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ORIGINAL: Arpig

Probably right Panda...more's the pity.

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ORIGINAL: Arpig

For the last time...its not "free" health care, its a publicly funded single-payer health insurance system that is slightly different in each province. Every employed Canadian pays for his/her insurance through their taxes and/or a special means-based health levy (again depending on the province). And even though we manage to cover everybody and without copays or deductables for almost 100% of medical care we still pay less per capita than Americans do for their private health insurance.

In Ontario (whose system I am familiar with) it is paid for by a percentage of one's income tax and a special payroll tax paid by the employer. It isn't free, I pay for my coverage, I just pay a fuck of a lot less than you guys do. We have no pre-existing conditions, everybody is covered, and if you move to a new province you are covered there, regardless of any pre-existing conditions.

I do not have to get approval from anybody (no bureaucrats, governmental or insurance company enters into the decisions at any stage) for any procedure my doctor deems necessary, there is no rationing based on age or income, and nothing needs to be pre-approved by anybody.

I can buy supplemental insurance (often provided through one's employer) to cover those things not covered by the government plan (in Ontario that includes prescriptions and dental) However there is a prescription plan for low income people whereby each prescription only costs $2 (which many smaller private pharmacies waive) which is entirely means-based with no extra fees and covers all medically necessary drugs (not viagra/cialis or rogaine for example).

All this and still we manage to pay less per person than Americans pay for their health plans with their high deductables, complicated formularies that vary from company to company and from plan to plan within a given company, and byzantine paperwork and convoluted negotiations for hospitals. I'll take our "experiment" over yours anyday.

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic


What breakthroughs are coming from your research hospitals? What new drugs and treatments from your labs? How many new surgical procedures have been developed?

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ORIGINAL: mcbride

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic


What breakthroughs are coming from your research hospitals? What new drugs and treatments from your labs? How many new surgical procedures have been developed?

You might not have heard of all of them down there, Heretic. One of the newest, for example, a new blood thinner called dabigatran, developed at McMaster University in Hamilton, prevents more strokes with less bleeding than warfarin (the blood thinner gold standard for a half century now, for those at risk of stroke).  It’s also easier to use as it interacts with fewer medications and doesn’t need constant dose monitoring and adjustment. It's a big improvement for huge numbers of patients, but it’s currently only available in Canada and Europe.

Just lately, researchers with the B.C. Cancer Agency have become the first-ever to decode the DNA of breast cancer cells,  and have discovered that gene mutations in those tumours shift as the disease spreads.

The list of Canadian medical breakthroughs is a bit long to lay out for you here, but it includes lumpectomy, implantable pacemakers,  radiation treatment for cancer, total body cooling for cardiac surgery, discovery of the T-cell receptor, safer stem cells, controlled gene mutation (which opened up the field of biotechnology)...oh, and insulin.  That's just a few, of course.

Canada ranks 14th in research spending among 31 Western industrialized nations, but it ranks sixth in producing top research papers.

Why do you ask?

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What breakthroughs are coming from your research hospitals?

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic


What breakthroughs are coming from your research hospitals? What new drugs and treatments from your labs? How many new surgical procedures have been developed?

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ORIGINAL: SirPumpy


..To remove something of this magnitude would cause massive failure and i think the Politicians have figured this out now.

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

What breakthroughs are coming from your research hospitals? What new drugs and treatments from your labs? How many new surgical procedures have been developed?

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ORIGINAL: Sanity


With the fiscal problems they face, who doubts that research budgets will be severely raided so their politicians can continue handing out freebies?

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

What breakthroughs are coming from your research hospitals? What new drugs and treatments from your labs? How many new surgical procedures have been developed?

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ORIGINAL: SirPumpy

G'day Eh!

Australia has Medicare, it was introduced in the early 70's.

The system is almost identical to the Canuk system with a small levy paid by employers and employee's.

We have PBS or fixed price subsidised drugs.

Public hospitals that cost nothing to use

low cost Dental hospitals ($20)

And free ambulance paramedic for welfare, disabled and aged including air ambulance.

And all in a country with a mere 22 million population.

Many times it has been threatened and every time it remains in place and somehow better and stronger.

To remove something of this magnitude would cause massive failure and i think the Politicians have figured this out now.