Deep Thought

3 Comments

1. 

   Dongi 2 on December 5, 2008 at 7:10 pm

   Hey, Steven, if you hate America so much why don’t you just move to Canada?  After all, good health plans are  for progressive wimps. Not for conservative rednecks like myself. Health, smealth.

2. 

   Psyche on December 6, 2008 at 1:21 am

   Although I’m a big supporter of single-payer, you’re comparing apples and oranges here, i.e., screening vs diagnostic mammograms. Differences for screening figures for Nova Scotia less dramatic:
   http://www.gov.ns.ca/health/waittimes/data/diagnostic/screeningMammogram.asp

3. 

   QrazyQat on December 7, 2008 at 7:02 am

   Two things, Pysche:

   1. the differences are still very large for all but one city in Nova Scotia, ranging from a little over half the time to most at between 1/8 to 1/4 the time.  And this is generally the first and loudest argument we hear from those who are against public-funded (and esp. single-payer) health care, yet it’s a hollow argument, since at best they are claiming we’re no worse, no worse (and not really true) at twice the cost, which is the next point.

   2. Canadian health care costs them half per capita what ours does; if they increased funding to even 3/4s of our spending their times could obviously be cut down dramatically, if they increased their spending to our levels — doubling it — it would obviously cut it down even more.  Whereas we have nowhere to go with our spending, really, since it’s already twice per capita what everybody we should be comparing ourselves to spends (Canada, the UK, France, Germany, etc.).