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Capt. JG

"Marty" wrote in message
...
Dave wrote:
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:26:28 -0800 (PST), said:

The U.S. delivers billions of dollars of free health care to low-
income people... the problem is that much of it is "delivered" via
emergency rooms & tertiary care centers, very very inefficient. And
since it also unreimbursed, the provider has to charge everybody else
more, or go out of business (it's happening... about a dozen big-city
emergency rooms have closed their doors in the past year).

In a way that's what happens up here, we pay pretty high taxes on
everything we consume, particularly high on gasoline, tobacco and booze.
Those with any sort of decent income also get to pay a particularly
regressive form of tax called a "Health Care Surcharge", introduced by our
LIBERAL provincial government a few years ago. For a single mother of two,
earning 30k it's about 600 bucks extra on her provincial income tax, an
increase of around 30%, for someone reporting 500k, it maxs out at 1200,
a very small increase: Sound fair to you? Further to the point, since
everybody is going to get health care, it behooves the Provinces to
deliver it to the indigent in a pro-active, preventative manner.

The Feds pay for the biggest chunk of the health care bill, they transfer
billion to the provinces specifically earmarked for health care.

Another issue is that a large percent of U.S. health-care dollars go
to pay lawsuits and insurance against lawsuits. Our legal system makes
more money off "health care" than doctors do; and we've substituted a
winner-take-all lottery for sensible standard-of-care risk management.

Interestingly, the average malpractice settlement/judgment in Canada is
higher than in the US, but we have a lot less of them.

And you will never, never, never, hear either of these issues (among
many other root problems) addressed by politicians (who are lawyers
themselves, remember) who want to "fix health care" for you.

All good points all, Doug. (What's the world coming to that I'm agreeing
with you on something.)

Add to the above the fact that for the last 65 years we've been steadily
throwing more money at doctors in the form of tax benefits and employer
subsidies that remove any incentive whatever to treat a sniffle with
chicken
soup rather than a visit to the doctor's office, and you've got a recipe
for
financial disaster.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here Dave, very little of your
health care dollar finds it's way into the hands of doctors, about 6%.

Cheers
Marty

Dave is blaming the doctors of course!

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com