SkyhookJackson

You're missing the historical point entirely....America is the same as it ever was, and to hell with any such polls. Count the numerous military interventions in the Americas and around the world. The world "loved America" after those as well, and they continue to come to the wicked USA, many illegally. "Reputation" is a patriarchal notion for a female, not the most powerful nation state on Earth, and the way it got that way. WRT oil, please tell us something we don't already know. I won't argue with you on this point because I hope, when it all shakes out, you're right. Sadly, at this point in time I would feel safer traveling on a Canadian passport over an American one and I would never, ever, display a clothing item that remotely resembled our flag if I was in a foreign country.

And you might be mistaken....I mowed other people's lawns to pay the rent. The products and labor of the health care "industry" are not rights for rich or poor folk alike. However, government is more than happy to provide the side of the road. Surely you're not referring to our socialized highway system . . . are you? (Along which our socialized police and fire departments travel and our commie school buses haul kids to "public" school. Speaking of kids, do you support the Bush veto for extending SCHIP benefits to more poor kids? I can imagine you throwing older people out with the trash, but even you must have enough of a heart not to abandon kids.)

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The pregnant women with medical emergencies have been shipped across our border for years. Nothing new here. It is never, ever, made public though that B.C. does not have the facilities to care for these women or their kids. B.C.'s 2006 budget allocated (and spent) over 47% of it's total public spending on healthcare. This year it will probably be 50% of public spending. Well, damn. There goes all of that 'green' spending on rapid transit and wind farms! In B.C. in the past month 4 people received joint replacements at the new Skagit hospital in Bellingham, WA, a half hour from Vancouver. They had been on a waiting list. Of course if they had been covered by Worker's Compensation or members of the B.C. Lions or Vancouver Canucks they would have gone straight to the head of the line and had surgery within a day or two. That large mountain of hot air Moore is obviously totally uninformed about Canada and it's pathetic nationalized health care nightmare. ` You Canadians are smart. Instead of investing a fortune in infrastructure and staff, you outsource some of your procedures to that stupid country south of you where every hospital from here to East Overshoe has an MRI machine, CT scanner and the capabilities to do the most complicated of procedures. It's that overbuilding (in the name of making the almighty dollar) that has left 47 million out in the cold. If it continues, as many would like, it is estimated to be 56 million without health care within a decade. Triage is not a four letter word. My scraped knee doesn't need immediate treatment when another guy's leg is dangling from a tendon. There are so many good things about the Canadian system as well as the not-so-good things that can be fixed. Just imagine if Canada was like the United States. You call the doctor's office for an emergency appointment and you get in (remember - no long waits in the U.S.). They discover, after you arrive and sit in the waiting room for 2 hours (oops, sorry, and that's a conservative estimate for the time spent reading People Magazine while watching people vomit), that you are uninsured. The doctor, as a gesture of compassion, sees you anyway for 5 minutes, verifies you're not at death's door, charges you $75 and sends you on your way. Good luck uninsured person. Believe me . . . I'm not making that up. The only untruth in the story is getting in for an emergency visit immediately.

It's not a problem at all. The primary goal is to stay profitable or perish. Even the "non-profits" deny subscriber claims. Hospitals are a business as well, and if poorly managed they will fail. "CommieCare" cannot pay the freight, just visit Cuba to find this out. Patients do not have a right to claims for excluded treatment. The courts and arbitrators decide any disputes.....even in Canada (try to get a provincial claim settled for care received abroad without prior authorization). You're one of those Republicans who think people deserve only the health services they can afford to pay for . . . right? Be careful what you wish for. You might find yourself mowing your own lawn and tending your own kids when all us poor folk drop by the side of the road.

No, America's reputation has remained decidedly "American"....for the past 7 years, 17 years, and 70 years. Save the "please love us" Canadian value for...Canada. Whoa . . . I'd love to see a poll on that one, BC2004. Your boy George has made a mess it will take decades to clean up and repair. Of course our reputation has suffered. You can't invade a country under the circumstances with which Iraq was invaded (I'm not saying "lies," mind you, just thinking it) and slaughter and maim hundreds of thousands of innocents without the rest of the world giving you the cold shoulder. If Shrub hadn't had his poodle, he would've been down to the Tongan King and the Jamaican bobsled team for support. Face it, BC. The Iraqi mess was created to create a bonanza for U.S. oil companies. If we wanted to go after the country that produced the hijackers, we would have had to bomb all the close Bush/Cheney friends in Saudi Arabia. You know . . . the ones Dear Leader holds hands with.

Completely ridiculous and it is not nitpicking. The free part is the hook, and it is a lie. So stop using the word free. It is anything but free. The majority of people will lose the coverage they have now and at the same time pay more for less because they will not be able to determine their level of coverage. Businesses will not pay anymore than they have to. They will simply deduct the amount of income tax they have to and wash their hands of it, and you will have no choice. All you will get is access to a waiting list behind those you are now forced to pay for, that are having an abortion or sex change operation. As I said before, it's not mathematical possible to cover another 40 or 50 million people, at the same level of coverage as one has now, and at the same price. It will not be free while millions will have to decide on a mortgage payment or having the food stolen off their table to pay for it. As it is now, one can decide not to have coverage or determine the level. That will all be lost to bigger goverenment and is most likely unconstitutional at the same time. I'm astonished you can predict exactly what the universal health care program would be and exactly what it would cost, considering THERE IS NO PLAN FOR IT YET. When Michael Moore says "free," he means you do not receive the bill from health care providers. As another poster noted, sometimes he's his own worst enemy the way he words things. (Although I like his latest notion of calling it "Christianized" medicine, as in who would Jesus let lay in the street and die from lack of health care.) Of course it will be paid for in taxes or stopping the odd wars of choice. Read this article . . . please. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19886686/site/newsweek/

That's a recipe for business failure. Private health care underwriters provide policies with defined benefits and exclusions, not unlimited patient care. They absolutely should deny treatment within the defined and legal limitations of any such policy, or they will go broke. And that, in a nutshell, is why "for profit" health care providers need to be taken out of the mix. It's their mission to make money for their investors, not provide health care. The more coverage they can deny, the more money they make. There's an article you should read in this week's Newsweek that makes the point that even if taxes are raised to fund health care, at the end of the day you'll have more money in your pocket because you're not being shaken down by the insurance industry. It's not rocket science. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19886686/site/newsweek/

Here's a new fund raising idea for those Americans trying to fund a medical procedure: a "dessert auction." Our local newspaper had a letter to the editor today that thanked all who participated in a dessert auction to help fund cancer treatment for a little girl. Another cake for chemo. What a country.

In the United States, it would not be the health CARE that would change (other than everyone would get it), it would be the health PAYMENT system that would change. The government will not be directing a person's medical care. Like Medicare and Medicaid, you will go to your doctor of choice, produce your card, receive your treatment, go home. There will be no sleepless nights worrying about money, no bake sales to pay for your chemo, you'll be able to focus on getting better and becoming a productive citizen again.

This is what I mean by waiting.....MRI wait times in Nova Scotia: http://www.gov.ns.ca/health/waittimes/wt_t...gnostic/mri.htm A couple of hours? My first reaction was - wow! BC2004 is right - then I remembered where I was. The wait time for my MRI is FOREVER. I've actually had to wait 6 months for a mammogram. The wait times you cite are not good, to be sure, but is that because of the triage system used in Canada? The sickest go to the front of the line, as opposed to the U.S. where the first one through the door with money gets treated and sometimes the sickest are left to die. Canada has problems, to be sure, but the overall system is fixable and they are working on it. Meanwhile, back in the states, Mr. Bush is denying coverage to sick kids reasoning that an expansion of the SCHIP program will encourage people to leave private insurance. Ka-ching, ka-ching. Is that the political donation machine I hear???

I can't imagine being ill and having to endure a 14 hour trip to India. What's the world coming to???

From my own experiences during the late 1980's, when I was between roughly 28 and 34, many in that males in age group who are hardly poor are uninsured. The (incorrect) perception at that age is that insurance is not a necessity since by and large people that age get their annual checkup and otherwise often have few tangles with medicine. It's sort of the leftowver adolescent view of immortality since, in many respects, age 30 is the new 20, etc. Many of the uninsured could probably afford insurance if the insurance industry wasn't allowed to opt for the cream of the crop to insure. If you happen to be older or have any medical history, the insurance industry doesn't want you and they price their product accordingly. Most of the uninsured people I know are small business or self-employed people. It's not that we don't want to pay for coverage, it's that we can't pay for it if we're going to be screwed over. Even sorrier than the uninsured, though, are the insured who think the insurance company is going to pay the bill. Some people have used up the equity in their homes to buy health insurance, then something happens and they're still stuck with 20% of the bill at the very minimum. I guess the only advantage is that they get the bankruptcy over a whole lot faster if the equity in their homes is gone anyway. The insurance industry is really stupid. If they had pooled the risk and kept rates low across the board, we wouldn't be discussing doing away with them entirely. Greed is the downfall of all.

The problem with "very basic healthcare" is that it's very basic - fine as long as you stay healthy, not so much if you become ill. That's one reason I'm glad Michael Moore focused on the insured, rather than the uninsured. People are paying through the nose for coverage, believing they're safe and secure, until something happens. It's also rampant in other areas of insurance. Take Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, for example. Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) lost his house and filed a claim, assuming he was covered. State Farm said "too bad, so sad, we don't cover water damage." The house had been taken out by the wind long before the water arrived, but Lott had to sue to have his claim paid. I don't think he views the insurance industry through rose-colored glasses anymore.

Sorry to hear that story. Canada led the research on pancreatic cancer with a new drug called erlotinib. It helped improve survival rates. I think if the U.S. is to ever get universal care, it will start from the state level and move to the federal level. Don't let the naysayers get you down. Thanks. This issue drives me particularly nuts because the solution to fixing it seems so obvious. There is a bill wending its way through our Congress that might someday see the light of day, especially if the Democrats win a supermajority in both houses and the White House. It's HR 676 sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. http://kucinich.us/issues/universalhealth.php

Hmmm...I've suffered your personal attacks long enough...time to rub your nose in it. Your sob stories are just that, and quite self serving (just like me). You don't have insurance for reasons that I am not responsible for, nor are the rest of Americans to blame for your circumstances. Why have so many others figured it out without a pity pot for begging? There are people who take jobs they don't want just to get health insurance for themselves and/or family. So what is YOUR problem? And guess what..the "well known" (so what) activist would have been just as dead in Canada. You truly are a (insert word of choice) and not worthy of any more responses from me. Enjoy your self-centered universe. Actually, BC2004, after giving it some thought, you do deserve an answer to your question as well as a big thank you for making me reflect on my lot in life for the past hour or so. Had I not sustained the orthopedic injury, which I cannot afford to have remedied, I might have done exactly as you suggest: given up what I enjoy doing for whatever job I could find that provides health insurance. Unfortunately, because of mobility issues and chronic pain, I'm now pretty much unemployable. Being 58 doesn't help, either, and if I happened to land something there's that pre-existing thing. In any case, I've managed to make a living, doing what I can do when I can do it, and it has never occurred to me - until your post - to consider doing anything else. But, you got me thinking. Maybe I should investigate SSI. It would solve my health care dilemma since you automatically go on Medicaid or Medicare. Of course, BC, that would mean you would not only be underwriting my health care, you'd be buying the groceries, too. How does that sit with you? Don't panic. It's just a thought. I'd probably qualify, but I wouldn't want to live my life on your tab. Can't you see that providing universal health care would result, overall, in a more productive populace? We aren't a bunch of lazy slugs . . . we're just not millionaires.

Hmmm...I've suffered your personal attacks long enough...time to rub your nose in it. Your sob stories are just that, and quite self serving (just like me). You don't have insurance for reasons that I am not responsible for, nor are the rest of Americans to blame for your circumstances. Why have so many others figured it out without a pity pot for begging? There are people who take jobs they don't want just to get health insurance for themselves and/or family. So what is YOUR problem? And guess what..the "well known" (so what) activist would have been just as dead in Canada. You truly are a (insert word of choice) and not worthy of any more responses from me. Enjoy your self-centered universe.

The sheeple will never be convinced King George isn't legit. It's a topic no longer worth the rise in blood pressure to discuss. We just have to hope to get to the end of his term without bombs being dropped on Tehran. 2008 will be different because we're onto the tricks and the voting machines have gotten more than a cursory look. Just last week a California judge ordered a new election because a voting machine had mysteriously "lost" the votes for a recount. In addition, as shown in the 2006 election, people are pissed off and will vote for change in such an overwhelming number it will be impossible to manipulate the software without it being very, very obvious.

But that doesn't mean jack to people with the means to do better and faster. Many Americans do not place a high value on egalitarian suffering. Many Canadians agree, spending their own cash to go to the head of the line. And no, even uninsured Americans have access to faster services...all it takes is a credit card with a nice limit. You are so full of it. There are many, many people of means who care a great deal about those less fortunate than themselves. Americans are, at the core, a caring people (taking away the black eyes such as yourself). Uninsured Americans do not have faster services, yada, yada, yada. Without the elusive high credit card limit they often go without. Uninsured Americans who do not qualify for Medicaid are given minimal care unless it's a life or death situation. I know that for a fact because I've lived it. On another board I frequent there was a fairly well known political activist who developed pancreatic cancer. He was uninsured. There was one surgeon at one hospital who would give him his only chance for survival. The hospital demanded $50,000 up front, cash on the barrel head. We raised the money online in about a week and he had the surgery. Sadly, since he was uninsured, he was discharged to his home on the other side of the nation prematurely, didn't receive adequate follow-up, and died. He probably would have died anyway, given the survival rate of pancreatic cancer, but an insured person wouldn't have been treated in that fashion. I'm afraid, BC2004, you're in for a rude awakening very soon. There will come a day when there are no bake sales and car washes to benefit sick people trying to pay medical bills.

Voting is controlled by counties in Florida. Thus, the opportunity for "tricks" goes both ways. Also, did your "research" extend to a reading of the Supreme Court decision? One can debate the result, but the layout of the allocation of election jurisdiction is pretty good. If the counting of votes in Florida had been allowed to continue, Gore would have won Florida and would have won the election. Everyone knows that. As for 2004, it's frightening to think that after the previous 4 years, a bona fide majority of Americans would enter a voting booth and cast their ballot for Bush. I'm one of the tinfoil-hatted lefties who believes it was stolen, but we'll probably never know for sure. The U.S. is overflowing with people who follow Paris Hilton's every move, but are hard pressed to name the Vice President. They seem to be easy targets for right wing scare tactics and will vote against their own best interests just to fend off the gays who are somehow threatening their marriage.

Thank you for reminding me about that traitor's middle name. However, I was not taking a cheap shot at him. I had made a typo and was fixing it.As far as likely GOP candidates: McCain - in implosion mode; Giuliani - My favorite, but really a Democrat (like myself) in the GOP purely because he needed to switch parties in order to become US Attorney. He stayed there since the Democratic Party in New York City is, not so much leftist as famously corrupt and closed. I am a Democrat primarily because not being a Democrat shuts one out of most primary voting in this area. Giuliani would be a good President but will have problems in the rest of the country in getting the GOP nomination. Again, the horse (the GOP nomination) goes before the cart (the general election); Thompson - the right's favorite candidate now. He hasn't declared, and doesn't have much time if he wants to be up and running before the February 5 blowoff primaries (too many primaries in too many states, too early, on one day IMHO); Mitt Romney - Decent candidate, who's shown he can win in a predominantly Democratic state, Massachusetts. Will have problems similar to Giuliani in getting nomination but for a different reason. He's a Mormon and that does not play well with fundamentalist Christians. In short, this is a hard race to handicap on the GOP side. The way the US is built, there is a major bias towards Republicans, because of the Constitution's deliberate over-weighting of small states. The US Constitution drafters had reasons similiar to the drafters of the British North America Act, who over-weighted Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. Both drafters had simple reasons; the respective parts would not go along with the Constitution (and in your case Confederation) unless given a virtual veto power over the near-future direction of the country. In the US, there are far more "small states" than large states. The US had a population of roughly 281,000,000 as of 2000. At that time, the following "large states" had the following populations (link to Census data): California - 33,000,000; New York - 19,000,000; Florida - 16,000,000; Texas - 21,000,000 Illinois - 12,000,000; Pennsylvania - 12,000,000; Ohio - 11,000,000; Michigan - 10,000,000; Geogia - 8,000,000; North Carolina- 8,000,000; Virginia - 7,000,000; Massachusetts - 6,000,000 That accounts for 160,000,000, or well over half the populatin of the US, in 12 of the 50 states. Since each states gets a minimum of three electoral votes, the over-weighting of small states is obvious. And if you look at the nature of most of those states, they tend to vote Republican, and to be deeply Christian. Thus, just because it is "obvious" to you that Bush is far to the right of center, he isn't in our country. Why do you consider Obama a traitor?????? The last time I checked, babies couldn't choose their own names and little kids didn't have much of a say about what country they might live in and what schools they would attend. He must be more of a contender than I thought if that's a serious talking point. As for Ghouliani, the "hero" of 9/11, his answer to health care (the topic of this thread) is to let market forces work. 47 million Americans have a news flash for him: been there, done that, it hasn't worked. My favorite Republican solution for health care is Mike Huckabee's. It amounts to "lose weight." Apparently, in Huckabee's world, only fatsos require health care. Mitt, of course, has distanced himself from that gem of a plan he came up with in Massachusetts. Why? Because premiums had doubled before the ink was dry on the bill. By the way, I have a hard time believing you're a Democrat, but I suppose stranger things have happened. Lieberman, after all, still claims to be one.

I didn't intend for my response to become a thread unto itself, but have at it. I've discussed and investigated this topic so much since 2004, I'll probably remain on the sideline. The evidence has been overwhelming that machines were tampered with, voters were "caged" (including soldiers serving in Iraq, believe it or not) and other dirty tricks were employed to depress the likely Democratic vote. Anyone who is happy Mr. Bush pulled this off twice needs a psychiatrist. He has done more harm to the United States than anyone could have imagined. God only knows how many years it will take to repair the damage. And that, as Forrest Gump would say, is all I have to say about that.

If Canada does not have "waste, red tape, and obscene profits", what's the excuse for such poor performance wrt wait times, thorough diagnostics, imaging labs, and lack of other interventions at many points of delivery (e.g. post-MI revascularization). The Canadians headed south or abroad for faster access to such services and procedures find little comfort in better per-capita life expectancy back home. Canada's system is not good when compared to other OECD nations with universal access as an objective. You know, we can go round and round and round and round and round and still end up at the same place in this conversation. The bottom line is this: I might have to wait a few weeks for an elective procedure in Canada, but without insurance I will wait forever in the United States. This might sound like the same old blah-blah-blah to you, but I've been in chronic pain for 3 years after suffering a muscular injury while working out on the treadmill, trying to stay in good shape and healthy. I can't afford surgery and I can't afford the post-surgery physical therapy. If this had happened in Canada I would have been treated and well by now. Their system has problems that can be worked on, ours is a lost cause.

Imagine what some people will be like with a Democratic President in 2008. Unless someone other than Osama oops, Obama and/or Hilary gets the nomination, that's highly unlikely. They're both quite interesting and quite unelectable. Cheap shot at Obama. I'm surprised you forgot to mention his middle name: Hussein. If you want to talk unelectable AND uninteresting, look to the Republican field. I won't elaborate and go far off topic on this thread, but will happily discuss the candidates elsewhere. (By the way - I'm not a supporter of Obama or Clinton.)

Hmmm...let's see...Canadian board...Canadian politics....Canadian health care thread. What else did you expect....more defining moments based on the USA? Canada spends less on health care because Canadians get less...DUH! Duh! Canadians live longer than Americans and have a lower infant mortality rate. Maybe every living individual doesn't need to have a statin drug crammed down his or her throat to live a good life. Maybe every small town hospital doesn't need each and every bell and whistle to provide good health care. Our local hospital closed an entire floor several years ago because they couldn't fill it with inpatients. Now that outpatient care is preferred in many cases they're adding on a 10 million dollar addition to handle it . . . yet that inpatient floor is still empty. Waste, red tape and obscene profits have driven U.S. health care into the crapper. No good will every come from a system that pays it's CEOs over a $100,000,000 a year. Canadians appear to have a good, basic system to work on improving. It's not perfect, but it's fixable. The U.S., on the other hand, needs to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch.

There are aspects of their system that have done quite well but overall it ranks below the U.S. which Moore noted in his movie. The U.S. rating could indeed go up with WHO's new formula. I think Michael Moore made a very good point that Cuba, a near third world nation, is only 2 jogs below the U.S. in the health care rating. Considering the overall differences in the 2 countries, it's ludicrous the United States wouldn't be higher on the list and speaks volumes about our "for profit" health care. Adding salt to the wound is that Cuba provides all of its citizens basic health care.