Comments on: Canada’s Decrepit, Expensive Single-Payer Health Care System: Steven Crowder Investigates, Guerrilla-Style (video)

By: admin

admin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:07:34 +0000

Excellent commentary and points made, Lee. Few have said it better.

Thank you for sharing this information with readers. Let us hope that sanity and logic prevail. It ain’t over until all the votes are in… we must continue to educate others and protest this monstrosity.

Thanks for your valuable input. Hope to hear again from you soon!

By: Lee Allen

Lee Allen — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:03:39 +0000

I am an American and I have excellent health care insurance provided by my employer. I have always had health care provided by all the employers I have worked for. In America you can not attract and hire the best without providing it. I travel extensively and have discussed health care with many upscale Canadians and the story is almost always the same — they have private insurance and they don’t use the “system”. Long waiting times, government bureaucracts making their health decision, etc. etc. Perhaps I could say this better but there are many, many differences between the make-up of America and Canada. Our high percent of perpetual welfare class and illegials is makes things much different here. This burden will be financially astromical to the American tax payer when all their health care is “free”. Second, if employers are given the choice of continuing to provide or just “OP out” and pay a fee, many will choose the fee percent route, if it is cheaper and less work for their HR departments. Especially if it is a fixed percent for all states, then in high cost states like CA and NY employers will get a deal by Oping out. The middle class loses again. Americans don’t think like people in those socialist countries.. We are too entrepreneural and value our personal freedom too much. The Obomanation has the power of the almighty himself right now via his control of the media so it will pass but it is a square peg in a round hole for America. Oboma is about distroying hope for a better life for the achievers to give to the non-achievers. Once 51% of the voters figure out they they can vote themselves a check from the govenment then democracy and free entriprise is on its death bed.

By: Bill W

Bill W — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:11:46 +0000

I hate to contradict you Jill, but I am well into my 70s and the system here in Canada has always been here for me. Yes, there are some problems due to under-capacity and the fact that each and every Canadian is covered by our system. But by and large, we do extremely well.
I have had a bypass (yes, I had to wait for three months, but I didn’t mind seeing more acute cases go to the front of the line), I have suffered from heart failure, and also on one occasion from an intestinal blockage. In this last case, I was in a hospital bed within 15 minutes of showing up in the ER, had a catscan within hours and a specialist looking after me.
Currently I can see my family doctor normally the same or next day in case of something really bothering me; I have regular appointments with four specialists.
Yes, some of us have cause for complaint, and some of us think that the role of private health care should be expanded. Others of us just look in awe and wonder at so much of the uninformed comment coming out of this debate in the States.
No I’m not brainwashed, having spent 20 years of my working life living in other countries, including the States. And yes, I am satisfied with our system—which has its warts like every other one, including the American.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:27:37 +0000

Thanks for your input, Jill. I’ve been surprised by the Canadians who have embraced and supported their government-run health care in the comments here.

Crowder is no slouch when it comes to research, although his roots are in political commentary and comedy. So he may exaggerate a bit in this video to get a comedic effect. I don’t believe he would compromise accuracy and facts, though.

Your affirmations and comment are appreciated. I hope you pop back often, Jill. We can use your first-hand experience and insight as a Canadian citizen on this loathsome American health care issue.

By: Jill Baxter

Jill Baxter — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:23:34 +0000

Canadians are often waiting weeks, WEEKS and MONTHS to see an oncologist. This is even before they have a treatment plan for the cancer treatment. I’m Canadian, and the truth is that Crowder’s video is well done, and correct. People are suffering and dying thanks to uncompassionate waiting lists. The system in Canada needs to change, the sad irony is that too many Canadians are brainwashed from the cradle. They actually believe the system will be there for them in their time of need, sadly, many Canadians also lie through their teeth to “protect” the system.

The Canadian system is best for very, very minor things like stitches, but not for chronic or life threatening illness.

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:58:06 +0000

Sorry Linda, its a common myth that Canadians by the droves go across the border for care in the States. Although there are some that have come across to jump the line, the facts don’t back it up. Thousands upon thousands is a propagands number the far right like to through out without backing it up with proof.

By: Linda

Linda — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:11:44 +0000

If the Canadian health care system is so wonderful, why are thousands of Canadians streaming over the border to receive top-quality health care in the United States? There are many medical centers located in towns near the border that have expanded their facilities and hired additional staff just to accomodate the influx of Canadian patients.

By: henry Percy

henry Percy — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:01:43 +0000

Trul fantastic!!!

When I was in Florida, healthcare cost me and my employer well over
a thousand a month. When I got unemployed, I simply got NONE!!! NONE!!!

In Canada, my total cost is $800 a year, period!!!(I just paid the bill)

You are being destroyed by a bunch of subversives
and all you can obsess on in health care!!!

Wake up, guys, the wolves are way past the city gates,
THEY HAVE OVERTAKEN CITY HALL!!!

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:51:20 +0000

As a Canadian currently living in the US, I watched this video with interest. I saw nothing that resembles my own many experiences with healthcare in Canada. As with the United States, the level of service one gets can depend greatly on where you live. For me, I’ve consistently had longer ER wait times in the US than I ever had in Canada (my son has asthma and I’ve visited emergency rooms on a number of occasions back in Canada). Just a few weeks ago, my wife and daughter waited 7 hours in our local ER in Burlington where she went because of chest pains and trouble breathing. All in all, though, I have to say that we’ve had fine service in both countries. The big difference, though, is that my employer and I pay thousands of dollars per year for our coverage in the US.

Steven Crowder, who if I recall correctly is a dual citizen, visits Montreal, Canada’s second biggest city and the place in Canada that is having the worst time of things by far. When I lived in Edmonton, I could usually see my GP on the same day that I called if it were urgent. After-hours, there were a number of 24-hour clinics where the wait would be longer but I’d always be able to see someone. For urgent cases, we’d go to the ER and the wait was always understandable; the more severe cases always go first, as they should. Crowder goes on and on in this video about how in Canada they have to ration care because of the system. I’m sure my colleague down the hall, who is fighting with her insurance company here to get approval for some desperately needed spinal surgery, would be happy to talk about her experiences of care being rationed in the US.

The major problem in Canada has, to my mind, very little to do with universal healthcare itself; there can always be greater efficiency in any system, but the system in Canada at the moment is underfunded, particularly in Quebec. Canada puts 30-40% less into healthcare than the US does and yet Canadians’ life expectancy is longer, patient satisfaction levels are similar if not higher in Canada, and no one ever goes bankrupt over medical bills. The question of higher tax rates there is all relative. In Quebec, Crowder is right that with sales tax people do wind up paying the 8% provincial sales tax on the 5% federal sales tax, but there are other provinces that have solved this by “harmonizing” their sales taxes so that they are charged only one tax rather than two separate ones. In Alberta, there is no provincial sales tax at all and there never will be.

While everyone wishes our taxes would be lower, 85% of Canadians recently surveyed said that they wouldn’t dream of trading their healthcare system for that of the United States. Universal healhcare works. It’s more effective than what we find in the US in terms of its ability to treat everyone equally. It’s also, contrary to popular belief here in the US, far less bureaucratic than the US system. Just stop by a Canadian hospital or doctor’s office and look for the billing office. You won’t find one.

To see the problems Crowder found in Montreal as representative of all of Canada is as foolish as walking into one of the poorest areas in a major US city and describing the whole country as being rife with poverty and crime. The Canadian system needs to be improved and better funded, without a doubt, but overall it’s still very good and works well for most Canadians. It costs much less and, on the whole produces, better results than what Americans deal with on a daily basis.