===============
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.

sgallag surmises:
==============
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.
============

I think you may be right. One way or another, the piper wants to be
paid.

frtzw906

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott thinks:
================
In Canada, however, compensation for nurses and doctors outside of
private
practices, particularly surgeons, is government controlled, so there is
little motivation to become a surgeon or a nurse. This leads to more
shortages, which leads to inadequate staffing, which leads to empty
beds
because there's no one to care for patients.
==============

Sorry Scotty, in Canada the compensation for doctors and nurses is
governed by a bargaining process between, for example, the nurses union
and various local/regional health boards. Here, in the Vancouver area,
for example, the doctor's union/association will bargain with, among
others, the board representing the Catholic hospitals in the region.

The doctor's association bargains for the pay schedule amounts which
determines doctors' pay.

Hmmmm.... bargaining.... what a unique concept....

And the ultimate upshot is that the government (through the health boards)
controls how much doctors and nurses get paid, and the boards get their
funding through the government, which controls the aggregate amount
available for health care in any locale. Thus, if there is X amount
available, and the demands of doctors and nurses equals X+1, something gets
cut. Either they cut the number of personnel, or they take the money from
some other part of the budget to compensate. That's why hospital
administrators are constantly facing cuts and shortages of basic equipment
and supplies I would imagine. It doesn't do any good to have a full staff if
there are no supplies or equipment to serve patients.

That's the nature of socialized medicine. The total amount available for
everybody's free medical services is set by the legislature, and however
it's parceled out, whether as compensation for staff or for facilities,
equipment and supplies, there's only X available, and once it's gone,
everybody has to put up with the shortages.

Down here, a hospital can have exactly as much equipment and as many
supplies, doctors and nurses as it can afford, based on its competitive
advantage in the free market.


As to med schools responding to market conditions.... well, I'm from
Missouri... are you telling me there's no collusion between the AMA
(that is the doc's association, right) and the med schools?

What sort of collusion are you alluding to? If you mean price-fixing, no,
because that would be a violation of federal law. If you mean a conspiracy
to limit med school admissions to keep the number of doctors artificially
low, I seriously doubt it, because that would probably be illegal, but if
not, it would certainly outrage everyone if it came to light. More
importantly, med schools are in competition with each other for students, so
it's extremely unlikely that they would shoot their own feet just to pander
to the AMA.
--
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

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott asserts without knowing the facts:
================
Difference is that if she doesn't like the priority given to her based
on
her income, she can seek out another service provider willing to put
her
higher on the list. Canadians can't.
==============

Not quite correct. When my father-in-law didn't like the coronary
surgery options available to him in his smaller community, he asked his
GP to refer him to one of the surgeons in the preemminent heart
hospital in a larger city.

No problem.

And, when it came time for the surgery, he was helicoptered onto the
roof of the city hospital from his island community. [damned good
service if you ask me]. In this case, HE chose his surgeon and HE chose
the hospital and he got his wishes.

Only because at that moment, the capacity was available and his heart
condition jumped him up the queue.


The problem with you, Scotty, is that you make up what goes on in
Canada and/or you comb the internet for one-off bad examples. Yet those
of us who live here and have experience (BCITORGB, KMAN, Michael, etc)
with the system know that what you insist is true is, in fact, a
fantasy.

And I say that you are living in a fantasy world and are in denial about the
crumbling state of your health care system. Your anecdotes of success are
not necessarily indicative of either the overall experience, the overall
solidity of the system, or the long-term prospects. Socialize medicine often
works fine at first, while the blush is still on the rose and funding is
available because the demand for health care hasn't caught up with or
exceeded capacity. But in the long run, it's always a failure and people
suffer and die as a result because socialized medicine presumes that the
individual is of lesser value than the interests of the society as a whole,
so it's easy for the system to abuse individuals while touting it's
egalitarian principles.


--
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

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott fails to get the point:
==================
Nope. She can seek out medical care wherever and whenever she likes.
All she
has to do is find a provider willing to provide the care for what she
can
(or cannot) pay in return. That she can't walk into her corner hospital
and
*demand* service is not important. What's important is that she can
choose
freely from among tens of thousands of hospitals and hundreds of
thousands
to millions of doctors and specialty clinics and obtain immediate
treatment
from any who are willing to serve her. In Canada, she isn't allowed to
even
seek out a hospital or surgeon willing to treat her, perhaps pro bono,
because her position in the queue is dictated by the government.
===============

Like I said, her "freedom" is illusionary.

As I said earlier, you confuse equality of outcome with equality of
opportunity.


And, wrong again, her position in the queue is NOT dictated by the
government but, rather, by her condition. And that, Scott, is
determined by the physicians.

Nope. It's determined by the government, which decides what conditions take
priority and dictates to doctors what patients can be jumped in the queue.

That is undeniably the case because your entire system depends utterly upon
such "triage." Somebody in government says "An acute MI patient has a higher
priority than a teenager with a torn ACL, so the MI gets a bed while the ACL
gets a pair of crutches." That decision cannot be made by the individual
patient's doctors because one doctor cannot possibly know what the current
demand/availability list looks like, so they have to submit their *opinions8
about the relative urgency of their patient's condition to some government
arbitrator who decides who gets priority based on what services are
available. There is simply no other way for your socialized system to work,
by its very nature.

And when there's an acute MI and a chronic arteriosclerosis patient vying
for the same bed and surgeon, the government dictates which one gets the
care. And if there are too many MI's and too many clogged arteries for the
system to accommodate, the government dictates who gets served and in what
order. Those decisions are NOT made by the doctor. They cannot be made by
"the doctor" because there are many doctors with many patients all vying for
the same bed and surgeon, so SOMEBODY has to set the priorities, and in
Canada's case, it's government bureaucrats.

You can claim that the doctors make these decisions, but it's only true
insofar as they make the classification of the individual patient. But the
categories, and the priority list, is kept by the government, necessarily,
so that it can dole out care according to need and availability. To suggest
otherwise merely shows willful ignorance on your part.


BTW, you have yet to dentify for me who this government bureaucrat is;
who do you think determines her priority?

Ultimately, whomever is in charge of setting up the treatment priority list.

--
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

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott asserts:
==============
If there is such a guy,
please give me his title. Where does he reside in the bureaucracy? Is
he federal? Provincial? Local?

Well, there's the hospital Admissions Director, to begin with.
================

Is this a title or position in CO hospitals?

Probably, but down here they don't operate under government guidelines or
restrictions for the admission of patients. They decide based on their own
criteria in a free market system.

--
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

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott:
=============
Also an abysmal failure, which is why Bush wants to let ME keep MY
money and
put it away MYSELF for MY retirement.
============

As someone - perhaps in this forum - so astutely observed; "the average
American can't even find Europe on a map, and now Bush expects them to
be able to manage a stock portfolio..."

Whether they are able to do so or not is far less important than allowing
them to try. The whole problem with the Social Security system is that it
presumes that NOBODY is smart enough to save their own money, and that only
the government is smart enough to manage retirement funds. Self-evidently,
the government is utterly incapable of properly managing people's retirement
funds, which is why Social Security will be bankrupt in a relatively short
time.

Sure, some people may screw up their own accounts, but once again, that's
THEIR problem, and the government needs to trust its own citizens and allow
them to make decisions, good or bad, about their retirement.


Interesting.... BTW, you must be under 55 then, eh Scott. As I
understand it (perhaps incorrectly), the Bush proposal affects only
those currebtly under 55.

Yup. But then again, I don't ever expect to see a dime from Social Security,
and never have. In fact, I don't even qualify for Social Security. I opted
out a long, long time ago, and I'm perfectly happy with that decision. I
provide for my own economic future, or not, and I don't expect the
government to bail me out or support me in my dotage.

--
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

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott:
==============
Mill levies are set based on the "assessed value" which does factor in
both
use and comparative property values along with parcel size, but while
the
mill levy is set each year, the assessment is changed only about every
five
years. There is no direct link between the income the property
generates
from year to year and the assessable value of the property, so no, the
renters don't pay their "fair share" of the school taxes
===============

Semantics.

No, reality. It's mathematical reality that non-property-owners pay a tiny
fraction of school taxes imposed on property owners and always have.

--
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

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , BCITORGB at
wrote on 3/28/05 7:09 PM:

Scott:
==============
Mill levies are set based on the "assessed value" which does factor in
both
use and comparative property values along with parcel size, but while
the
mill levy is set each year, the assessment is changed only about every
five
years. There is no direct link between the income the property
generates
from year to year and the assessable value of the property, so no, the
renters don't pay their "fair share" of the school taxes
===============

Semantics.

frtzw906

It would seem so. Property owners pay property taxes. Landlords are property
owners that must cover the cost of their property taxes through the rents
they charge to tenants. Tenants pay rent which includes the portion of
revenues the landlord must pay in property taxes. If the renters aren't
paying their "fair share" that can only be the case if landlords are not
paying sufficient taxes, which is clearly not the problem or responsibility
of the renters.

It is indeed inherent in the manner in which property taxes are assessed and
collected, and you're quite right that to be fair, renters should be paying
more for schools. To say it's not the problem or responsibility of the
renters is sophistry, however, because they have just as much of an
obligation to support the schools as the property owner.

That's why a national sales tax on consumer goods to fund education for
children is a much more fair way of doing things. By doing so the costs are
paid based on the ability to pay. Rich consumers buy more luxury goods and
thus pay a larger portion of the school costs than poor consumers. There's
nothing wrong with this because consumption is voluntary, and any rich
consumer who doesn't want to fund schools need only stop consuming.

Take that money and dole it out to the STUDENT (not the school district), to
be used to pay for private schooling, and you have a much better, more
effective, efficient and financially sound school system.
--
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

A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

KMAN:
===============
It would seem so. Property owners pay property taxes. Landlords are
property
owners that must cover the cost of their property taxes through the
rents
they charge to tenants. Tenants pay rent which includes the portion of
revenues the landlord must pay in property taxes. If the renters aren't
paying their "fair share" that can only be the case if landlords are
not
paying sufficient taxes, which is clearly not the problem or
responsibility
of the renters.
=================

Brilliant, Holmes! I couldn't have said it better myself.

What happened to your socialistic, egalitarian "share the pain" zeal?

Or do you just like the idea of sticking it to landowners because they are
somehow immoral for presuming to own something you can't afford?

That's not very consistent.
--
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