You realize that southern Ontario has for just about all of Canada’s history gotten back less in government spending than has been taken from it in taxes, right?

To any Americans: Canada has done squat for true medical research

Other than insulin, most of the major advances in child and newborn medicine, major advances in HIV therapy and Parkinson’s research, and a whole host of other things. But they don’t count.

it is ILLEGAL to get private health care

No, it’s illegal for a doctor to provide private health care while operating as a public practitioner. Private clinics are perfectly legal in Canada so long as they work distinctly.

I actually agree that there should be some opportunity for publicly funded doctors to perform some private care work on the side, but again, they currently have the option to work entirely privately if they so choose.

But hey, MGK here lives in Toronto, one of the few areas with almost enough hospitals. I am from Northern Ontario and, because hospitals cannot compete for doctors, none will go there.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the single-payer system. Rural areas in the United States have it even worse than rural areas in Canada; at least in Canada, the government will pay to transport you for medical care if you don’t have access to a doctor. Rural Americans have all the same access problems that rural Canadians do and no safety line.

Oh wait, since there is a shortage of doctors (most prefer the competitive wages of the good ol’ USA) no one can find one.

The “doctor drain” is an invention of overinflated statistics; yes, Canadian doctors do go to the United States to practice, but only in slightly greater numbers than American doctors coming here. The shortage of doctors has a lot more to do with an artificially created scarcity of doctors twenty years ago than it does anything else.

The funny thing is, I don’t want the NDP to form the government any time in the near future. In fact, my ideal government would be for the Liberals to have a minority of about 130 seats, supported by 40-odd NDP MPs. Liberal moderation with the values and ideals of the NDP… would work for me.

Try living in Korea for a while.

When I complain about health care in this country, it’s because I think it’s not being run efficiently enough and that it’s understaffed (partly because the government can’t offer competitive wages). I think when we complain about our system, we’re not blaming them as flaws inherent to the system.

Similarly, when I complain about paying taxes, it’s because I think the government spends my money ineffectively, not because I want to pay less.

Count me as one of those people bemused by the American anti-tax attitude. I’m still amazed how much of a dirty word “taxes” is to many people there.

Usually that something is bullshit covered bullshit with bullshit centers.

As far as national identity, I think the Canadians should stick with “We’re NOT the USA”. Its worked well for the past 100 years or so and as long as Scalia is on the Supreme Court bench, I see no reason to believe that it will stop working any time soon.

Very different!

I think Korean people are perfectly polite – it’s the Dutch you’ve got to watch out for.

But I have to laugh at the description of Canada as “the sane one”. Seriously, living in a country that’s under snow all the time?

You’re all crazy.

And don’t get me started on the drinking age.

Aussie-JdR

Canada: The Sane North American Country.

In general, do Canadians like their health care, or not?

Denialism blog had a post up about that recently.

In general, Canadians do. It’s got problems, of course (wait-times can be a while, depending on what the condition is), but my mother had cancer twice in my childhood, which would have bankrupted us if we didn’t have national healthcare.

Regarding comparisons between how Canadians view their care and how Americans view HMOs, one thing to consider is that when Canadians express dissatisfaction with their system (you’ll sometimes see pro-business lobbies in the US touting comparison between polls of Americans and Canadians that supposedly show the US system is better), they mostly mean they want more money spent on it, not that they’d rather abolish medicare and go to an American-style system.