Canada Election Issue - Healthcare

[maplesyrup]

Many Canadians pride themselves on their medicare system, and yet it is constanyly being berated in the news.

We have talked until we are blue in the face. It's time for our governments to act and implement the Romanow report now.

Australia is currently exploring including dental care in their medicare plan.

Let's beat them to it, and include dental care in Canada's medicare system first, after all the mouth is part of the human body. I just don't understand why it was excluded in the first place.

Commission on the Future of Health Care

(better known as the Romanow Report)

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/care/romano...now/index1.html

Canada Health Act

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/medicare/home.htm

Edited January 7, 2004 by maplesyrup

[Morgan]

maplesyrup,

You don't understand why dental care was excluded from universal health care in Canada????

Universal"body care" [and thank you for pointing out that the mouth is part of the human body] COSTS MONEY and that every time the LPOC "give" yet another "entitlement" to the masses, the taxpayers get burdened with yet another tax and a watered down system of professional care.

In case you have not noticed, the current health care system is dysfunctional. Why add yet another stress factor[dental coverage]? Since when are root canals and caps a "human right" that others should pay for?

Romanow's plan is nothing more than the same old, same old liberal approach to problems which is a) throw more tax money at it and add more of a bureaucracy to be a "check and balance" to the problem. End effect is making the problem worse...you feed the "black hole" of government waste with more tax money and you add more civil servants to the trough.

If folks like you saw the current medicare problem as something more than an intellectual exercise that mean spirited conservatives are engaged in on planet Pluto and more as something that's really unsustainable in here and now Canada, then you would not be in such a rush to add to the existing mess.

Fyi, as of June, 2003, 43% of Australians have private medical insurance so Australia's system is not "universal" health care. There are public taxpayer supported hospitals and there are private hospitals supported by private insurance. There are doctors who bill the government directly[bulk billing] and there are doctors who charge a fee for service. If you have private insurance, you are covered. If you don't, then you pay out of pocket and submit the paperwork to the government for reimbursement, but only 75% of the bill is covered.

As well, PM Howard may be introducing co-payments for all Australians in the near future who use the public medicare system.

Like Canada, Australia has a shortage of PHYSICIANS in the public health system because doctors don't want to be treated like postal workers and so many like to work within the private system instead.

So all you universal health care promoters are coming up against a major problem of your own creation...NO PHYSICIANS...you can have as free and egalitarian a health care system as you want, but if you have no doctors to deliver the care, who will do it? Kofi Annan?

Last I heard, Australia's 30 year old medicare system is at a crossroads and that the gov't is also thinking of implementing a $500/$1000 deductible for all citizens accessing the public health care system. Like all socialized medicine countries, Australia has a problem of abuse/overuse of the public system because people think health care is free. With a deductible in place, the Howard government is hoping there will be a disincentive against citizens abusing the system holus bolus.

So I think you should get a better handle on the big picture of Australia's medical care system, before you promote one item you like to have super imposed on the Canadian failing system.

[Hugo]

Why is it that leftists think that having the government run so many things is a great idea? The theory is that government has the interests of the people at heart more than those greedy, evil corporations, however, it's clear that they don't. Witness the terrible corruption of Chretien's government, and the steadily increasing numbers of government employees and their steadily increasing salaries as, by and large, the work they do steadily drops in quality and quantity.

Take a few examples. The education system, for one. Teaching is an extremely cushy job, with a high salary, very long (paid) holidays, short hours, benefits, a union and the whole works. However, educational standards are slipping. This is well documented and oft lamented, so it would seem that teachers are doing a worse job of educating our children year upon year - but far from being sacked and disciplined for their poor performance, they are being rewarded with salary increases. Where's the accountability? Where's the interest in the public good?

Take employment insurance. While government discusses what to do with surpluses from this programme, unemployed people are forced to wait 6 weeks for their first cheque and that is only for around 50% of their income (maximum, many get less). This is supposed to be "insurance" - it would be outrageous for a car insurance company to take 6 weeks to make a payout for a write-off, and for that payout to be less than 50% of the value of the car, however, the EI system basically scams all it's clients in this way and gets away with it, scot-free. In fact, the EI staff are probably getting pay increases too.

My point is that everything the Canadian government touches turns to crap. It's a bizarro Midas touch. The Canadian people should be fighting to salvage as much as they can from our greedy, bumbling government, not begging them to take on more so that they can deepen the public coffers from which they help themselves with both hands.

Corporations may be greedy, however, the free market maintains a choice and they have to serve the public what they want or people vote with their wallets. If your car insurance company scams you, cancel your policy and go elsewhere. Spread the word, their business will suffer, so it's in their interests to try and treat you well. If the EI system scams you, hey, them's the breaks and there is nothing you can do about it. What incentive do they have to treat you well? None.

[Neal.F.]

You bring up auto insurance Hugo.... These guys can ruin your life.

It's not a simple matter of going somehwere else. If they cancel your policy, good luck finding another insurer. If you're lucky enough to even get a policy from a company that specializes in high risk cases, you pay through the nose.

I had three minor accidents, none of which I was responsible for, over a two year period. I made claims, and the responsible party's policy paid them. However, about 10 days after my last claim, I got a letter from my company saying they would only cover me for 50 K liability, one-way. I told them I'd take my business elsewhere, and they sneeringly said , you have no choice but to stay with us. Nobody will insure you. Some phoning around proved they were right. fast forward 4 months, my car died, and I had to get a new one. One minor problem: How can you lease or finance a car without full coverage? It took me two weeks, but I found someone to cover me, one of the high-risk insurers, and I paid a small fortune to ensure a Hyundai Accent. My time in insurance purgatory expires in May this year, but I am still bitter over having to have paid out more than four times what I should have and frankly, it hurt. Why should I be screwed over like that when NONE of the accidents was my fault, and furthermore, my insurer was not the one who had to pay out?

While I don't think govt. insurance is a good idea, I do think these corporate bastards should be regulated.

On the other hand, EI is a travesty. I was let go almost two years ago, and after nearly 20 years in the work force to one degree or other, having paid into EI the whole time, I had not, until that time , ever applied to collect EI. The day I was let go, I went out on my own (self-employment) and applied for EI, so I could survive the first three months until commissions started coming in. after jerking me around for about a month, they finally let me know after years of paying in, that I would not be eligible, because , being SELF-employed, I was not UNemployed.

They'd rather pay you to sit on your duff, and make the odd application to go work for someone else than to send out a few cheques to someone who has already taken the first steps toward getting off the dole, before he actually goes on it, AND taken a course of action whereby he might eventually become an employER, who might help others get off pogey in the future.

Absolutely stupid.

Neither dogmatic unbridled capitaliism, nor reliance on too much government intervention is a good thing. On the whole, provision of services should be left to private enterprise, but people should have recourse to a higher authority if they feel that they have been unfairly treated for no good reason by a corporation.

[Morgan]

More legislated "compassion" coming to your wallets as of yesterday, to the tune of an estimated $1.5 Billion annually, so you realize of course the final annual tab will be closer to $2 Billion. Perhaps I'm just an incorrigible hard hearted redneck, but I don't see the need for tax supported compassionate care leave...or perhaps this is a shrewd LPOC idea to mask the lack of hospital beds and medical staff to care for very sick...maybe now lay people are being drafted to provide bedside care because socialized medicine is only good for healthy people???Call me cynical but calling this a new employment insurance program seems like a bit of a misnomer...

Family leave program to cost $1.5B annually, compassionate care Nat'l Post, Jan.07/04

The federal government yesterday announced details of its new employment insurance program, which will allow people to take six weeks' leave to attend to a sick or dying loved one, at a cost to Ottawa of $1.5-billion a year.

The Human Resources Minister, Joe Volpe, travelled to Toronto and Montreal yesterday to unveil the new compassionate care benefit, in which Ottawa has invested an initial $500-million.''We are offering people an opportunity to do what we all want, to be with loved ones during a serious medical crisis,'' said Mr. Volpe.

In conceding the program doesn't meet all needs, such as those who have cared for someone over months and even years, the minister said ''there is room for improvement, but we have to start somewhere.''

To receive the benefit, a doctor's certificate is required indicating the patient has a serious medical condition with a "significant risk of death" within six months and requires the care or support of one or more family members.

Gordon McFee, director-general of insurance policy for Human Resources, said people can apply for the benefit more than once, but that there are safeguards to make sure the system is not abused .

I love the last quote...the silly servants, masters of tax money waste themselves, acknowledge the huge potential for abuse of this program right from the get go but they've got all the angles covered, rest assured.