A Usenet persona calling itself BCITORGB wrote:

Scott, in a confused daze:
==============
Most of the real problems in Canada's health care
system have been the result of right-wing politicians' meddling.

Yup. Exactly. The government controls and rations health care in
Canada.
That's what I've been saying all along. Thanks for confirming it!

Folks
like Mike Harris and Gordon Campbell have done a lot of damage to a
system
that used to work much better.

Yeah...when it was a free market system...
===================

When it was a free markey system, we had a system where the care you
got depended on your ability to pay.

Yup. Or on your ability to convince someone else to pay for your care based
on their altruistic instincts. Good system.

It was deemed, after considerable
debate, to be inferior to a system which would insure everyone.

Unfortunately, your experiment is failing, as socialistic systems always do,
because of the "free rider" syndrome.


There is currently about as much consensus as you'll get on any issue,
in a nation as diverse as Canada, that the fundamental principles of
equity inherent in our healthcare system are inviolable. We may look
for ways to improve it and look for efficiencies, but the principle is
unlikely to change.

It's just go bankrupt and be unable to provide *any* service.

--
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 trying to explain the economics of a university education:
===============
More students, more tuition, more alumni donations.
===========

And where, may I ask, does tuition cover the cost of education?
ESPECIALLY med school.

I didn't say it did.


Unless mandated by governments to do so (excluding the case of private
universities), I doubt any unversities would run med schools.

Our government doesn't mandate anything.


Since tuition does NOT cover the costs of educating doctors, please
explain the economics again.

More students, more tuition, more alumni donations, more government
subsidies.

No students, no tuition, no alumni donations, no government subsidies.

Pretty simple, really.

--
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:
==============
Every time he's confronted by real, everyday, practical questions
about
how he thinks the system works, he starts making stuff up. TOO FUNNY!

And yet you can't refute them. Interesting.
=================

Have done so every time. And every one gets batted right out of the
ballpark.

Nah. You just evade the issues with pettifoggery.


But that's OK. At least you're getting an education about the Cnadian
system. Good on USENET.

Well, somebody's getting an education anyway.

--
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

Scott states:
=============
And provincial governments are controlled by the federal government.
Otherwise, provinces could opt out of the national health care system.
They
can't.
=================

Now, are you 100% sure that provinces can't opt out of the national
healthcare system?

Now be VERY careful when you answer this. This IS a trick question. To
answer it, you'll need to explain what would happen to a province that
opts out (or tries to opt out).

I hear Jeopardy music in the background..... Scotty, your time is
running out!!!!

frtzw906

A Usenet persona calling itself Paul Skoczylas wrote:

I should know better than to get involved...

.....but you just can't help yourself...

Don't apologize, it's okay to admit your an addict.


"Scott Weiser" wrote:


From your analysis, could I, however, walk from one hospital in Toronto
to another to improve my position?

I doubt it. It's my guess that once you get assigned a priority, based on
the government-mandated priority criteria, you're stuck with it, and no
matter where you go, you end up behind others with higher priority. That a
different facility may not have the same number of people in line before you
is irrelevant. Moreover, I have my doubts that you would be allowed, once
assigned a priority at a hospital in your local community, to simply "venue
shop" in another city, thereby jumping the queue of those above you in your
original community. However, this is a guess, and I could be wrong.

You are wrong.

The number of people in front of you does matter. There is no
"government-assigned" priority. Each hospital that you venue shop
into rates your priority and serves you as they can, with those they feel are
more in need of treatment first. If you leave one
hospital after being told your wait will be X hours, and go to another
hospital, a nurse or doctor there might think you've got
something more serious than the person who triaged you in the first hospital,
you'll get a different priority. But even if they
give you the same priority, if the second hospital has fewer people lined up
in front of you with equal or greater priority, you'll
get helped sooner.

But, each hospital is required to abide by the prioritization guidelines set
by the government, are they not? Thus, there is still a
government-controlled priority list. Parse it any way you please, but if the
government IN ANY WAY sets policy for admitting or serving patients, even in
a general guidelines document or by so much as saying something to the
effect of "doctors shall treat patients according to the priority of the
illness", as to what the priority of treatment is, the whole system is
"government controlled."

A relative was driving long distance to a family function last week. He
decided to seek treatment for an infection on the way at
the hospital in Clearwater BC. He was in and out in under an hour. Arriving
at the family function he commented on that, and
another relative, who lives in Kamloops BC, a decent sized city about an
hour's drive from Clearwater, said that people in Kamloops
would often drive to Clearwater to go to the hospital (for minor emergency
room treatment), knowing that the two hour round trip dri
ve would save them more time than that waiting in the Kamloops emergency room.

For certain specialized treatments (available only at certain hospitals), you
are closer to being correct. But for minor, routine
stuff, you can "venue shop" all you want to try to find the shortest wait
time.

But you still get prioritized based on government standards, no matter what.
The hospital administrator is not legally free to decide to admit you for an
infected hangnail if there is anyone of higher priority in line in front of
you, right? Government control, pure and simple.
--
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

Scott explains:
===============
For example, here in the US, we don't have any
"national police" equivalent to the RCMP. Each state has its own
system, and
some have "state police" with statewide criminal jurisdiction, and
others,
like Colorado, don't, and rely instead upon the county sheriff as the
primary law enforcement official of the county.
=================

Can you say FBI? Is that not a "national" police agency?

So that's your best explanation? And how did you come up with the
"Unfortunately for Canadians, you don't have the same degree of
separation of powers that we do, so provinces are much more under the
control of the federal government up there."

I trust you have evidence thereof. In what way are the provinces "more
under the control...."? Examples please....

OH BOY! This is going to be good. I can't wait!

Rubbing my hands in anticipation,
frtzw906

Scott:
=============
More students, more tuition, more alumni donations, more government
subsidies.

No students, no tuition, no alumni donations, no government subsidies.

Pretty simple, really.
===========

But WHY med schools?! They're so damned expensive to set up and run!

And please, forget about "alumni donations". Yeah! Right! We'll rely on
donations to fund our med school. GOOD LUCK! You're losing it Scotty!

And as to "Our government doesn't mandate anything." Are you quite
sure? Are you saying that although the government funds Whazzits State
University and the University of Whazzit State, this state government
exercises "no" control over what happens there? How positively
generous.

frtzw906

Scott:
================
Well, somebody's getting an education anyway.
==================

No thanks required. Think nothing of it.

frtzw906

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/31/05 12:19 AM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

in article , Scott Weiser at
wrote on 3/30/05 11:40 PM:

A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:



This has
nothing to do with the poor guy paying his rent. If the property is taxed
appropriately, the landlord is going to charge the renter and collect the
revenues need to pay the property taxes.

Once again, the issue is the fairness and equitability of school funding
assessments. I'm merely pointing out that in most places in the US,
schools
are disproportionately funded by landowners, and that there are many "free
riders" who get substantial discounts on their "fair share."

Yes, but you are incorrect. The landowners pass on the cost to the renters.
The only issue of fairness would be if landlords are somehow paying
unfairly
low property taxes.

You still don't get it. If public schools are supposed to be supported by
all the people, then all the people ought to pay equally to fund schools.
Renters don't pay their fair share, it's as simple as that. The inequity is
in how schools are funded. You seem to be deliberately avoiding this aspect
of the issue.

No, you don't get it.

The renters are paying their fair share as part of their rent. Unless rental
properties are not being fairly taxed, you are searching for a problem that
does not exist.

Well, that's rather my point. It's not the properties that are being
unfairly taxed, it's the residents of the community who are being unfairly
taxed.

You haven't established this, and I still don't see your point. Fortunately,
I don't know that it really matters.


I'm not surprised at your inconsistent approach to funding medical care
and
schools, given the fact that it's landowners who get soaked for schools,
and
socialists don't like landowners because they are mostly "have nots" who
are
jealous of the "haves" of society and are willing to do anything to
bring
others down to their own level. That's what socialism is all about.

I'm a landowner. I'm not a socialist. I'm also not a selfish jerk.

So why the inconsistency in your positions in re health care and school
funding?

There is no inconsistency. I believe that universal health care and
universal education should be core foundations of any society, or at least
a
goal they are striving to achieve.

But while you support income tax based funding for health care, you appear
to be supporting the disproportionate burden on landowners. Is that the
case, or do you support a change of plan for school funding to make everyone
pay their fair share?

I don't know that there is a fair share issue, you certainly haven't
demonstrated to me that there is one, but sure, I'd have no problem with
funding for schools coming from income tax.

Well, thanks. Finally, consensus.

If you'd just skipped the weird crap about landlords and renters, we could
have cut to this chase many moons ago.


I'm a landowner. I am not interested in "sticking it to landowners."

You don't argue very effectively for not doing so.

I don't think landowners are taxed unfairly.

And yet they pay more, proportionally, than renters do for schools, so why
do you see that as being "fair?" That's precisely the inconsistency I'm
talking about.

You haven't established that renters don't pay their fair share.

Sure I have.

Not in this thread.



If everybody in
the country had ethics, we wouldn't need much by way of law.

Let me know when you get some. Advocating vociferously for your own
selfish
needs is not what I would call ethics.

That's because you confuse socialist dogma with ethics. It's hardly
unethical to advocate fairness and personal responsibility.

Then I'm as ethical as can be.

So you DO believe in people paying for their own bad health rather than
shoving those costs off on others!

You can't "mandate" responsibility in this way.

Why not? ? We do it all the time. Society doesn't pay for someone's car
repairs. We require people to be personally responsible for obeying the law.
What's to stop us from "mandating" personal responsibility?

Are you going to install spy cameras at the donut shop? Or develop extensive
new pre-admittance hospital tests to decide if someone has been eating too
many salted cured meets and evaluate whether this cause their heart
problems? The whole thing is ridiculous.

I can believe in personal
responsibility without casting poor people to the wolves or instituting
daily blood testing of the population to ensure compliance with a
state-approved menu.

I agree. I'm just arguing that the definition of "poor people" eligible for
government assistance ought to be extremely restrictive.

I know you are.

This is some scary stuff you believe in Scotty. No
wonder you feel the need to carry a gun!

You forgot to take your anti-paranoia and reality-basing medication today.

I'm not the one carrying the gun! LOL.



and I think Wal-Mart is
going to fight you pretty hard to make sure as many goods as possible
aren't
in your luxury class.

Nah. They don't care about the taxes, they don't pay them, the consumer
does.

LOL. You might want to find out a little more about how taxes affect
spending, which affects the bottom line of business.

Only when the business is marginal. Wal-Mart doesn't give a damn what the
local taxes are because they have a tremendous market dominance and know
that the higher the taxes, and the less discretionary funds that a family
has available, the MORE LIKELY they are to shop at Wal-Mart. It's a key
component of their business model.

Get together with all the consumer goods companies and ask them how they
would feel about the addition of a consumer goods tax. Heehee. You'll be
ridden out of town on a rail!

Sure, they like to carp about it because it reduces the total amount of
money available for consumer spending on their products, and they are happy
to side with consumers in fighting new taxes without making it clear that
they are only doing it so the consumer will have more disposable income, but
in reality, they don't care much about the tax rates because they know
people will buy more stuff at Wal-Mart when they have less disposable
income. Remember, we're talking about Wal-Mart here, not the entire consumer
goods industry.

I'm talking about the entire consumer goods industy and avoiding an
irrellevant side argument about the particulars of Wal-Mart.

But I'm talking about Wal-Mart specifically.

Why? You are propsing a tax on all consumer goods which would obviously
affect all producers and sellers of consumer goods, not just Wal-Mart.

"Scott Weiser" wrote:
Unfortunately for Canadians, you don't have the same degree of separation of
powers that we do, so provinces are much more under the control of the
federal government up there. For example, here in the US, we don't have any
"national police" equivalent to the RCMP. Each state has its own system, and
some have "state police" with statewide criminal jurisdiction, and others,
like Colorado, don't, and rely instead upon the county sheriff as the
primary law enforcement official of the county.

Same in Canada. The RCMP only has national jurisdiction in some areas, like narcotics, and crimes in airports. (I'm sure there are
a few more.) Really a very narrow jurisdiction. In some places, the RCMP do highway patrol and even city policing, but in those
places, the provincial and/or municpal governments have hired the RCMP to be their police forces. And if they wanted to, they could
form their own and be rid of the mounties.

When I lived in Ontario, the only place I ever saw RCMP was at airports. Ontario has its own provincial police for highway patrol
(as does Quebec), and small towns that don't want to form their own police hire the OPP rather than the mounties.

-Paul