As a Canadian,I have no healthcare worries.

None. Sweden has even better welfare,Norwary,UK,etc. But you guys have your guns.

:shrug:

Canada cannot wish for a better friend then the USA.

This kind of thing sounds like cruel taunting from outside our borders. I think it's a cultural
difference that brought it about, however. I don't think you intended cruelty.

There are good and bad things about all countries and cultures. You seem to think we made some
conscious choice to be here and you have chosen to be there. That isn't the case. I love my country,
with its good and bad, just as you love yours. If anyone tried to taunt you with anti-Canadian comments,
I'd speak up to them also.

They just don't kill each other with them.

Both countries have relatively high rates of gun ownership, and low rates of violent crime.

;-)

he can look back and reminisce.

besides, NAFTA gives America reign over their oil in the event of a declared emergency. Oh dear!

those who want a change? Go try freeperville ffs.

My neighbor who can't afford her chemo treatment next week will appreciate your "kindness".

I don't have a gun, want a gun, nor do I know anyone who owns a gun.

representatives that this issue is extremely important to us, yet our representatives have other priorities

I also extend my best to your neighbor, and your neighbor is able to get her treatments

And now we're "paying the price" or something. I've had this whole discussion before with Swede ...
I think it's just a cultural misunderstanding triggered by language.

We passed the hat and came up with my neighbor's funds for her treatment -- her insurance will kick
in with the next one, thank heavens.

I hope it sends the message to our representatives

Your neighbor is very luckey to have such a neighbor such as yourself

I know one thing, that if the Democrats win in 2008, we have a better chance to get universal healthcare. If the republicans win, nothing will change

to catch up to our neighbors in the North.

I have spoken to Canadians who say otherwise. One I spoke to had to wait months (many) for reconstructive facial surgery after a bad car accident, part of which included his eyes being damaged so it wasn't cosmetic. I've talked to others who have come to the US for medical treatment.

Canada may have a good system, but to call it "no worries" seems a bit of a stretch.

Everybody's got 'em, and some of 'em are even the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

You've "spoken to Canadians". Me, I've spoken to probably 100,000 Canadians. And I've never heard such tales in my entire life. Oh well.

Oh, by the way. If the medical treatment in question is medically necessary, it's covered by the health care plan, including if it's received in the US. Unless, of course, it's not urgent. In that case, everybody here is free to go somewhere else and buy whatever they like. Ain't freedom wonderful?

Even though none of them knew each other.

I stand corrected.

and it's only been going since the 60's; it was a real battle (the doctors went on strike) to get it, and the rich have always used $ to get better treatment in usa, but the OP is right- basic medical care is free and readily available in Canada. The 'savings' which mean each dollar spent gets more value, is in the single payer aspect- because there's only one customer, the drug co's, the medical industry, the doctors and everyone else in the biz deals only with the one bureaucracy, and the forms are all fairly simple, meaning no vast apparatus just to keep track of the 'deals' which is the downfall of every system which lets private operators make the deals. It's the paperwork that kills you! And no matter how the private system works, relatively few people are rich enough to disdain the available med care (cuz they can go elsewhere if unhappy, and sue the bastards too, for fun) where they are...lots of 'rich' families have been impoverished by medical costs (i recall long ago a caller to a Vancouver radio station bad mouthing medicare in Canada, but it turned out somone who knew the caller reported that he, who lived in usa, returned to Canada every time his kids got sick!)
ironiclly, it's rightwingers in Canada, who otherwise support the tory ideas of cops, guns, war and brutality, still withdraw into themselves when medicare is mentioned, and anyone who seriously threatens the system suddenly finds silence where cheers were before...even the 'snowbirds'...well to do retirees who winter in southern usa etc, and generally lean right, watch the time clock to make sure their coverage is safe (after 6 months out of Canada, medicare stops)...rightwing support in Canada literally hamstrung by this problem, and too bad the same wasn't true in USA! USA problem is racism. medicare benefits the poor (the rich too, but the poor obviously much more) and since lotsa black/hispanic people are poor, then racism says 'no way ho say'

Iverglas forgot to put that in the post. So I would say she knows more about Canada than you do.
Lee

and we have great insurance (union plan)

Our old pal Ann Ecdotal always tosses in her two cents whenever we discuss Canadian healthcare...and no doubt her rich friends DO come here for care..

But rich people ANYWHERE can got ANYWHERE they want for care and GET it..It's all about the money,

A middle class Canadian will always have a better shot at care than a middle class american. that's just the fact, Jack :)

A Canadian with a sick kid doesn't have to "wait til payday", or max out a credit card to take a sick kid to the doctor..

I had some very odd symptoms and went to my PCP, I'm uninsured but the symptoms were troubling enough to spend the money on the visit. They did some tests on me and the Doctor wasn't sure what was wrong with me, but he could tell there was a problem. He referred me to a specialist because cancer was a possibility. I called up and the first open date was 3 months out. I called around town and found one that got to get to go see in 6 weeks.

At the specialist I had to determine which tests I was willing to pay for (the doctor was very helpful in what he recommended and didn't recommend) and hedge my bets against spending thousands of dollars. If I had insurance I would have had a couple other tests done to make sure of a few possible causes.

Because it won't force us to go bankrupt. Of course there are some kinks in the systems, such as waiting times that can be long, but all in all, it's a great system.

and we'll come up there & blow you away if you keep talking socialist trash like that.

but, please, don't make me even think about that option

i did nothing to you

Changes the balance a bit, eh?

we have this thing called 'cancon' (canadian content) which says radio/tv etc must use canadian artists/workers on public properties such as airwaves and media etc; a certain percentage that supposedly ensures gigs for Canadians which the market might not otherwise provide- unfortunately, bryan adams is one of the beneficiaries of cancom!

And you can keep her!

. . . please?

William Shatner!

http://www.amazon.com/Has-Been-William-Shatner/dp/B0002RUPH4

(Actually an EXCELLENT album - and I'm not a Trekkie. Go figger.)

"MISTER TAMBOURINE MAAAAANNNNN!!!"

:ROFL:

75 degrees in the winter.

the ambient temperature is not all that important:(

It was hell last year to an accident victim who couldn't afford medivac to Vancouver.I thank god daily my Union negotiated a good benefits package, but I am by no means secure. Beats winters in Montreal, though ( especially when you are older.

It was hell last year to an accident victim who couldn't afford medivac to Vancouver.I thank god daily my Union negotiated a good benefits package, but I am by no means secure. Beats winters in Montreal, though ( especially when you are older). Gotta appreciate what you do have. not what some Candaian gloats about. Yup, we got guns too

seriously, though..

Canadians who are here 6 months a year have to weigh the risks...just as the US retirees do ..who go to Mexico, CostaRica, etc to retire..

I doubt that canadians are forced at gunpoint to come to the US:)

At least canadians who come here to work , have the security of knowing that they could use their CC if necessary to get "home" for medical care..

Americans without coverage (or good coverage) are S.O.L no matter where they are :(

As a courtesy to you I will take your word
that you are Canadian but your rudeness
speaks otherwise.

But strange coincidence ... the co-vivant and I were sitting on the chesterfield watching a Law&Order rerun last night, about uninsured people getting leg amputations instead of bone grafts, and he piped up and said Hey, you know what would really suck? Living someplace where people are allowed to have handguns, and they shoot you, and you don't have medical insurance. That's what would really suck.

I think it would indeed, and I think the notion is completely incomprehensible to the vast majority of Canadians. And I don't think Swede was actually mocking anyone except people who quite evidently care more about their own "right" to have guns than they care about their neighbours' health and well-being. There are quite a lot of people in the US like that, and there are even some at DU.

Mind you, I think Swede may also have mistaken this weekend for 2-4 weekend, which isn't until next week.

Would you rather be treated for cancer in Minnesota or Saskatoon? Now, tell the truth.

Any more questions?

No one will believe you anyway.

I'm worried.

Not about getting health care, though, oddly enough.

Just fyi, my dad was treated for cancer back in 2003 -- after flying home from Florida, where he had spent several months in the winter for a couple of years, and being diagnosed w/in two days with lung cancer, which turned out to be melanoma that had metastized to bones in his hip and shoulder. Six weeks in hospital, bone scans, x-rays (no MRI because he had a pacemaker, but it would have been scheduled for a day after the request, had he been able to), radiation therapy, all the drugs he could eat, an internist, an oncologist and an orthopedic surgeon on daily rounds, hip replacement surgery on a Sunday evening scheduled on two days notice for no purpose other than pain relief (that he was unable to undergo because his heart was failing), ambulance transport 30 miles to my sister's home so he could spend his last days at home, a super-duper inflatable hospital bed, morphine drip, visiting nurse, hospital supplies, doctor on call ... what did it cost us? I paid $25 to the pharmacy for an Atavan prescription, because the doctor had prescribed the sublingual type (my dad was mainly not consious), and the seniors' drug plan didn't cover that type. I was kinda pissed about that.

My dad had assets of maybe $30,000 in cash, and lived on his old age pension and Canada pension (like US social security). His cash was intact when he died.

It wasn't Saskatoon, it was a small town north of Toronto. I'd still rather be in Saskatoon than anywhere in the US if I needed any kind of health care.

Hands down.

or Regina, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Kingston, Ottawa, London, Mississauga, Hamilton, Windsor, Victoria, Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec, Trois-Rivieres, Halifax, Charlottetown, St John, St John's, Moncton, Fredericton...

Sid

:hi:

Well, at least the wealthy do; I haven't seen any drops worth having with all those cuts.

Apples and oranges are so delicious when mixed. Even when one does cherry-pick one's criteria for comparison.

http://policyalternatives.ca/index.cfm?act=news&call=223&do=article&pA=BB736455

Press Release
New CCPA study finds BC has the advantage over Washington State

June 8, 2001

(Vancouver) A new report released today by the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives finds that BC has the advantage over Washington State. The report, "In Search of the Good Life: 'Competitiveness' in British Columbia and Washington State," looks at both traditional business measures of competitiveness as well important cost-of-living and quality of life measures.

"British Columbians keep hearing that we have to follow Washington State's example of lower taxes and smaller government if we want to compete for investment and highly-skilled workers, especially in the high tech industry," says Donna Vogel, author of the study and a researcher with the Centre's BC office.

The study finds that BC is on par with WA when it comes to most traditional business measures such as taxes and business costs. It is in the areas of tax fairness, cost of living and quality of life that BC ranks well ahead of WA. "Traditional business measures of 'competitiveness' tell us very little about quality of life for most people," says Vogel.

BC's tax system is much more fair than WA's, which is the most regressive tax system in the US. "Low income families in WA pay almost three times more of their income in state taxes than high income families. And although an average BC family pays $1,633 more per year in provincial taxes than a WA family pays in state taxes, BC spends $1,118 more per person on public programs. The tax savings in WA are more than wiped out by higher private spending by families for important goods and services like health care and university tuition.

"Higher private spending in WA has contributed to greater inequality," says Vogel. "The gap between rich and poor has been growing in both BC and WA, but the gap is wider and is growing faster in WA. Almost 16% of WA's population has no health insurance, and the number is growing daily."

Many of the employment standards that British Columbians take for granted are virtually non-existent in WA. Workers in WA are not entitled to statutory holidays or annual vacations and provisions for maternity leave are vastly inferior. Only women working in the public sector or for companies with more than 50 employees (just 55% of the workforce) are entitled to a mere 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave.

"The irony of the situation is that social and economic conditions have worsened over the past decade in WA--the longest period of economic growth in US history," says Vogel. "After seven years of tax cuts and economic growth, WA is facing a major fiscal crisis. If competitiveness means higher out-of-pocket costs, more inequality and lower employment standards, it is time to ask the question: 'What are we competing for?'"

Just f'r instance.

Complete report here:
http://policyalternatives.ca/documents/BC_Office_Pubs/wa_bc.pdf

So San Diego is clearly the best place to live among the three.

I admit to never having heard of a fish taco, and I assure you I would run screaming from it if I did.

Bleach. I'm just about to go home for falafel and hummus (once I get them made ...), and shall try to wipe that image from my taste buds!

On the whole, we have little or none for them... and quite frankly, Americans have made their own beds when it comes to things like health care and the proliferation of firearms.

I fully expect to see more of these type of attitudes as energy prices rise and the economy falters. Americans chose an unsustainable "way of life" and a large majority believes it's "non-negotiable."

And since the world economy is globalized, the problem transcends America...

America's problem has been not adopting light rail and 'green' appliances like people in Europe and Canada have.

This is true to some degree, but consider too that the economies and markets of Europe, Australia and Asia are considerably stronger than they've been in the past and would be in a much better position to hold their own when the US begins its inexorable decline.

As to foreign aid, the US "gives" considerably less than other "Northern" nations in terms of GNI (Gross National Income) than other nations- and what's given often has strings attached (e.g. the global gag rule).

I also agree that Americans in many regions are going to be very sorry in the coming decade(s) that they didn't invest in mass transit when times were good.

they do that shit you know.

and then sometimes, people quote them in threads at DU.

(Not you! - your comment said pretty much what I'd thought about another post in the thread. ;) )

Yes, we have right-wingers. Not "freepers" ... but there is a place modeled on it, good old freedominion. Not quite as popular.

But dang, you mean you don't want our refuse?? And here it was such a relief for us when people like David Frum went off to write things like "axis of evil" for your president ...

Now, what are you going to do about ridding yourself of Darcy Tucker? :silly:

I thought there must be a right-winger from the US among us whom I hadn't heard of. So I googled. You're talking hockey talk, a language I learned a little of in childhood but have long forgotten. I got surveyed by a national opinion firm the other night. We did fine on what party/candidate I would vote for if an election were held tomorrow, federally / provincially / municipally. Next up was a question with the name of the local NHL team in it, and it sounded like he was going to ask me my opinion of some players he would be naming. I said Stop there -- I couldn't name, or recognize the name of, a single player on that team, so no point continuing. He said, I don't suppose the CFL ...? Shortened that thing up considerably.

Hmm. I think maybe there are right-wingers in hockey ... ah yes, hahaha, Darcy Tucker is. Okay. Begone with him.

We do suck. I am actually fairly ashamed of our country. I am unemployed and uninsured and I really wish I was born someplace that's else. I won't abandon now because I am a 'Markin and I feel I should fight for what is right HERE but if I had a time machine, I would wish I had been born Canadian or somewhere that's not like this asshole country with it's big business, big bucks but no care for anyone except the rich.
Lee

Meh.

Toronto is a lot nicer than Chicago.

Meh.

Administratively on your way to being the 51st state, methinks.

Our neighbours to the south don't need to be reminded that their system blows.

And they're about to see a movie by that nice man Michael Moore that's going to make them even more angry.

So please don't provoke them.

And that statement about the guns ...um,... what is it with the guns anyways?

... I spend my life in medical hell. Because we're over 50 and have "pre-existing conditions," (and who can reach 50 without them, unless you've lived in a sterile bubble) it costs my wife and I almost $12,000 a year in premiums alone. And of course there are deductibles, copays, non-covered prescription drugs and a baffling array of "other" charges that make no sense unless you realized this system has absolutely nothing to do with providing actual health care and is geared, like most things here in capitalist nirvana, to enrich the upper two or three percent at the expense of the rest of us proles. Dental and vision care? Don't even ask.

However, as a home owner (which just means I pay rent to the mortgage company rather than a landlord), I dare not go without medical insurance. If my wife or I get seriously ill, or require extended hospital time for any other reason, we'll no longer own the house, we'll no longer have bank accounts, we'll no longer have even our pathetic retirement savings, and we'll be among the more than 50 percent of all bankruptcies filed in the land of the free that are caused by unpayable medical expenses.

However, as you say, we do have our weaponry, which might be used to great effect in kidnapping a health insurance exec, taking his own insurance card, and forcing him to spend a week or so rushing from ER to ER, desperately seeking treatment for the broken leg I'll be happy to supply for him, and being turned down cold or forced to wait 10 or more hours before seeing a harassed, exhausted ER tech, who will take his vital signs and promise a visit from a doc sometime in the near future -- which translates to another 10 hour wait, unless it's a particularly fierce night in the "inner-city," in which case he'll probably never see a doc because all available ER staff are plugging the multiple holes bored in maybe a dozen "inner-city youths" -- which, translated into our native tongue, means "young black guys who also have guns" -- and broken legs don't rate very high on the criticality scale.

Yeah, it's just fucking great here in capitalist heaven, the only industrialized country in which lack of medical insurance can be a capital crime.

Care to adopt a couple of middle aged but reasonably functional refugees? That's the only way we're going to get into Canada, because we don't have enough points, nor enough money to buy ourselves in as "investors." May we'll become "illegals," although I kind of hate looking over my shoulder all the time.


wp

Neener neener! I've got it better than you!!111!!





And this thread helps us how exactly?

Lemme guess. You're bored with a skin full? What, no hockey to watch?

Have another. :beer:

that my reference to 2-4 weekend (which our friend may have been celebrating prematurely) went ungrasped. ;)

May 24th weekend, or whatever weekend happens to be closest to May 24 without going over it, is the traditional beginning of summer up here. It involves planting annual flowers because the danger of frost is past (although these days, that can be done a couple of weeks earlier), and picking up a 2-4 or 2 or 4 at the local Brewer's Retail or provincial equivalent.

Googleimage's first return for "2-4 weekend":




(I think those are only 12s, but two of them would make a 2-4 equivalent)


Oops, forgot. What we're doing is celebrating Queen Victoria's birthday, although that isn't when her birthday actually was. Don't you wish you had such fun(ny) holidays??

Better health care
Better access to higher ed
Better mass transit
Better holidays...


We know. We REALLY know.

Saskatchewan's finest :)

....you don't have really cool wars like we do....

Canada does a lot of things better than the U.S., I'll grant. I feel that your policies in relation to what law-abiding gun owners may possess are a bit reactionary, though.

FWIW, your 1934 automatic weapons ban was modeled on ours, as I recall. I suspect that U.S. gun laws are not so permissive, nor Canadian so strict, as you imagine.

Yes, once again, the dishonest rhetoric is dragged out.

No matter that the one doing the dragging knows full well that the "crime rate" in question reflects a high property crime rate, in particular car theft and burglary of unoccupied premises -- which have precisely and absolutely fuck all to do with gun laws -- and that crimes like armed robbery / robbery with firearms have been declining steadily for quite some time now.

Yup, we've had a recent increase in handgun homicides. NONE of which, not a single one of which, has involved a legally possessed firearm, and ALL of which have involved a firearm stolen in Canada or smuggled into Canada from the US, or otherwise in illegal circulation. Maybe you could explain what influence firearm laws of the last decade might have had on that phenomenon.

Of course, maybe you could start by explaining what you mean by "late-90's gun bans". That shouldn't be difficult.

And of course, the U.S. homicide rate has also been in decline for a decade and a half, which also didn't have a thing to do with the number of guns in civilian hands.

By the bans, I was referring to your prohibition on over-10-round magazines (over 5 for rifles that don't have pistol analogues), and your reclassification of some scarier-looking guns into harder-to-own categories. Prior to that, what Canadians could own, and what Americans could own, were not all that different (you guys actually had more access to foreign made civilian lookalikes than we do).

So your statement now is:

And your *homicide* rate was just as low before your late-90's gun bans...



I have lost count of how many times I have posted links to actual truth in these regards.

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050721/d050721a.htm

Violent crime down but homicide rate up

In total, about 300,000 violent crimes were reported to police in 2004, the majority of which were common assault. The violent crime rate fell 2%, continuing a general decline since 1992. The violent crime rate was 10% lower than a decade earlier, but 35% higher than 20 years ago.

Canada's homicide rate rose 12% in 2004 after hitting a 36-year low the year before. Police reported 622 victims of homicide, 73 more than last year. Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec accounted for most of this increase. The rate of 1.9 homicides for every 100,000 population was 5% lower than it was 10 years earlier.

A 36-year low in 2003, followed by a 12% increase in 2004 (note the absolute numbers: an increase of 73).

Where *do* you get your intelligence??

Oh look. Some debunking of right-wing nattering about crime statistics in Canada:
http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/realitycheck/violent_crime.html

One tidbit:

The crime -- % change 1994 to 2004
Homicide -5.3
Attempted murder -29.4
Serious sexual assaults -32.6
Robbery -14
Total violent crime -9.7

It just isn't working out for you, is it? Homicide, and all other violent crimes, DECLINED from 1994 to 2004. The homicide rate was NOT just as low in the mid-90s as it is now.


Ah, here's a keeper. I trust you'll bookmark:
http://colorado.mediamatters.org/items/200704200001

While Mauser's study compared violent crime rates in the United States to those in three countries with strict gun-control laws, its presentation distorted the comparison of those statistics and was, in some cases, false. For example, in the graph below, Mauser compared homicide rates in the United States with those in England from 1974 to 2000-2001; but the comparison is incongruent because England's rate is measured by per 1 million population (on the left vertical axis), whereas the United States' rate is measured by per 100,000 population (on the right vertical axis). Therefore, the graph deceptively makes England's rate appear higher when, in fact, the U.S. homicide rate is nearly four times that of England's: approximately 60 per 1 million population, compared with approximately 15 per 1 million population, respectively.



Moreover, England's steepest homicide rate increase since implementing the 1997 gun restrictions -- in terms of per 100,000 population -- rose from 1.2 in 1998-99 to 1.5 in 2004-2005, excluding the anomalous year of 2002-03 when 172 of a prolific serial killer's pre-1998 slayings were recorded.

Isn't that Mauser a tricky little Schnauzer? And I had never realized that about the skewing by serial homicides in the UK (as happened in Canada a few years back).

Continuing from that source, and a little repetitively from what I posted above:

Canada

Contrary to Mauser's claim that "the rate of violent crime in Canada has increased" over the past decade, the latest Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics' (CCJS) report noted that while holding steady from 2004-05, "in general, the violent crime rate had been falling since the mid-1990s, after increasing fairly steadily for thirty years." Canada implemented its sweeping gun-control laws in 1996 after passage of the Firearms Act in December 1995.

Moreover, one of the sources Mauser used in his study -- "Homicide in Canada, 2002," by Josée Savoie -- reported that "in 2002, the rate of homicides committed with the use of a firearm continued to decline, reaching its lowest level since 1966. Firearms were used in one quarter (26%) of all homicides in 2002, the lowest proportion since statistics were first collected in 1961." Canada's homicide rate increased slightly from 2003 to 2005, but has still not exceeded the 1996 rate. Similarly, a compilation of crime data reported by CCJS shows that while the robbery rate in Canada rose 3 percent from 2004 to 2005, it was still "about 15% lower than a decade ago." The compilation also showed that during the same period, "Robberies committed with a firearm continued to drop, falling 5%," according to a Statistics Canada release. In fact, CCJS reported in 2005 that robberies involving firearms had been steadily declining since 1991. The same report shows that while the robbery rate decreased 15 percent between 1995 and 2005, the robbery rate involving firearms decreased 53 percent during that same period. The report's figures for assaults and homicides committed with a weapon do not differentiate between firearms and other weapons.

So no: "And your ____ rate was just as low before your late-90's gun bans..." is NOT an accurate statement, about homicide or violent crime in general.

And just in case we're not all clear, LAWS are not the only thing that might affect offence rates. Enforcement is one rather important variable -- for instance, targeting gun smugglers and domestic traffickers. And it's not unreasonable to think that a little bit of that was going on during the couple of years leading up to enactment of the Firearms Act in 1995 and implementation in 1996.


edited to fix dates misentered

We'll have nationalized health care.

:evilgrin:

It's not nice to taunt people who have no right to medical care; the majority of U.S. citizens want single-payer, but we're not getting it from the politicians, who are in bed w/the rightwing insurance cos.

But you may not see that as a loss.

:hi:

Also, isn't your crime rate lower even with gun restrictions? Just been debating some fundies about the lesser spending on health care combined with a lower child mortality rate, and they don't know what to do - they are twisting themselves in the wind to try to claim the stats are rigged.