[Guest]

[QUOTE BY= Brent Swain] The Supreme Court of Canada just ruled that if provinces can't provide health care in a reasonable period of time, then patients have the right to look elsewhere. <br /> This opens the option for the federal government to overide provincial jurisdiction and set up their own federally run clinics, funded in part by money which would have otherwise gone to provinces that have mismanaged them.<br /> It would be difficult for foreign owned health insurers to compete with the funding the feds have available and would thus greatly diminish the threat of a private foreign takeover of our health care system.It would also give patients another option. Lets talk to our candidates about this during the campaign and make it an election issue.<br /> Brent Swain [/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> The only reason why the Feds were able to come out of debt was solely due to the fact that the offloaded so much of the healthcare to the provinces. The Feds can take healthcare back, however that also means they'll take back the financial burden and definetively go back into debt.<br /> <br /> Paul Martin sure as hell doesn't want that, Harper neither (but for different reasons).<br /> <br /> Gilles Duceppe made an amazing point: Ottawa has basically thousands of paper-pushers/desk-jockeys who don't know a thing about healthcare, and they they are working in this field.<br /> <br /> Wouldn't it be better if that money went to hospitals and doctors? Instead of cushy jobs for Government lackeys?<br /> <br /> You seriously think mass-centralizing the system will make it better? That Ottawa can look out for Vancouver's best of interest? Rather than local Vancouver elected officials to tend to Vancouver's needs?<br /> <br /> Your idea sucks. You're basically wanting to make the system WORSE just to avoid the 'evil private healthcare monster'<br /> <br /> Silly.

[Milton]

Why don't we spend the money on keeping people healthy rather than ignoring them until they are not healthy? Why give the money to doctors and pharma-corps and their stakeholders? Privatized "illth" care is just another form of "adscam" and so is our current public "illth" care system. It's all about where the buck stops. Who profits? <a href="http://www.doctoryourself.com">Doctor Yourself</a>

[Guest]

[QUOTE BY= Milton] Why don't we spend the money on keeping people healthy rather than ignoring them until they are not healthy? [/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> What are you talking about? Taxing people who are overweight? Who are not getting enough sunlight? What about people of colour...blacks tend to get diabtetes/melanoma a lot higher than whites...should we have a 'diabetes and melanoma' tax for them?<br /> <br /> The key here, is for more investment in cures, not nurses and bedpans.<br /> <br /> All what the Canadian government wants to invest in is more 'beds and bedpans'. What about cures? Vaccines? We still have no idea what causes cancer...people who live 100 percent healthy lives *still* develop dehabilitating/lethal cancers.<br /> <br /> I say: Concentrate on cures, not beds. Private companies and insurance companies (for obvious reasons) are pushing for this.<br /> <br /> Public healthcare DOESN'T CARE ABOUT CURES.

[Marcarc]

Actually, companies don't care about cures, once somebody is cured they are no longer customers. There have been twenty years of patent protection and massive profits, yet we have seen few 'cures'. Just because the system is underfunded doesn't mean it didn't work, virtually ALL medical treatment arise in some way out of government protections, and the vast majority have large government investments. It isn't an 'either-or' issue, it's a 'how to implement' issue.<br /> <br /> As usual, everybody has a point, it just gets sticky when people start thinking they know what is right. It's quite true that the feds have no better record than the provinces, and most provinces ARE struggling BECAUSE of the feds, so looking to them to override is a waste of time. However, that's not the only thing that got us out of debt, gas tax increases, downloading of services, and decreased services played a big part as well. The biggest help is the one that nobody talks about and it was simply the US and other trading countries getting out of a recession. The effects of international lowering of interest rates led to the hugest reduction in our debt.<br /> <br /> As said above, there are FAR too many administrators, most in Ottawa, which doesn't even have jurisdiction. Most health centres aren't even provincial-they are regional, so one would think that simply altering the way taxes are paid would contribute a fair bit. Why do we need to send taxes to Ottawa, or even provincial governments, so that the 'trickle down' effect will come to our regions? Granted, something must be maintained so that rural areas get at least something, but that's not how it works now anyway. If a certain amount of taxation were collected locally, as in education, then we'd probably be far better off.<br /> <br /> Also on the money point I'd like to mention that there is over 120 billion dollars in canadian wealth that sits in offshor bank accounts without tax. Ireland went out and hunted down those who were 'hiding tax' and told them to pay it or go to jail, in Canada our government seems to actually encourage it (wonder why?) Corporations pay NO tax on profits on foreign income, even though often it is canadian taxpayers who foot the bill for research as well as take the investment risks.<br /> <br /> So there's four of us who posted, and not everyone agrees on the solutions, tho each makes at least one valid point that we'd all probably agree on, too bad that our democracy extends only so far as blogging such ideas. If only there were some mechanism where people could actually get involved in government...

[badsector]

There are I think 60 million Americans who don't have health insurance. Remember the movie "As Good as it Gets"? Down South you can go bancrupt because you got sick. Private health insurance providers have a right to cancel you benefits if you got hospitalized, leaving you on the hook. Until recently major US companies paid for their employees' health insurance. Lately, they are telling them to pay more every year and trying to completely get out of their obligation. One of the reasons some US companies come to Canada and create jobs is our universal health care. It costs almost double to hire an American than a Canadian, mainly because of health expenses.<br /> <br /> The Liberals "downloaded responsibilities" to the provinces then ended up with huge surpluses. If they were serious about keeping universal health care, they would reinvest the surplus in it. If they did so, there wouldn't be a health crises in Canada. The problems we have are all man made! I wasn't born yesterday and don't buy any Liberal or Conservative hogwash. Both parties sold our health care our to the US HBOs a long time ago. The only difference is that he Liberals still try to look like defenders of Medicare, yet they were the ones who ruined it. The Conservatives don't even bother to lie, they just say as it is. Should they be elected, they'll sell out what's left.<br /> <br /> Once private hospitals are up and running, the government will give them money and starve the public system out of existence. It's privatization by stealth. <br /> <br /> Only a truly ignorant person would insist that one of the richest countries in the World, with possibly the World's richest natural resources, a healthy economy and a huge budget surplus can't afford universal health care. It's a farce.

[Brent Swain]

Two doctors, one a former chief Medical officer told me that there are three main causes for funding problems in the health care system in Canada, inactivity, smoking and doctors. They said that 80% of the problems that they deal with in the health care system are caused by inactivity and smoking.Wanna do something to save health care? Get off your fat ass, push yourself away from the table, give up your IFGT( Intrafacial grease transfusion) Diet , take up a sport and get in shape.Walk or bike to work,, shopping or wherever possible.Less bitching and more action.I see grossly obese people on TV bitching about the state of our health care system, with a cigarette in hand ,including one incredibly obese ,and thus hippocritial head of the BC nurses union.<br /> Doctors have become increasingly skilled at scamming the system. One showed me a book listing how much various doctors billed the sytem for in a year. One Dentist ,a Dr McIntosh in Campbell River, billed the system for over $300,000 in a single year. That was just for the work he did in hospital, not counting what he did in his dental practise. <br /> I asked him what the solution was and he said "Put them on a salary and eliminate the greed factor."<br /> Some would suggest that they would flee to the US. Let them go. For every one that left there are thousands of very well qualified doctors in other countries who would be happy to come here and accept whatever the salary was ,if we would just recognise their qualifications.They would be a much greater asset to our country than the greedy , self serving bastards that they would replace.<br /> Brent