BCITORGB, don't waste yer time arguing with Weiser on this. The rag he
is quoting is obviously some wing-nut publication, because they don't
even have a fact-checker to read the article for internal consistency.

I mean, consider this: the author asserts that Canadians pay (on
average) 48% of their income in taxes, "partly for health care". Then
she asserts that the Ontario gubmint spends 40% of tax revenues on
health care. Then she expostulates: "Wow! Forty-eight percent of
income for health care that you can't get when you need it. What a
bargain!"

I mean, gee-Zeus, that is just too ****ing inumerate for words! 40% of
48% is about 19% of Ontareans' income spent on health care, not 48%!
This idiot author is arguing from completely baseless figures. And the
publication may very well be deliberately ignoring the arithmetical
stupidity, deliberately skewing the facts of the story, in order to
make some kind of right-wing partisan point.

And Scott is moron enough to read and believe this ****.

Please, trust me: don't waste yer time arguing with a narrow-minded
Tory(who evidently cannot even perform the simple mathematical
calculation needed to expose his sources as bogus) and non-boater (who
is exercising his legal right to be a rude mother-****er by intruding
on a newsgroup dedicated to a sport he does not even participate in)
like Sadder-Butt Weiser. He's a pathetic little man with no life
beyond trolling newsgroups, and you merely diminish yerself by allowing
yerself to be sucked into his personal obsessions.


-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty

PS, I was quite pleased with the Canadian hospital that stitched up my
chin after an unpleasant *contretemps* on the Rouge river in Quebec a
few years ago. The locals advised me to drive across the Ottawa river
into Refrew, ONT for medical treatment, since (they said) Ontario
hospitals pay their physicians more, and thus get the cream of the Med
school grads. Service was quick (the waiting room was empty, unlike
several American emergency rooms I have visited, which always seem to
be packed with people waiting eternally for treatment), treatment was
good, and though they were unable to bill my healthcare plan directly,
they provided me with all the documentation I needed to recover my
costs. -R

--

================================================== ====================
Richard Hopley Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll
rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters
================================================== ====================

Oci-One submites, re Weiser:
================
He's a pathetic little man with no life
beyond trolling newsgroups, and you merely diminish yerself by allowing
yerself to be sucked into his personal obsessions.
================

You're right.

I've given hm data to chew over. I'll let the data speak for itself.

frtzw906

On 21-Mar-2005, "Oci-One Kanubi" wrote:

Then she expostulates: "Wow! Forty-eight percent of
income for health care that you can't get when you need it. What a
bargain!"

Actually, when I read the post, it seems that this is weiser's text -
it is not quoted. So _he's_ the idiot that's math challenged - or
as I've proven already - truth challenged.

Mike

A Usenet persona calling itself Oci-One Kanubi wrote:

BCITORGB, don't waste yer time arguing with Weiser on this. The rag he
is quoting is obviously some wing-nut publication, because they don't
even have a fact-checker to read the article for internal consistency.

Darn that Associated Press, they are SUCH a fly-by-night organization...


I mean, consider this: the author asserts that Canadians pay (on
average) 48% of their income in taxes, "partly for health care". Then
she asserts that the Ontario gubmint spends 40% of tax revenues on
health care. Then she expostulates: "Wow! Forty-eight percent of
income for health care that you can't get when you need it. What a
bargain!"

Actually, that was me expostulating. Watch for the quote marks...

As for the statement, it's true, if somewhat ambiguous. Canadians pay 48
percent in income taxes, and for that 48 percent they get (in part) health
care they can't get when they need it. They do likely get other things like
roads and condoms too, but the point remains: They pay for universal health
care that they can't get timely access to because, well, it's socialized,
and as anyone with half a brain knows, socialism doesn't work, ever. It may
appear to work for awhile, but eventually the whole system fails because of
the "free rider" syndrome. If you can get it for free from the government,
why bother to work to earn it?

I mean, gee-Zeus, that is just too ****ing inumerate for words! 40% of
48% is about 19% of Ontareans' income spent on health care, not 48%!
This idiot author is arguing from completely baseless figures. And the
publication may very well be deliberately ignoring the arithmetical
stupidity, deliberately skewing the facts of the story, in order to
make some kind of right-wing partisan point.

And Scott is moron enough to read and believe this ****.

And you're too stupid to parse a post properly, much less comprehend the
finer points involved.

Please, trust me: don't waste yer time arguing with a narrow-minded
Tory(who evidently cannot even perform the simple mathematical
calculation needed to expose his sources as bogus) and non-boater (who
is exercising his legal right to be a rude mother-****er by intruding
on a newsgroup dedicated to a sport he does not even participate in)

Ah, but *participation* is not the metric for posting to RBP, "interest" in
paddling is. And I'm intensely interested in paddling (which, BTW, I have
"participated"in in the past), considering how often I have to personally
deal with rude mother-****ers like you who illegally intrude on my privacy
by trespassing on my private property.

--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser

On 21-Mar-2005, Scott Weiser wrote:

considering how often I have to personally
deal with rude mother-****ers like you who illegally intrude on my privacy
by trespassing on my private property.

Hey dickhead - if you have a problem with trespassers, deal with them and
leave the rest of us out of it.

Mike

I mean, consider this: the author asserts that Canadians pay (on
average) 48% of their income in taxes, "partly for health care".

Does anyone know what sources are being used to provide these
statistics? For instances what taxes are in this 48%. Is it just
income tax, or does it include all taxes that the average person pays
like sales tax, excise tax on gasoline, sin taxes, etc? Does it also
include Canada Pension Plan (the Canadian equivalent of FICA in the
US)?

I live in Ontario, with a pretty good income, and if you're talking
about tax on income including what I pay for CPP and EI (employment
insurance), it's nowhere near 48%. It's actually closer to 29%. It
almost sounds like they're quoting marginal tax rates, not average tax
rates, especially not for Ontario which is one of the lower taxed
provinces.

Then
she asserts that the Ontario gubmint spends 40% of tax revenues on
health care.

Then she expostulates: "Wow! Forty-eight percent of
income for health care that you can't get when you need it. What a
bargain!"

I mean, gee-Zeus, that is just too inumerate for words! 40% of
48% is about 19% of Ontareans' income spent on health care, not 48%!

That's not 100% accurate either, because the provincial governments, in
this case Ontario, don't receive all of the tax revenue paid by a
person. They only receive the provincial income tax, and sales tax,
plus some transfers from the federal government. In other words, even
if the 48% paid were true, you can't say that 40% of 48% is spent by
Ontario for health care because Ontario wouldn't receive all of that
alleged 48% of a residents income. Most income tax goes to the federal
government.

The US health care system has problems. The Canadian system has
problems. They're just different problems, and the opponents and
proponents of each of those systems will emphasize the negative points
of the other system, in their arguments.

As far as waiting times go, there's no visible difference in the time
required to wait for general care. In Canada, if you're sick and you
need to see your doctor, you call the office and you'll see your
doctor. Similarly in the US. The biggest difference that I've seen is
that in Canada there's a longer wait to see a specialist or for
services that are not provided by a general practitioner. So, if your
doctor says that you need to see a neurologist, and you call for an
appointment, you might have to wait seven weeks for an opening. But,
if your situation is so severe that you need to see a neurologist that
day then they'd send you to an emergency room where you'd see a
neurologist. If a person slips and hits his head, but doesn't develop
any symptoms the doctor may order a MRI, and he'll probably have to
wait a few weeks for it. If he doesn't regain consciousness, he'll get
an MRI that day. Does that mean that someone won't fall through the
net. It does happen sometimes, but it's not the norm.

Nobody is saying that the system in Canada is perfect, far from it.
But opponents of it seem to give the impression that Canadians wait
weeks for everything, and that's not true, either.

PS, I was quite pleased with the Canadian hospital that stitched up
my
chin after an unpleasant *contretemps* on the Rouge river in Quebec a
few years ago. The locals advised me to drive across the Ottawa
river
into Refrew, ONT for medical treatment, since (they said) Ontario
hospitals pay their physicians more, and thus get the cream of the
Med
school grads.
Service was quick (the waiting room was empty, unlike
several American emergency rooms I have visited, which always seem to
be packed with people waiting eternally for treatment), treatment was
good, and though they were unable to bill my healthcare plan
directly,
they provided me with all the documentation I needed to recover my
costs.

Of course Renfrew is a pretty low populated area. I went into an
emergency room in Melbourne, Florida last summer and had equally quick
service when I needed stitches. The bill when all was done was
US$2,000. You mention that you've been to crowded US emergency rooms
and I agree that some places are crowded (my dad spent 12 hours in one
in New York). But, you can also spend that amount of time in an
emergency room in Toronto.

As I said, both systems have problems, just different problems. Do you
prefer a net that will always be underneith everybody, but with bigger
holes in the net, or a net with really small holes but which is only
under a percentage of the population?

Stephen Gallagher

wrote:

I mean, consider this: the author asserts that Canadians pay (on
average) 48% of their income in taxes, "partly for health care".

Does anyone know what sources are being used to provide these
statistics?


Canada, being a modern country with a national, single-payer health
care system, is able to generate impressive and comprehensive health
care statistics; See:
http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/splash.html






--
"This president has destroyed the country, the economy,
the relationship with the rest of the world.
He's a monster in the White House. He should resign."

- Hunter S. Thompson, speaking to an antiwar audience in 2003.

Frederick Burroughs wrote:
wrote:

I mean, consider this: the author asserts that Canadians pay (on
average) 48% of their income in taxes, "partly for health care".

Does anyone know what sources are being used to provide these
statistics?


Canada, being a modern country with a national, single-payer health
care system, is able to generate impressive and comprehensive health
care statistics; See:
http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/splash.html

There's nothing on that website that supports the claim that
Canadians pay 48% of their income in taxes. Primarily because
it's not true.

sgallag... says:
===============
There's nothing on that website that supports the claim that
Canadians pay 48% of their income in taxes. Primarily because
it's not true.
==============

Well.... I suppose, if we add up ALL the taxes we pay (PST, GST,
property tax, water tax, garbage collection tax, sewer tax, drivers
licence fee, hidden "taxes" like fishing licences, etc, etc...) it
might come close to 48%, don't you think?

I'm not sure, so I'll leave it to the accountants to figure out.

frtzw906

===============
There's nothing on that website that supports the claim that
Canadians pay 48% of their income in taxes. Primarily because
it's not true.
==============

Well.... I suppose, if we add up ALL the taxes we pay (PST, GST,
property tax, water tax, garbage collection tax, sewer tax, drivers
licence fee, hidden "taxes" like fishing licences, etc, etc...) it
might come close to 48%, don't you think?

I still don't think it's that high. Of course, if you did do that,
then you'd
have to do a calculation of ALL taxes on both sides of the border to
do a comparison. Canada's income taxes are higher in comparison
to US income taxes. But in Canada, CPP and EI (payroll taxes) are
lower than the US's FICA and Medicare contributions, which evens it
out some. You'd also have to include whatever amounts are being paid
in health insurance premiums by people in the US. When all is added
together the difference in taxes between Canada and the higher taxed
US states is not as wide as what many people believe.