July 24, 2009
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Canadian Healthcare in Canadian News
Here is an article from today’s edition of a Canadian national newspaper, discussing a recent large-scale study of how Canadians feel about their system. When I compare this with how many Americans talk about health care, I find the differences quite striking.
Canadians Happy with Primary Health Care, Study Says
A large-scale survey finds that most Canadians have high praise for their family doctor
Comments (7)
I’m sure most do, but my nearest Canadian, my neighbor 2 houses down, moved to Florida from Canada when he got cancer. He feels like he would be dead by now if he wouldn’t have made that move. He was very unsatisfied with his treatment options and time frame. Guess it depends on your point of view!
@Pepin909 -
Well, for every major trend there’s always a host of specific anecdotes that contradict it. I’ve seen that myself in any number of cases. And of course, having the money to travel to wherever in the world your ailment could be best treated would be the best strategy for everyone, in my opinion!
Myself, I am sure I survived my illness because I was living in Toronto at the time and got immediate attention from a renowned expert on my particular (rare) cancer who happened to be right on the scene when I fell ill. (Well, not “happened to be” — she was attracted there by the great facilities and so on.) If I’d been living in the boonies where I grew up, I think they’d have just scratched their heads over my symptoms until I keeled over. And I am happy today, twenty years later, because I am a prosperous contributing taxpayer instead of an impoverished or even a dead person. So you are right, everyone’s experience is different.
@CuriousGeorgina -
That’s awesome that the specialist was right there! Talk about being in the right place at the right time! I think our neighbor feels like because he was older and deemed terminal, they didn’t want to waste time and money on him. Could be he just has a giant chip on his shoulder, but he loves to tell his story to anyone who dares bring up socialized medicine around him.
@Pepin909 -
That’s so sad about your neighbour. I hate the notion that an older person may be considered not as much worth saving as a younger one. I have seen one case, though, where the older person in question just could not have survived the needed treatments and surgery for his condition — that’s a sad exception I guess.
thanks for the article..I forwarded it to a cousin of mine who keep hounding me on how bad the idea is etc…lol…I heard how some canadians try to get temp insurance for health needs when traveling to the states just to avoid the horrible costs that might happen if they should need medical care….2/3 of american who file for bankrupcy is because of horrible medical bills they have….either way…we in the states need to fix this system and stop letting big business trash us!
@xanustarx -
Well, everybody needs special insurance when they leave their own country. I certainly advocate full deluxe travel insurance to cover anything that might come up on a vacation.
I hadn’t heard your statistic before, about the percentage of American bankruptcies that are due to medical bills, but I can’t doubt it.
“Socialized medicine is bad” That’s all we hear out of the propaganda machine that shackles our country. Yes, it’s bad for business. Bad for the insurance companies and big pharma, who rake in millions at the expense of the sheeple and pay much of it out in bribes to our lawmakers. Thank you for casting some light into the shadows that we are forced to live under.
xoxoxo