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Caduceus Envy...
Jess Huffman
I'm going to shatter a myth for you today; the Canadian image of America and Americans is just as biased and inaccurate as the caricature they carry about Canadians. Surprise you? Shouldn't.
A great many myths are encouraged because someone benefits from them. The Good ol' Boys of the American south benefited from the myth that Blacks were inferior to whites. Occidentals in B.C. and along the American west coast benefited from the myth that Japanese citizens had to be relocated and interred during WWII. Someone is going to benefit from the myth that public health care is unaffordable and inferior to private health care.
I can tell you, as an American who immigrated to Canada that Americans don't envy Canadians much. They don't think about the lower crime rate or know its changing for the worse. They don't think about the minimal racial tension, or know that, too, is rapidly taking on characteristics they would find familiar.
Americans envy Canadians two things: our still essentially pristine environment, and our universal, public health care.
I suppose its easy to find fault with the imperfections of a medicare. Somewhat like a rich man complaining about what a lemon his Rolls-Royce really is, and that you would have to own one to understand. Well Canadians own one of the Rolls-Royce's of Medical care - and are going to miss it if the government gets its way and turns it into a bunch of taxis.
Let me share with you a few things about health care in the United States.
First - it is excellent from a purely technological perspective. Americans have every gadget available on the planet - and access to them is not dependent on geographic location. They have more of everything and have it in more places than Canadians. There ends the superiority of the American Medical establishment.
To gain access to the technological wonders Americans cough up a lot of money. Ten years ago I paid $240 each month for 80% coverage. That wasn't the full price of the insurance monthly - that was my employee portion. My employer was paying the other half.
80% coverage - darn good at the time by the way, meant that on top of the monthly deductions from my paycheque, a $5,000 hospital bill deposited a $1,000 obligation in my mailbox. Often, services had to be paid for when received and the insurance check would reimburse the 80% in 4 to 6 weeks. Is this what you want?
Private health care corporations from the United States are not clamouring to take over our health care system because they believe they are going to provide Canadians with superior care. They are salivating over the profits to be made off of thirty odd million people.
Disney bought the Mounties - Dunkin Donuts bought Horton's - Sears has Eaton's.. Pretty soon I won't have to go below the 49th to visit the land of my birth. It's coming to me instead.