Addressing the last part of your post, "new urbanism" design attempts to address the car centric issues.
Bill Cardell TurboDog's Dad www.flyinmiata.com www.fmwestfield.com Sales 1-800-359-6957 Tech 970-464-5600 Before you call, check out http://www.flyinmiata.com/FAQ/ ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Quentin Sarafinchan Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 10:03 AM To: Matt Goertz Cc: MataPowerList Subject: Re: ABC News' John Stossel Blows Lid off ObamaCare So having spent most of my life in Canada, with only a short 18 month stint in california I have limited exposure tot he US system. I have to say that I had a child in the UIS and in Canada, so I can base it on that. In Canada it doesn't cost anything to have a kid (hospital wise), but in the states I am glad we had healthcare via my employer. The hospital care was amazing and the attention was fantastic. In Canada the care was good, but its like going to a nice hotel and a posh 5 star hotel, they just don't compare in the extra's. To digress a moment, our doctor asked if we had insurance and I said yes, we then got into a discussion of costs, if we have insurance the cost was $5,000 for the kid (charged to insurance company), if we didn't it was $1,200 chagred to us. I found this quite the padding. In Canada no matter the problem you will get attention, at the front lines there are waits, for doctors offices and at the ER. Doctors offices can be a weeks delay to get a booking, walk-in clinics usually take 3-4 hours and ER can be anyware from 6 to 12 hours (based on many personal experiences). The same costs that have been talked about in the US, the escalating costs of healthcare, that far outpaces inflation is something that is a concern here in Canada, as a vast proportion of the tax I pay goes to the health industry. I think its 60% and climbing. I found the point of competition to be interesting in the article, as we don't have any up hear either. I agree that in every other area that technology has become part of costs have come down. Look at cameras for example (the latest fatality I think) Now that they are mostly electronic the prices keep plumeting and the features keep growing. So the concept of a free-market health care system does have a very appealing motivator. The question is, is this a utopian concept for health-care? Would a completely free-market healthace system yeild the same quality at drastically reduced costs? The concept that corporations try to maximize their profits is a very strong reality. So the question of what risks will the health-care system take to yeild that bottom dollar is a good question. Look at the marketing spin, these same hospitals will spend the money on marketing themselves as being high quality, but at the same time will rob you blind. Now not all hospitals would do this, but some would. The problem is there isn't a perfect solution, in any system that is selected there are ways to make it fail. I do wonder if a mixed system might work the best for the hospitals, or some way or implementing regulations on hospitals could be done to make them run more efficiently. Starting with a new strategic plan for hospitals might be a good place to begin. I also have to say we as a society are a big reason why the costs are climbing. I heard this morning that thre is a very good likelyhood YOU will out live your children. Isn't that a shocking thought? I have tried a few times now to go car-less, and its a very VERY difficult thing to do. We have so messed up our cities (both in Canada and the States) that its nearly impossible to really make it work. I wonder if we could build new subdivisions that were people centric not car centric, so a comunity where if you have a car it goes into a parkade on the edges of the community, the entire community is really designed to be walked or biked. So stores and such are placed to make this convenient, same with schools. Kids would have to walk to edge of community to catch buses perhaps in some cases. Now this is a utopian thought but one I wonder if is possible and if people would buy into it. Its VERY "green" idea, so would be trendy.. anyone have access to 100 million to test drive this ? Cheers, Quentin J Sarafinchan, B.Sc. On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Matt Goertz <[email protected]> wrote: Thank God I'm Canadian. Americans are hilarious. In Canada there's zero talk of abandoning universal public coverage for basic medical. We argue about how much more public money should be dumped into health care, but nobody would dream of suggesting we make the system more like the US. We do have private clinics and people debate how far we should go to support that system. And yeah, rarely you have to wait a long time for a procedure depending on the situation. If you're rich, you can always pay for a private procedure, and if you're poor, the government will often send you to the private clinic and cover your costs, including travel in many cases. For the vast majority of problems, you'll get a doctor soon enough. I'm a landlord, and I work a salary job. I make $60,000 per year. I pay LESS taxes than I would pay if I were to live in the US, once you consider that there I would have to pay taxes on my business profits, then separately pay my medical expenses. I paid 23% tax last year. If I made more money than I do from my rental business, I would simply incorporate and pay even LOWER taxes, somewhat less than 20%. I would still have at least as much health coverage as the student or senior on a pension that rents from me. I would also be free to buy additional medical insurance coverage if I wanted to. On top of that, I would STILL be free to pay for individual procedures/diagnostics directly if I were unwilling to wait. It would still be cheaper for me to go that route than to do it the American way. I've lived in both Canada and the US. I've seen both systems first hand. I've seen American cousins members bankrupted and lose their homes simply because they had a child born with Downs Syndrome. The only way they could get ANY medical coverage for their child was to go on welfare. Ironically, the mother is a nurse. What a great system. Count me out. In Canada the government would have paid to have the house renovated to be more accessible and the family would get a free wheel chair accessible van (via tax credits). Why do you think nobody in the rest of the industrial world is trying to model their health systems after the US?
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