximization of profits.

Dear kimmy, I was under the same impression, and it is true, they used to be good at that. Mind you, a long time ago, 'entertainers' had to have not only good looks, but the ability to sing, dance, wit and grace/charm. Nowadays, you don't need any of them. Bear in mind that Richards is an 'actor', most jokes for those television shows are written for them, they don't need to be funny, they just have to pretend they are, and deliver the lines. A friend of mine used to watch an 'improv' show called "Whose line is it anyway", and some guy named Drew Carey was on it. (He had his own comedy TV show at the time) Carey was terrible, no improvisational ability or wit whatsoever. He was a fish out of water, likely because he didn't have a team of writers telling him what to say. Red Skelton and Lou Costello were true 'masters of the improv'.

I think Greg's second option is the way to go. The 'spammer' (or troll) has been manually signing in, I am guessing with a 'spoofed IP', so the only way to really defeat this problem is to waste their time by queueing all 'new member's posts' and deleting the spam before it hits the forum. They (he) likely won't have the time to create a legitimate post first, and then return with the same IP to spam on the second post.On a side note, I think everyone should boycott all products hawked by spam.

Dear kimmy, They both have a suspicious amount of "C's" in their party title...but really, the only thing to fear is parties that start with "The People's Democratic Republic of..." Then you know they are trouble!

Dear Charles Anthony, Half of the posters here would fail...(including me!) Mind you, this country would grind to a halt if our politicians were tested before 'question period' in the house... Good point, 'cash is king'. I was in a gas station a while ago, and one customer (an uppity conservative type) was impeded by a troublesome register. The clerk said "I hate these things, damn electronics", and the man replied "Well, we are moving towards a cashless society". Behind him in line, a grubby lady with 3 teeth, clutching a crumpled $10 bill with which she was to buy smokes, said "I don't even have a debit card, I always use cash. It never gives me problems." I don't believe cash will ever be 'replaced', there are too many uses for it. Garage sales, second hand goods and personal loans to buddies would end without cash. The man at the gas station seeemed to me to be one of those types who though crime would end tomorrow if the black-market/drug trade couldn't do business in cash. I once got a very good deal on a new stereo set with cash from a store. I walked in at about 10 min before closing, and had picked out a nice JVC set, but it only had a single cd player, and I wanted a 6 disc changer. (This was back in the day when CDs were new, the unit I bought still came with a turntable) I said to the guy, "What kind of a deal can I get if I pay cash?" He asked, "Cash? Like, right now cash?" I said yes, so he exchanged the cd changer for me, and gave me a certain percentage (I don't remember how much) off of the entire package. I paid $2000 for about $2500 worth of stuff, and it was the first time I had ever had (and quickly spent) a $1,000 dollar bill.

Dear Riverwind, Yes, and perhaps my words were poorly chosen. However, will Quebec (as a 'nation within Canada') become like Israel, asking 'French-Canadians' to 'make aliyah' and return to their homeland?

Dear gnam, Exactly right, (and I do believe that the term 'mentally retarded' is making a comeback re: being a legitimate term) it is the definition and boundaries of 'normal' that are being expanded to be more inclusive. I think you spelled 'anal' wrong...(j/k)The problem is that Leafless, and many others like him, see homosexuality as not just different, but wrong. There should indeed be some demarkation between 'different from the majority' and 'wrong' when extending our societal parameters of inclusion, but I differ from Leafless as to the category in which homosexuality belongs.

Dear August1991, If Harper hasn't actually 'given away anything', then how could French-Canadians be happy receiving nothing? Is this more of a case like a man and a mistress, with the man finally saying (after many years of cajoling), "I love you", and the mistress saying, "See, that wasn't so hard, but what took you so long?"

Dear Leafless, It also sounds like you would like to include 'non-Christians' though you don't say it but imply it. A load of rubbish, but I can appreciate the fact that you are a devout 'sovial conservative'.

A quote by Eugene Forsey... Of course, years ago on 'This Hour has 22 minutes', some 'pundits' on a bit called "The Right Answer" has said, "Why wait for the referendum, start carpet bombing now!"

Dear Riverwind, Another example...My ex-boss got rear-ended twice in a year, neither were her fault since it is almost impossible to be found at fault if you are the lead car (although one of the other drivers happened to be an off-duty paramedic who smelled of booze!) . However, the insurance company told her,"We're starting to see a pattern here...so we're doubling your premium". As to why ING was evidently so low, the term 'cherry-picker' was used. Meaning, they likely will insure only 30-55 yr old drivers who have never had an accident in their life. Charles Anthony, There are too many variables for this to work, never mind that it is unfair to non-drivers. (On a side note, public transportation is already close to this. The transit system is already heavily subsidized with tax dollars, and the transit fees are a mere pittance compared to the actual cost. Why not raise taxes a few bucks and make transit free?) Gov't insurance still collects premiums from drivers, a sort of 'user-pay system' for gov't insurance. This money is 'pooled' in a fund to pay out claims. In the private system, this 'pooled fund reserve' is considered profit, and any claim against it is met with scorn and, inevitably, retribution.This, however, is just silly. No one would be on the road.

I know geoffrey to be pretty right wing, so I see this case as an example of why 'free enterprise' (and anarcho-libertarianism) is flawed. The private insurers are colluding and fixing prices, something which sould be highly illegal, but it hasn't been proven in court. For the insurance industry to announce record-breaking profits at the same time as crying about capping payouts should really ring on deaf ears. The average Joe is a bit screwed in Alberta, directly because of privatization in this case, because people arte compelled to have insurance by law. If there was an anarchist system, they could still do what they do through monopoly, as there would be no laws against that. I had a customer who recently had a very bad experience with ING. Even their promised letter of apology is now overdue. Insurance companies likely pay more to lawyers and 'experts' to get out of paying claims than they spend on satisfyng them. A personal note: I was paying something like $300/year for 2 vehicles ($150 each! though both older) at one time, but sold them and took the bus to work for about a year. Then I found out that if one does't have insurance for a consecutive 6 months, you become rated as a 'first time driver', and pay the highest premium they have. It was $2400/yr (Note, you didn't have to drive for 'practice' in those 6 months, or even any amount of time, and you don't get re-tested... your sin was not paying them) After calling several brokers, I was told that there was nothing to be done...there was only one insurance carrier that insured first time drivers. One! How's that for competition! I also heard several of them give me different times as to how long a 'first time driver' carried that stigma. First they told me 3 years. Then after 3 years, I went to renew and asked for my discounted rating (another note, I was driving since I was 16, and am now 39, with only that 1 year break in driving)...and they said, "No, it has been changed to 4 years." Next one I called, I told them I had been 're-insured for 4 years, and they said "Oh, sorry, it has been changed to 5 years". BC and Sask have far better auto insurance, and people I have met in Calgary from those places hang on to their 'out-of-province everything' as long as they can, and all have said 'Boy, do you get screwed in Alberta'.