How the proposed health care violates the constitution

Originally Posted by Neezar

Btw, does anyone even realize that the people in the countries that have universal health care pay MORE than we do for insurance.

Well, i hear what your saying. But I think you are overlooking something. True, americans are probably paying less through an insurance premium than a canadian is through taxes in the inital part of ones life. BUT! what the canadian pays through his taxes remains fairly constant depsite how his health improves or worsens over the years. it wont decide if he pays more on his taxes. Whereas in the states (im getting this info from family members who are physicans, please correct me if im wrong) if you get sick again and again, your premiums will constantly go up and up.....I give you the case a man who was probably healthy most of his life, but now at 45 he gets type II diabetes.....what insurance company is going to give him a reasonable rate? he probably cant afford treatment now. In canada my father (who is type II diabetic) goes see the doc like 3 times a month, gets constant blood work etc etc and doesnt worry about payment.


I think you raise a good point though, about if you could be sick, where would i want to be sick and get treatment? If money was ABSOLUTELY NOT AN ISSUE, i would probably go to the states. lets face it, this is where all the major pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies are who develop new treatments....but money is a concern to me...

The old saying, theres two sides to every story, and truth lies somewhere in the middle can be applied to US and Canadian (and other countries) health care. Its true, In canada, everyone will get treatment if they need it regardless of age, geneder, past health problems etc. But by making it so available, we have decreased the quality of care that can be generated...thats just simple finances talking.

But on the other side of the coin....the U.S has great quality of care...if you can afford it. In other words its the flip in a way of Canada. Care is really good, but not as available.

-----I dont think either of us has it right just yet. There has to be a better compromise. Sorry for the rant, have a good day

[Neezar]

Originally Posted by mscomc

Well, i hear what your saying. But I think you are overlooking something. True, americans are probably paying less through an insurance premium than a canadian is through taxes in the inital part of ones life. BUT! what the canadian pays through his taxes remains fairly constant depsite how his health improves or worsens over the years. it wont decide if he pays more on his taxes. Whereas in the states (im getting this info from family members who are physicans, please correct me if im wrong) if you get sick again and again, your premiums will constantly go up and up.....I give you the case a man who was probably healthy most of his life, but now at 45 he gets type II diabetes.....what insurance company is going to give him a reasonable rate? he probably cant afford treatment now. In canada my father (who is type II diabetic) goes see the doc like 3 times a month, gets constant blood work etc etc and doesnt worry about payment.


I think you raise a good point though, about if you could be sick, where would i want to be sick and get treatment? If money was ABSOLUTELY NOT AN ISSUE, i would probably go to the states. lets face it, this is where all the major pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies are who develop new treatments....but money is a concern to me...

The old saying, theres two sides to every story, and truth lies somewhere in the middle can be applied to US and Canadian (and other countries) health care. Its true, In canada, everyone will get treatment if they need it regardless of age, geneder, past health problems etc. But by making it so available, we have decreased the quality of care that can be generated...thats just simple finances talking.

But on the other side of the coin....the U.S has great quality of care...if you can afford it. In other words its the flip in a way of Canada. Care is really good, but not as available.

-----I dont think either of us has it right just yet. There has to be a better compromise. Sorry for the rant, have a good day

Don't apologize for the rant. Good stuff there.

But I don't think the people here realize what is going to happen if we go to universal healthcare. Our taxes will DOUBLE - everyone's taxes will double. You guys pay twice the amount of taxes that we do and 45% of it goes to cover healthcare costs.

If the working man realizes that right now he can get Premium private insurance for a fraction of the cost of the Medicare plan he will recieve under Universal, I just don't see how they could back this. Seems to me that the only people who will benefit will be the people who aren't willing to work. (People who don't work because of a legitamate disability get free insurance already. ALL kids get free insurance.)

[Neezar]

Originally Posted by Neezar

But I don't think the people here realize what is going to happen if we go to universal healthcare. Our taxes will DOUBLE - everyone's taxes will double. You guys pay twice the amount of taxes that we do and 45% of it goes to cover healthcare costs.

My math isn't perfect but it looks like Canadian's pay out about 18% of their income on healthcare. So if your spouse also works then I assume they pays 18% also. That is alot of money coming from one household. We pay less than 5% of my husband's pay for the best insurance available in our area.

[NateR]

Even the healthcare debate is already having an adverse affect on people's healthcare. My dad pays $4000 a year for health insurance for him and my mom, but now the insurance companies are so worried about the government taking over that they are requiring him to pay his full deductable ahead of time before they will even schedule him for a surgery. So he has to come up with $2800 or he can't get surgery done on the blocked artery in his leg.

My dad works for the public school system and if he can't afford to pay the deductable, then isn't that like having no healthcare at all?

So, if just the debate is having this effect, then what's going to happen if this nonsense actually gets passed?

Government and public health and public policy analysts often make a comparison of the Canadian and American health care systems because the two countries at one time had very similar health care systems until the Canadians began reforming their system in the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. spends much more on health care than Canada, both on a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP. In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678,; in the U.S., US$6,714, The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 10.0%. In 2006, 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 46% in the United States. Total government spending per capita in the U.S. on health care was 23% higher than Canadian government spending, and U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 83% of total Canadian spending (public and private).

Studies have come to different conclusions about the result of this disparity in spending. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the US in a Canadian peer-reviewed medical journal found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent. Life expectancy is longer in Canada, and its infant mortality rate is lower than that of the U.S., but there is debate about the underlying causes of these differences. One commonly-cited comparison, the 2000 World Health Organization's ratings of "overall health service performance", which used a "composite measure of achievement in the level of health, the distribution of health, the level of responsiveness and fairness of financial contribution", ranked Canada 30th and the U.S. 37th among 191 member nations. This study rated the US "responsiveness", or quality of service for individuals receiving treatment, as 1st, compared with 7th for Canada. However, the average life expectancy for Canadians was 80.34 years compared with 78.6 years for residents of the U.S.

The health care system in Canada is funded by a mix of public (70%) and private (30%) funding, with most services delivered by private (both for-profit and not-for-profit) providers.

Through all entities in its public-private system, the U.S. spends more per capita than any other nation in the world, but is the only wealthy industrialized country in the world that lacks some form of universal health care.

Originally Posted by Neezar

My math isn't perfect but it looks like Canadian's pay out about 18% of their income on healthcare. So if your spouse also works then I assume they pays 18% also. That is alot of money coming from one household. We pay less than 5% of my husband's pay for the best insurance available in our area.

i figured out what i pay for health care through my taxes and at the cost of $3700.00 per person on average that would make it slightly less then 5% for me.

[Neezar]

Originally Posted by bradwright

i figured out what i pay for health care through my taxes and at the cost of $3700.00 per person on average that would make it slightly less then 5% for me.

Is that 3700.00 per person in the household?

So when you get that amount paid in, you don't have to pay anymore that year? Is that how it works?

[Neezar]

Originally Posted by NateR

Even the healthcare debate is already having an adverse affect on people's healthcare. My dad pays $4000 a year for health insurance for him and my mom, but now the insurance companies are so worried about the government taking over that they are requiring him to pay his full deductable ahead of time before they will even schedule him for a surgery. So he has to come up with $2800 or he can't get surgery done on the blocked artery in his leg.

My dad works for the public school system and if he can't afford to pay the deductable, then isn't that like having no healthcare at all?

So, if just the debate is having this effect, then what's going to happen if this nonsense actually gets passed?

He won't qualify for the procedure under universal health care.

Originally Posted by Neezar

Is that 3700.00 per person in the household?

So when you get that amount paid in, you don't have to pay anymore that year? Is that how it works?

i looked up what it costs per person for health care in Canada and it is some where around $3700.00 per person and that would be less then 5% of my income,
for my wife it would be around 8% of her income and i only have one child and he is working and it would cost him about 11% of his income.

we never actually pay for anything,the total cost for our health care comes out of our taxes but if I had no income what so ever I would pay nothing and still receive the exact same care as everyone else,

having said that it stands to reason that the people that work would pay more than the $3700.00 per person because they have to subsidise the people that dont work for what ever reason.

so yes you would be correct to think i pay more then 5% of my income towards health care but i'm not sure what that percentage would be,
i really dont think its any where near 18% though.

[NateR]

Originally Posted by bradwright

Government and public health and public policy analysts often make a comparison of the Canadian and American health care systems because the two countries at one time had very similar health care systems until the Canadians began reforming their system in the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. spends much more on health care than Canada, both on a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP. In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678,; in the U.S., US$6,714, The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 10.0%. In 2006, 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 46% in the United States. Total government spending per capita in the U.S. on health care was 23% higher than Canadian government spending, and U.S. government expenditure on health care was just under 83% of total Canadian spending (public and private).

Studies have come to different conclusions about the result of this disparity in spending. A 2007 review of all studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the US in a Canadian peer-reviewed medical journal found that "health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent. Life expectancy is longer in Canada, and its infant mortality rate is lower than that of the U.S., but there is debate about the underlying causes of these differences. One commonly-cited comparison, the 2000 World Health Organization's ratings of "overall health service performance", which used a "composite measure of achievement in the level of health, the distribution of health, the level of responsiveness and fairness of financial contribution", ranked Canada 30th and the U.S. 37th among 191 member nations. This study rated the US "responsiveness", or quality of service for individuals receiving treatment, as 1st, compared with 7th for Canada. However, the average life expectancy for Canadians was 80.34 years compared with 78.6 years for residents of the U.S.

The health care system in Canada is funded by a mix of public (70%) and private (30%) funding, with most services delivered by private (both for-profit and not-for-profit) providers.

Through all entities in its public-private system, the U.S. spends more per capita than any other nation in the world, but is the only wealthy industrialized country in the world that lacks some form of universal health care.

And let's hope it stays that way. We want quality over quantity.

Also, those are just numbers that can be interpreted to mean anything. Maybe Americans spend more on healthcare because they can actually see a doctor as soon as they get sick and don't get stuck on waiting lists.