Welcome to Bernie/Independent/Third Party Land

[Honky Tonk]

How can some?

Because the reasoning not to has been solely conflated to mean-siding-with DumpTrump and his pile [[so the thinking goes)!

We should have priorities no matter who's president!

We should have less special interest involvement when passing legislation.

[Canadian Visitor]

The way she said they talked to a doctor for 15 minutes, I got the impression it was s.o.p. for getting a prescription filled in Canada. You used to be able to buy Canadian prescription drugs online, but they ended that. The AMA doesn't care for competition. Healthcare in general here is outrageous, prescription drugs more so.

From this website: https://www.pharmacychecker.com/askp...ons-to-canada/

Yes, doctors in the U.S. can and do send prescriptions to Canadian pharmacies.

Canadian provinces require that pharmacies dispense medications pursuant to a valid prescription authorized by a Canadian practitioner. Therefore, U.S. prescriptions received by a Canadian pharmacy must be approved by a Canadian physician, who issues a Canadian prescription, prior to it being filled. This practice is often referred to as cosigning. We view the cosigning process as an additional review of the patient's health profile by a licensed practitioner to determine the suitability of the recommended treatment.
To be clear, a patient or doctor in the U.S. only has to send a prescription. You do not need to worry about finding a Canadian practitioner. The pharmacy will take care of the approval process from there.

[Richard]

Canadian doctors don't negotiate with the insurer, at all, ever.

There is no contact. None, zero, zilch.

That's just not how its done, no matter how much you apparently wish it was otherwise.

My parents are both deceased now...but I was their primary care giver in their declining years.

Both received excellent care in their seventies.

My mother received surgery on her eye lids, post-stroke, in her final year of life.

My father got back surgery, in his final year of life.

He got it within days of it being recommended.

Real story, real facts.

***

PS, Canadians live longer than Americans.......there is no 'processing' LOL.......

How was your alien probing the other night, Mr. Tin Foil hat?

The doctors are sub contractors yes or no

The doctors submit invoices to the government for payment yes or no

The government can choose to pay or not pay an invoice yes or no

The doctors go into pay negotiations with the government yes or no

So a non specialist bills $53 per visit,makes 200,000 a year,how much time does that leave the doctor per visit on a 8 hour 5 day work week.

With a full schedule,you get less then 20 min to visit the doc,it’s like a wholesale movement of people through a system.

If I come up there for medical attention,doc says bring cash it is $5000 who gets priority,my $5000 cash or your $53?

No tin foil needed.

[Zacha341]

Yep, if doctors and hospitals in the interest of health care are required to invoice, subcontract, require approval of, and compliance to government writ for funding: The government controls!

A is A. Yet I suppose abstract thinking will prevail. A gradualism of consent. Then you look up and you can't see the doctor or specialist you had or the hospital you preferred.

Many hospitals now operate based on the combination of private insurance which pays the most and fastest. Combined with medicare, medicaid and other insurances that pay less and slower [[ala government processing).

I prefer the option of both, and especially a safety net for those not able to afford private insurance. Employee sponsored is preferred if you have it.

As I have said Medicare/ Medicaid are near bankrupt now. What magic pixie dust does Bernie have to fix the existing situation, no less provide health care coverage for far more including illegals? Such thin spread margarin health care will not cover in the same way private does now. How could it??

Especially considering the dems and repubs have agreed to continue the out of control deficit spending!

How will an expansion of government insurance and elimination of the private insurance improve health care delivery?

Further, will these law makers and bureaucrats subject themselves to government [[basic) healthcare? Absolutely not!

They're not going to wait six months+ for their hip replacements.

[Canadian Visitor]

The doctors are sub contractors yes or no

The doctors submit invoices to the government for payment yes or no

As you are describing it, no.

Yes, billing codes are submitted to the insurer, just as in your system.

However, they are submitted on the honour system, automatically, electronically and are not audited.

The government can choose to pay or not pay an invoice yes or no

No. The billing code is always honoured. There is never any phone call or discussion or check on it.

There is actually a minor scandal about this in Ontario right now, as one ophthalmologist was caught [[freedom of information) billing the system for doing more of a procedure than is really possible.

That doctor has now resigned.

But the system didn't catch him, it wasn't even looking.

The doctors go into pay negotiations with the government yes or no

Sort of......the government determines the total funding envelope for physician compensation on its own. It then sits down with the medical association, respresenting doctors, roughly every three years, and they discuss broadly how much is fair for a given service, based on how long it takes and technological advances and so on

What they don't agree on goes to binding arbitration.

But what they don't do is discuss individual doctors or patients at all. So no doctor has a billing cap.

You could bill $250,000 or $2,500,000.

The government is agnostic on that.

It doesn't care how many appointments you have or operations you do, or who you do them for.

It only cares that the total funding envelope isn't exceeded materially.

[[no one is denied a service because of a budgetary limit).

However, in practice, hospitals require a certain amount of funding to open ORs or run an MRI, as such the government does have some impact on total available resources. But not how they are allocated.

Even at the hospital level, the hospital is free to budget for its own priorities, but it can't unilaterally increase its own total funding.

But no one in government penalizes a hospital for doing too many or too few MRIs or knee replacements.

So a non specialist bills $53 per visit,makes 200,000 a year,how much time does that leave the doctor per visit on a 8 hour 5 day work week.

With a full schedule,you get less then 20 min to visit the doc,it’s like a wholesale movement of people through a system.

My family doctor's office budgets a baseline appointment at 15m. But it can longer if necessary, obviously a physical is much longer. But I myself have had a 30m appointment. You tell the receptionist if you think you need longer, they set aside longer.

Doctors decide how many patients they have, and what hours they work.

My family doc was trained as an Ob/gyn. She took over my family doctor's practice when he retired. She decided she still wanted to deliver babies 2 days a week, so she took 3 days a week for family medicine. The patients she couldn't handle were offered their choice of alternate doctors or could choose to leave the group practise all together and find any other doctor they wish.

Subsequently she's shifted to full-time family medicine.

All her choice, the government had zero say.

As for the billing rate, I'm not sure what it is this year.

But normally a family doctors appt was billed to the system at $32CAD in 2017.

Its important to note at this juncture that not all doctors are fee-for-service.

Some doctors work on capitation, a flat monthly fee per patient, whether you see them or not.

Others have some kind of hybrid pay scheme. Its their choice.

*****

If I come up there for medical attention,doc says bring cash it is $5000 who gets priority,my $5000 cash or your $53?

LMAO

Aside from the fact we won't let you into our country........

The answer is, priority goes to the most urgent patient, or for equal priority, first come, first served.

You see, our doctor can bill you directly.......but they have to bill you the same as they bill the system, unless otherwise permitted.

So its your $32CAD against my $32CAD.

[Canadian Visitor]

Yep, if doctors and hospitals in the interest of health care are required to invoice, subcontract, require approval of, and compliance to government writ for funding: The government controls!

As I explained to Richard, that isn't the way it works. Kindly see my reply to him for the details; but government here has no say in which doctor you see or procedure you get.

You are free to switch doctors, or get a referral to any physician you wish or walk into any hospital for care. None of that is dictated in any way.

A is A. Yet I suppose abstract thinking will prevail. A gradualism of consent. Then you look up and you can't see the doctor or specialist you had or the hospital you preferred.

See above. I can see any physician I wish, what services I receive or procedures I get are solely between me and my doctors.

I have no idea where you get these ideas from that government micro manages care.

Its simply not true, not here anyway. But I haven't heard of this being the norm in any other developed nation either.

The most controlling place, that most interferes w/doctor's orders is the U.S. where insurers and HMOs feel free to meddle.

As I have said Medicare/ Medicaid are near bankrupt now. What magic pixie dust does Bernie have to fix the existing situation, no less provide health care coverage for far more including illegals? Such thin spread margarin health care will not cover in the same way private does now. How could it??

You are co mingling different issues here.

Medicare funding, as with social security has been raided by your government to fund different things; the funding level set is also variable, as it should be.

When a population ages, it requires more care, so budgets will rise when a larger proportion of the population is older, and fees/taxes must rise in tandem, unless this was budgeted and paid for, over time, in advance.

Illegal immigration is indeed an issue in the US and one much obsessed about in this forum.

But its really not related to healthcare anymore than the state of highways, public transit, schools, libraries or anything else.

Its unreasonable to tie one particular program to the issue.

The issue does pose some financial strain on US governments, though its difficult to assert how much of one, as one has to factor those that may be paying taxes anyway, vs those who are not; as well as those who paying for private insurance, vs those who are not, and the impact of lower labour costs in the economy.

So its not a simply calculation.

But the issue here is a distraction/digression.

How will an expansion of government insurance and elimination of the private insurance improve health care delivery?

It may or may not achieve that. The primary objective is to address those who are uninsured/underinsured and to save some money by sending people to family doctors early during illness rather than an ER later in illness when they will be more expensive to treat.

The rest of any effect depends entirely on what funding models are chosen, and how the remainder of the system responds to change.

Ideally, any expansion of public care/move towards universal coverage results in less paperwork at the doctor's office/hospital for both the physician and the patient.

It also results in care prioritized on need, not ability to pay.

It can be organized to improve efficiency, but that is not a given.

It may improve the circumstance of an insured individual in so far as it removes or reduces deductibles and copays.

Again, that's up the model[[s) that are chosen.

Further, will these law makers and bureaucrats subject themselves to government [[basic) healthcare? Absolutely not!

Why not? The Mayor of Toronto, who earns a six-figure pay cheque, but is also independently wealthy as a child of money, and the former CEO of a large cable/cell provider, got surgery done this week on his Achilles tendon. That surgery was paid for by the system, at a public hospital.

There's no reason public services can't be excellent.

[Richard]

It isn’t just “rich and influential” Canadians who seek treatment in the U.S., either. In a recent government document obtained by the Toronto Star, five stem-cell-transplant directors laid out the “crisis” in Ontario, revealing that “the health ministry approved more than $100 million in spending recently to redirect hundreds of patients who will probably die waiting for transplants in Ontario to hospitals in Cleveland, Buffalo, and Detroit.” Likewise, a recent report from the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public-policy think tank, estimated that more than 52,000 Canadians received medical treatment outside of Canada in 2014.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/...utionary-tale/

That referred to stem cell treatment only,it does not even cover the rest of the long lists of illnesses.

You guys did not even know that you had mafias until the Italians told you in the 90s and you are perfectly fine with the average Canadian paying over 10,000 a year into a multi billion dollar health care based solely on the honour system.

They caught one doctor and as you wrote,they were not even looking,so what is to stop doctors from useing patients as check books.

It is not me there is tons of information in details of how ugly your system can be,the UK is worse.

It goes back to my original statement,show me a system in place in any country where a percentage of the population is not getting screwed,and people are not being left behind.

You cannot,if you peel back the layers and no matter how nice Free sounds it all comes at a cost,both in money and in human lives.

So why even try to rearrange the entire healthcare system in the United States when all you are doing in the end is adding a tax to everybody in order to achieve the same results.

Thats the difference,Bernie and the far left are campaigning and trying to sell a system that is no different then what is already in place outside of the transfer of funds from private control to the top,governmental control.

Notice nobody in politics has mentioned the fact that the baby boomer aspect has peaked and is on its downward slide which will actually drive the costs of healthcare down in the future.

We can fix or tweak the current system in relation to the medicinal aspect,and my personal experience of the price difference of paying $6 cash for anti inflammatory pills versus the $325 cost for the same thing if I had used insurance.

The current president did campaign on reducing the costs of medicines but all everybody else seems to be interested in is providing free healthcare while excepting Pharmaceutical campaign funding and cushy Pharmaceutical jobs after leaving politics,so why are they going to kill the goose that lays the golden egg in order to give you free healthcare?

[Zacha341]

Very compelling points CV, but I wasn't critiquing Canada's program. You concede the controlling factors I cite are "not here anyway". Canada does not have the same density of health care need as present in the US.

In consideration of the roll-out of Sander's proposition here, well, we saw how the Affordable Care Act impacted health care. And yes, I'll say I have been on the receiving end of the HMO service/ doctor change/ chacannery! Good times.

But waving the Free-for-all health care banner does not by default convince me of a better system.

Re. deductibles and copays? In the proposed US Medicare for all schema where does the money come from? Is anything free? I'd rather pay some deductible and co-pay than grin and bear it knowing that my free insurance falls short of what my needs will be.

Granted, while private insurance has its own constrictions, I cannot see how invoice-funded/ compliance-based government health insurance would not impact health care delivery any less. IMO, I think it would much more.

Perhaps we need to have a veteran receiving or attempting to receive services from the Veterans Administration weigh in here.

My main take on illegal immigration is that it is used for political gain. Ironic, as the promises made may not be so iron-clad as presented to those choosing to by-pass our immigration laws. Laws the predate the present POTUS.

Therefore, looking at consequences and outcomes long-term, is it simply too simplistic to consider that the additional strain on our social and medical resources will impact all programs proposed?

Again my view for how we deal with immigration in general at this point is to keep a focus on ...priorities... US citizens first!

[Zacha341]

Compelling points! Might need to get out that tin-foil after all. Meet the NEW boss! Same [[well I think it'll be worse) OLD boss!

This is being sold as equality but whoever ends up holding the check book for healthcare will be very powerful no less than with the current systems.

With no where else to go! How captive. This is why I feel you should be able to self-contract health insurance outside of your state.

More options please, not less.

I don't want to be forced to discuss my medical scenario at the secretary-of-state like office. LOL!

So why even try to rearrange the entire healthcare system in the United States when all you are doing in the end is adding a tax to everybody in order to achieve the same results.

Thats the difference, Bernie and the far left are campaigning and trying to sell a system that is no different then what is already in place outside of the transfer of funds from private control to the top, governmental control.

[Canadian Visitor]

Likewise, a recent report from the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public-policy think tank, estimated that more than 52,000 Canadians received medical treatment outside of Canada in 2014.

https://www.insider.com/medical-tour...lthcare-2018-6

320,000 Americans sought treatment overseas last year, your point?

The US is roughly 9x the population of Canada.....so that's only slightly different in scale/proportion.

The immediate issue you note above, about stem-cell treatment has since been resolved.........but this is one draw back of a Canadian style system, in theory, which is that rolling out experimental/new techniques can be slow.

On the other hand, no Canadian was actually denied care, because we did have the safety valve of US healthcare assets that not only are available to our system, but at a lesser price than they sell to the US. [[bulk purchasing is a thing).

Stem cell therapy has since been rolled out to additional hospitals in Ontario and Canada.

****

Regardless, you will never hear me say the Canadian way of doing things is perfect.

Not even when we do 'whatever' the best.........because there is always room for improvement.

Moreover, all systems, private and public in health and other areas make trades. The question is whether the trades, on balance, produce the most favourable results, for the greatest numbers.

In that regard, I think Canada does well, but has room for improvement.

I think US, notably in health has greater room for improvement.

That's not anti-American, its pro-American in that the average US citizen deserves a better deal.

Unlike you, I don't defend failure. I assert that it indicates a reason to aspire to better.

For Americans and everyone else.

[oladub]

If every other country in the world can do it, why can't we? Obviously he [[Bernie) can't just wave his arm. There would be a transition period of a few years where more people are added to Medicare. The current system is broken. We have to try. Or you could just vote for Status Quo Joe Biden who has a pharma lobbyist working for him.

I'm puzzled as to why no Democratic state with a D governor, senate, and house hasn't produced a single payer system. There are 14 states having this trifecta. This doesn't need to be done at the federal level. My guesses are that Democrats are stringing along voters with promises of free stuff and that debt can be racked up easier at the federal level than at the state level.

Advocates of single payer healthcare should be demanding that more doctors be trained. That's something that could and should be done now. Canadian health care cost about 60% of U.S. healthcare per capita. To attain the same efficiencies in a U.S. single payer plan, doctor salaries would have to be slashed. My guess is that a lot of doctors would take an early retirement. Fewer doctors and a larger patient population would mean longer waits. That's why proponents of single payer health care should be pushing hard to expand medical school enrollments. The other option is to start competing with Canada and England for the most talented third world doctors. That would further deprive people in third world countries of medical care. It's more ethical that we start training more of our own doctors.

[Canadian Visitor]

I'm puzzled as to why no Democratic state with a D governor, senate, and house hasn't produced a single payer system. There are 14 states having this trifecta. This doesn't need to be done at the federal level. My guesses are that Democrats are stringing along voters with promises of free stuff and that debt can be racked up easier at the federal level than at the state level.

Advocates of single payer healthcare should be demanding that more doctors be trained. That's something that could and should be done now. Canadian health care cost about 60% of U.S. healthcare per capita. To attain the same efficiencies in a U.S. single payer plan, doctor salaries would have to be slashed. My guess is that a lot of doctors would take an early retirement. Fewer doctors and a larger patient population would mean longer waits. That's why proponents of single payer health care should be pushing hard to expand medical school enrollments. The other option is to start competing with Canada and England for the most talented third world doctors. That would further deprive people in third world countries of medical care. It's more ethical that we start training more of our own doctors.

Your descriptions of the pay different are misleading.

I will quote a post from Quora here:

It depends where you are [[pay is determined by province) and your specialty. For example, the average income for a psychiatrist n Quebec would barely top 100 000, whereas the average Cardiac Surgeon in Alberta sees about 6–700 000 annually.
A rough rule of thumb is that doctors make about half what they would in the States.
But that isn’t the whole picture.
My first cardiologist was a Johns Hopkins trained Canadian who returned to Quebec after practicing in the States for years. He found that after factoring in overhead, insurance and bureaucratic cost savings, he actually was making about the same income [[net).
In the States he had to partner up with two other doctors and hire secretaries and other office staff to handle all the insurance paper work. Even so, his nurses had to handle overflow, and he himself had to spend time writing insurance reports.
In Canada he found he found he could get by with two part time Nurse/receptionists, he could spend MORE time with each patient, and his insurance red tape dropped to nothing. He paid next to nothing in malpractice insurance as well.

The key difference in Canada is not that we skimp on pay, by and large. Its that we have very low malpractice costs, no bad debt costs [[the government always pays), and vastly lower administrative and office costs.

That, and doctors are small businesses and therefore pay lower tax rates.

****

The reason your state legislatures are slow to adopt single-payer is because the one-time adoption cost is large and big change is always controversial, and there will always be hiccups.

Meaning its a high-risk political decision.

Also you have 49 other states that would then have a different regime, presumably one with much higher insurance costs, but notably lower taxes.

That the trade-off should be similar or somewhat beneficial is neither here nor there, if your competitors may be something less than honest or exploit the differences against you.

In Canada one province rolled out public healthcare on its own, Saskatchewan......but the federal government subsequently intervened to mandate every province deliver a comparable system. It left the details to the provinces, so long as their system followed a simple set of national principles.

That, I think would be the advantageous route to go in the US.

A federal mandate with dollars, but let the States execute on the ground.

However, you do have the added complication that you already have medicare, and its federal.

[Pam]

The reason Single payer hasn't passed at the state level is the same reason it hasn't passed yet at the federal level- bought and paid for politicians. Here's an article about California.

https://newrepublic.com/article/1436...yer-california

since 2012 groups opposing the single-payer bill have donated 1.5 million to Democratic Assembly members

[Richard]

^ that’s why they are so pissed off at the current president,you are not actually supposed to do what you said you were going to do when you get into office,and he is moving the goalposts.

Bottom line is whoever has the largest war chest goes the furthest in politics,you see in the current DEM line up,the ones with the least amount of funding are dropping off.

The previous administration campaigned on evil Wall Street,big banks and pharmaceutical bad guys.

But yet after the term is up,they are all working for the places that they called evil in high paid positions.

They are like a bunch of male teenagers on a first date and trying to get to second base,they will tell you what you want to hear but once they get there,they are done and move on.

Thats how they maintain control in cities like Baltimore,keep people trapped and desperate and you can promise anything and it will be excepted out of despair,you actually do not have to do anything positive,as we can clearly see.

They are like mirages in the desert.

[oladub]

Pam, Somehow Canada and even countries as small as Iceland have overcome bought and paid for politicians to deliver single payer healthcare. California has one of the largest economies in the world so I can only surmise that Democratic politicians are dangling a free stuff carrot in front of California voters with little intent on delivery. California is a one party state - much more so than Canada. What's in the way except for Democrats?

The article said that California's proposed single payer plan would triple California income tax. That was before California announced it would pay for the medical costs of illegal aliens it attracts. Coupling open borders with Medicare or state single payer plans sounds like a losing proposition for taxpayers. That's one more reason California would rather shift the payment part of single payer plans to people in Michigan and the unborn.

You brought up a good point about how in Canada doctors do not have to pay for all the liability insurance necessary here. That is a provision of Canadian law. About 15 years ago, I heard the Canadian Consul from Chicago explain why health care costs so much less in Canada. One of the reasons was that doctors could only be sued for $10,000 so they don't buy liability insurance. Great! Let's do that here. Tell me which state's Democrats are pushing to get rid of liability insurance and lawsuits associated with Medicare. That provision probably didn't make it into California's proposed single payer plan.

There are 6709 Canadian trained MD's in the US [[2015). I could't find the actual number of US trained doctors in Canada although that number is said to be on the increase. We have to start training more doctors now to accommodate more future patients. Where is Bernie on that very large practical point?

[Canadian Visitor]

You brought up a good point about how in Canada doctors do not have to pay for all the liability insurance necessary here. That is a provision of Canadian law. About 15 years ago, I heard the Canadian Consul from Chicago explain why health care costs so much less in Canada. One of the reasons was that doctors could only be sued for $10,000 so they don't buy liability insurance.

This is entirely incorrect.

Canadian doctors can be sued for malpractice and MUST carry insurance for same, by law.

The reason its less of an issue here is 2-fold.

First, Canada does not permit the kind of pain and suffering awards you see in the US. Its not allowed. You can sue for pecuniary damages [[lost income, cost of fixing something etc.) and then pain and suffering, but to a limit of roughly $300,000CAD for the most extreme cases. So there are very few multi-million dollar judgements.

From this link: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/medical...ity/canada.php
One other feature of Canadian law that tends to discourage parties from suing physicians for malpractice is that the Supreme Court has set out guidelines that effectively cap awards for pain and suffering in all but exceptional cases. In a trilogy of decisions released in 1978, the Supreme Court established a limit of Can$100,000 on general damages for non-pecuniary losses such as pain and suffering, loss of amenities and enjoyment of life, and loss of life expectancy.[12] The Supreme Court did state that there may be extraordinary circumstances in which this amount could be exceeded, and courts have allowed the figure to be indexed for inflation so that the current suggested upper limit on awards for non-pecuniary losses is close to $300,000.[13] Nevertheless, the flexible cap on non-pecuniary losses is a major disincentive to persons considering whether they should sue a physician for malpractice and for lawyers to specialize in or seek out malpractice cases.

The Supreme Court of Canada has also limited the types of cases in which punitive damages may be awarded, although it has allowed as much as Can$1 million in punitive damages in an extraordinary case.[14] A Canadian law firm has summarized the holding in this leading case concerning punitive damages as follows:

1. Punitive damages are very much the exception rather than the rule;
   
2. Imposed only if there has been high-handed, malicious, arbitrary or highly reprehensible misconduct that departs to a marked degree from ordinary standards of decent behaviour.
   
3. Where they are awarded, punitive damages should be assessed in an amount reasonably proportionate to such factors as the harm caused, the degree of the misconduct, the relative vulnerability of the plaintiff and any advantage or profit gained by the defendant,
   
4. Having regard to any other fines or penalties suffered by the defendant for the misconduct in question.
   
5. Punitive damages are generally given only where the misconduct would otherwise be unpunished or where other penalties are or are likely to be inadequate to achieve the objectives of retribution, deterrence and denunciation.
6. Their purpose is not to compensate the plaintiff, but
   
7. to give a defendant his or her just desert [[retribution), to deter the defendant and others from similar misconduct in the future [[deterrence), and to mark the community’s collective condemnation [[denunciation) of what has happened.
8. Punitive damages are awarded only where compensatory damages, which to some extent are punitive, are insufficient to accomplish these objectives, and
   
9. they are given an amount that is no greater than necessary to rationally accomplish their purpose.
   
10. While normally the state would be the recipient of any fine or penalty for misconduct, the plaintiff will keep punitive damages as a "windfall" in addition to compensatory damages.
    
11. Judges and juries in our system have usually found that moderate awards of punitive damages, which inevitably carry a stigma in the broader community, are generally sufficient.[15]
    

Thus, punitive damages in tort actions in Canada are relatively rare.

***

The other distinction of note in Canada is that the government reimburses doctors for around 80% of the cost of their malpractice insurance.

That has the effect of reducing the bill and then in turn the fees otherwise paid.

[oladub]

CV, Thank you for the update. Even the $300,000 cap is an improvement over the present malpractice mess in the states. Its something that should be part of Medicare. Since Democrats often cite the affordability of Canadian health care, one would think they would be on this.

[Richard]

So really the Canadian government/taxpayer is basically offsetting the costs of doing business that the doctors cover in thier overhead here in the states.

But the doctors in Canada operating under corporations as sub contractors could actually bankrupt the Corp and start another one.

#10 in C.V.s reply is interesting,anyway you look at it the taxpayer picks up the tab.

[Pam]

You brought up a good point about how in Canada doctors do not have to pay for all the liability insurance necessary here

I don't know who brought that up but it wasn't me.

[Zacha341]

^^^ Well, back to Bernie: I think he's done. Past his prime [[from when he ran with Mrs. Clinton). How many Detroiter's [[even dyed-in-the-wool dems) are REALLY willing to take a chance on a candidate so nakedly socialist?

AOC, some years down the road? Yes, maybe. She might be able to bring it [[a full socialist agenda). Some are saying she's being groomed for such.

[coracle]

^^^ Well, back to Bernie: I think he's done. Past his prime [[from when he ran with Mrs. Clinton). How many Detroiter's [[even dyed-in-the-wool dems) are REALLY willing to take a chance on a candidate so nakedly socialist?

AOC, some years down the road? Yes, maybe. She might be able to bring it [[a full socialist agenda). Some are saying she's being groomed for such.

If we’ve got to have a Socialist down the road, and they have to be naked, I think I’d go with AOC rather than Bernie; but it’s a very close call! [[as long as it’s not roachface)

[Zacha341]

^^^ROTFL!! I had not thought of that......

Who IS roachface!? The once-a-Native-American ancestry one?

[coracle]

^^^ROTFL!! I had not thought of that......

Who IS roachface!? The once-a-Native-American ancestry one?

No. Not wigwam warren. The democrat “lady” that called President Trump “motherfucker” and “asshole”.

[Zacha341]

Oh! Our other Ms. Michigan! Hope we don't have any national disaster requiring federal assistance. Hah!

No. Not wigwam warren. The democrat “lady” that called President Trump “motherfucker” and “asshole”.

[Canadian Visitor]

So......this thread really is not about Canadian Healthcare, recent posts aside.

That said, clearly many here take an interest in the comparison.

I just ran across a CNBC explainer on Canadian Healthcare on youtube.

Its actually pretty good. They missed a few details here and there, but pretty darn close.

So for those who want to know about the Canadian system from an American perspective...........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heK471H-s1s