Canada's Health Care

[irislake]

Yesterday I drove to pick up some slacks I had altered by a seamstress who lives nearby. When I arrived at her house a friend told me she had driven to Toronto because of a family emergency. (Toronto is a two hour trip by car from here.) Her four year old grandson had slashed open his arm the day, before severing an artery.

He was rushed to the nearest hospital by ambulance. That hospital is situated in a town of about 3,000 people. Doctors there took one look at the extent of his injuries, did what they could to stabilize him, and summoned an air ambulance to fly him to Toronto Sick Children's Hospital for the best available treatment in the world. He was there in less than an hour.

The boy and his parents live in a trailer. The mother is a hair dresser and the father has a low paying job. With so much buzz about SICKO I couldn't help wondering, "What chance would a poor kid living in a trailer in your country have of getting such care?" I think maybe the story might have ended at the local hospital and the kid may have lost use of his arm, or the parents would end up in debt to their eyeballs for the rest of their lives.

I drove on blessing the fact that I live in a country that treats health care as a basic human right. It is wonderful not to have to worry about coverage on top of the terrible stress of sickness or injury. Rich or poor you get the best care.

I continued on to visit a friend who moved here from Germany. She said, "We are so lucky! The Americans have a fat chance of getting universal health care like the rest of the advanced countries in the world because they are too brain-washed by their corporate media and the corporations are too powerful. The politicians are owned by the corporate powers. Fat chance they will get anywhere no matter how riled up they get by SICKO."

I'm afraid she is right. I have no friends or relatives who have serious complaints about our health care although I know things are far from perfect. But on the whole I feel very very grateful and very very lucky not to live in America.

I was appalled and disgusted by what I read about Michael Moore's CNN experiences. Sheesh! He is dead right about your mainstream media.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. If I weren't so old

that I couldn't be a benefit to your nation, I'd emigrate.

[napi21]

4. I checked on moving to Canada last year. My husband & I are

63 & 64 so Canada doesn't want us either. Not only did we want to move there because of their HC system, but because they still have a well run Country. I've just gotten too old and tired to continue fighting for this Country. I feel sooooo damn outnumbered, I quit!

[Benhurst]

2. You are indeed lucky to live in Canada.

[lovuian]

3. Canada is smart and Michael Moore shows that

socialism isn't all bad

[Amonester]

5. Social ism is only bad when it's aimed at enriching the riches...

"the small minority" of riches and super-riches, at the expense of everybody else's health and money.

But then, that's not real socialism.

I feel lucky to live in Canada.

I wish I'll be able to share this luck I have (access to "free" healthcare & other stuff) with the American people ASAP.

It's so long overdue.

[Sadie4629]

6. "What chance would a poor kid living in a trailer in your country have of getting such care?"

Poor kids are eligible for Medicaid and I believe our physicians would give him the best possible care. Likely, the outcome would be the same in either country.

[dflprincess]

7. Don't kid yourself

Who is and isn't eligible for Medicaid may vary from state to state and the income caps imposed in every state are completely out of touch with reality so not every child from a poor family is eligible.

Don't forget that child in Maryland that died from an infected tooth last winter because his mother couldn't find a dentist willing to pull it.

[Sadie4629]

8. Medicaid isn't perfect

by any means. And maybe the whole system needs to be overhauled and standardized, but healthcare is available for the most needy. There is a gap, and that gap needs to be filled, but we are far from being Victorian England.

[warren pease]

12. Well yes, we're somewhat better than the Dickensian hell-hole of mid-19th century England...

But unlike the US, Brits saw the problem, realized it wasn't fixable by tinkering around the edges and continuing to rely on a patchwork of poor houses, charitable institutions or the kindness of strangers.

Thus, the NHS, which is roundly condemned as inadequate, although people forget that it's inadequate mainly because Maggie and Major starved it for 17 straight years in a Tory effort to undermine the NHS and gain consensus for replacing it with US-style privatized medicine. Fortunately, the Brits kept their eyes on the prize which, in this case, is the complete absence of medical bills.

And as to whether health care is available for the most needy, I suppose you can make the case -- and many anti-single-payer, universal access foes do -- that ERs are forced to accept all patients regardless of insurance or other ability to pay. However, that's that most expensive, inefficient and unhealthy way to consume medical services. Since someone has to pay, and it sure as hell isn't going to be our fine for-profit hospitals, taxpayers foot the bill. It's inefficient because the ER is designed to deliver critical care to people in severe pain or with serious, often life-threatening injuries. Dispensing treatment for a serious but not acute chronic condition, say Hepatitis C, isn't what ERs are set up to do. And it's inherently unhealthy because it's impossible for patients to get ahead of the game through preventive practices, since the ER is reactive by its nature.

And re the various public health assistance programs like Medicaid, the qualifications are ridiculous, the coverage is minimal and not generally accepted by most docs, and they're the first things to get their budgets cut whenever the state needs to slash its budget -- this because there's no such thing as a Poor Peoples' Needing Medical Care for Non-Life-Threatening Afflictions Somewhere Besides the ER Political Action Committee -- while the for-profit vampires donate millions in campaign bribes to maintain the system from which they've profited so well.

Other than that, it's health care Nirvana here in the US.


wp

[Rosemary2205]

9. Some are some aren't.

in some states, if a poor person has access to buying any type of insurance through their employer they they are not eligible for medicaid. Meaning if someone with 3 kids working at Walmart at $7 an hour can spend $300 a month of her pay to buy only the most minimal of coverage then her kids aren't eligible for medicaid. She can't afford the premiums and certainly can't afford the deductables and copays. -- meaning she has no access to medical care.

Add that to the goofy income limits the other poster mentioned and you have A LOT of children living in poverty that are not covered by medicaid.

Someone might be fortunate enough to live near a children's hospital and if a life or limb threatening emergency comes along they will not turn a child away.

[Sadie4629]

10. Didn't know that

Clearly, Medicaid needs to be reformed. Since it's a federal program (my understanding--could be wrong) the requirements should be standard.

[Rosemary2205]

13. Medicare and medicaid are no longer run by the feds.

block grants are given to each state and they run those programs within very minimal guidelines set by Congress. Both programs are now state run and with state coverage -- or in the case of medicare HMO's or privatized medicaid -- coverage may only be available within a specific community.

Both programs are also having huge problems because Congress is not adequately funding either -- plus the payouts are getting so low and time it takes to collect so long that many providers are opting not to take medicare or medicaid.

[MisterP]

11. the U.S. has never had a Tommy Douglas

any present-day Democrat even moving towards "socialism" would be torpedoed by the DLC's shock troops, like Ralph Yarborough, Howard Dean, Al Gore, Ned Lamont, and Cynthia McKinney. No matter how bad the Tories are (and they're plenty bad, both in Ottawa and London), the Canadian or British media landscapes have never been saturated and entirely taken over by followers of Ayn Rand, Dollfuß, Leo Strauss, and Billy Sunday.