Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
The poor take it in the shorts when it comes to health care. The really troubling aspect is that studies show that your socio-economic status growing up is an excellent predictor of how many health issues you will have during your life. Even if you become rich later in life you are at greater risk for pretty much everything based on how you grew up. I have never seen an explanation for this, though I have seen a few attempts to study why it happens.
Basic care is provided by all states if you can't afford it. On the other hand, they are free to make sure that you can't afford it before they provide it, which is an unfortunate fact that the elderly get to face. I have two grandparents who had all their savings sucked away before they got any health care. At that point, what is left for them? The answer is state covered senior facilities or family members. The former option is inferior in many states (maybe all of them, I don't know), and the latter is untenable for somebody who needs round-the-clock care. For both of my grand parents, they went from meager to very meager once they went from savings to no savings. Since private insurance is not so thrilled about insuring the elderly, another group that gets left behind are those who didn't plan well during peak earning years.
Other than that, the people I know who had to make health care trade-offs were not the poor, they were the lower middle-class that MB mentioned. People without employer provided health care, and not enough money to buy private insurance. It's not a small category.
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Originally Posted by SurfDemon
Homerj. What are the figures, you don't give us any answers? If there are a lot, how many are people travelling from Canada, and how many are Canadians who live in Detroit etc.?
I don't know the exact figures, that's why I said you should ask. I do have a friend who works as a receptionist in a clinic in suburban Buffalo and she claims more than half their patients are Canadian. Let's say she's exaggerating a bit and it's "only" 25%. That's still a pretty frightening figure if that many people are willing to drive literally hours, cross an international border and pay cash for services they could stay home and get for "free." And we're certainly not talking about Canadian citizens living in Buffalo... :rolleyes:
Have you ever heard of an American (or any other nationality for that matter) traveling to Canada (or Britain, France, Germany, etc.) for health care? The Cleveland Clinic gets all kinds of foreigners traveling here to use our supposedly inferior system because they know they will get the best treatment in the world. And it's not only good for the richest of the world's rich, but that same clinic treats our city's poor as well - often at a loss.
That's why I get so pissed when I hear some ignorant fool claim America's health care system sucks. Yeah, it's expensive - mostly because of government interference in the free market. But if it was really so crappy Americans would travel abroad for health care, not the other way around.
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Originally Posted by homer13j
Have you ever heard of an American (or any other nationality for that matter) traveling to Canada (or Britain, France, Germany, etc.) for health care? The Cleveland Clinic gets all kinds of foreigners traveling here to use our supposedly inferior system because they know they will get the best treatment in the world. And it's not only good for the richest of the world's rich, but that same clinic treats our city's poor as well - often at a loss.
Ummm...yeah, all the time. Mexico, too. Mostly it's for meds, but not entirely. Now that I think about it, I have only heard of people traveling to Mexico for health care, and both places for meds. I have some sources I could check, though, if you really care.
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Originally Posted by SurfDemon
X. I can post a converse example. My dad had chest pains and dizzyness. He was in hospital in a "heartbeat", had an angiogram promptly and a cat scan within a matter of days...... I guess it just depends on which hospital you go to.... With any system you can pull up examples of people who get good service and people who get poor service.
Sounds like to me that your dad was brought to the hospital for emergency care. It is true if it is an emergency Canada will provide the necessary care. My wife's uncle had a routine visit to the doctor and wasn’t any emergency, in the US he would have been promptly given tests to determine the problem, in Canada oftentimes such care is not seen as affordable under the Canadian system unfortunately.
I could give another example from my wife’s family. One of her relatives was having gall bladder problems. Since it was not deemed an emergency she had to wait to have it removed. Well a year passed of her in pain every day until finally she had to be rushed to the hospital because her gall bladder had become infected and had burst. She lived but could have died.
These are just 2 examples from my wife’s family. I have read of many others. The Canadian "free" health care system is widely under funded and inadequate. My wife’s parents have purchased supplemental insurance (along with a lot of other Canadians) to help offset the shortcomings in the Canadian system.
A lot of the best doctors and nurses from Canada come to work in the US. There is a great shortage of both in Canada, especially specialists. Which makes wait times for anything a lot longer.
X
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Originally Posted by homer13j
Have you ever heard of an American (or any other nationality for that matter) traveling to Canada (or Britain, France, Germany, etc.) for health care?
Er, as has already been mentioned by SH, yes, lots of times. Maybe you just don't hear about them. In actualy fact one of my ex-workmates is American. They are here because his wife has cancer and the treatment was too expensive in the US.
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Originally Posted by Xanith
My wife's uncle had a routine visit to the doctor and wasn’t any emergency, in the US he would have been promptly given tests to determine the problem, in Canada oftentimes such care is not seen as affordable under the Canadian system unfortunately.
Out of interest, which province was this in. It is true that the "richer" provinces do have much better medical facilities than the "poorer" ones. (Alberta luckily enough for us, being stinking rich - BTW, thanks for buying all our oil :thumb: )
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Originally Posted by Xanith
A lot of the best doctors and nurses from Canada come to work in the US. There is a great shortage of both in Canada, especially specialists. Which makes wait times for anything a lot longer.
Er, ***???? Where did you get this fact from? You seem to assume that the only thing doctors work for is higher wages. The average wage of a doctor here is (apparently) $230,000 a year. More than enough to live comfortably. Coupled with the higher quality of life up here, I find your "fact" that a lot of the best doctors leave, questionable. I have no doubt that there is a brain drain from Canada into the US, that is inevitable when you have ten times the population, and often high paying jobs, but as often as not it'll be your average Joe "hacksaw" Henderson, (specialises in pouring cheap whisky over the limb before hacking it off) from Newfounbdland who's looking to make big bucks who makes the move.
hang on, let's get some facts...
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According to a 2007 article, the Canadian medical profession is suffering from a brain drain. The article states, "One in nine trained-in-Canada doctors is practising medicine in the United States... If Canadian-educated doctors who were born in the U.S. are excluded, the number is one in 12."
So, yes, the brain drain is happening, are they necessarily the "best", .... who knows? If I was offered quadruple my salary to move to the states, I doubt if I would, my kids are settled in School here, a lot of my family are here, I can afford a very comfortable life, there's more to life than just money, and I think most people see it that way. You might just find that you are getting the money-grabbing doctors :)
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
Well, it's not like we have huge surplus medical staffs down here, either. The reason they can make so much in the US is that US staffing is pretty poor in number. Any medical professional seems able to get a great job anywhere they want to in this country. With a demand as high as that, we should be sucking in workers from everywhere just based on supply and demand.
The reason those folks leave Canada is not because there is a great shortage up there, but because there is a greater shortage down here.
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
This tax debate started silly and got worse. Nobody has come even close to comparing apples to apples, as far as I can see (and MB appears to be off on his own tangent).
Of course I am.
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There are two main points that nobody made (though MB came VERY close to explicitly stating one of them):
1) Few Americans pay just income tax, and I have no idea to what extent this is true for any other country. To compare income tax and capital gains rates between countries is absurd. A fair comparison is what percent of your gross income goes to taxes, but it would take a bloody accountant to figure that out, even for a person with simple taxes like mine. Everything is taxed, and taxed at a different rate in ways visible and transparent. Good luck trying to figure out how much you have paid in taxes in a year.
If you don't know what % of your gross income has gone to taxes every year, you need to fire your accountant. Typically to be efficent you should Owe the IRS $0 at the end of the year and the IRS should owe you $0 at the end of the year. If you are getting a refund at the end of the year, the government has just collected 1 years worth of interest on your money instead of you. You need to work with your accountant to get that figured out man.
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2) Even if you look at income tax alone, SD and MB appear to be differing on whether you look at income or taxable income. Since taxable income is dependent on the whole myriad of exemptions, deductions, and stuff like that, figuring your tax rate as a percent of gross earnings is simply wrong. Figuring it out based on taxable income is possible, but since taxable income is unrelated to gross earnings, the comparison is meaningless.
Your taxable income is directly related to your gross income. You can not make any stratigical investment decisions based on just one or the other.
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As for our electoral system, somebody cynically mentioned that it was designed to retain power. At the very least, we are well aware that it is a terrible system to represent the will of the people, and we have discussed in this forum at least two systems that are both superior, and well within our grasp. Since there has been plenty of study of the issue, the results are known and demonstrable, and yet there is no real noise about fixing a broken system, I side with the cynic.
Under one of the superior voting systems, there might be a Hillary, there might be a Rudy, and there might be a Ron Paul, but they wouldn't look like they do now, because they would have to run on different issues.
Agreed.
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Out of interest, which province was this in. It is true that the "richer" provinces do have much better medical facilities than the "poorer" ones. (Alberta luckily enough for us, being stinking rich - BTW, thanks for buying all our oil)
The government plan and what it pays for shouldn’t be different by province. I am not talking about level of care I am talking about what gets paid for under the Canadian system or not. It doesn’t matter where you go to the doctor, what the government pays for will be the same everywhere.
As far as wait times some of the more populated parts of Canada will have less of a wait for some procedures, but that is simply because there are more doctors available to see patients.
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Er, ***???? Where did you get this fact from? You seem to assume that the only thing doctors work for is higher wages. The average wage of a doctor here is (apparently) $230,000 a year. More than enough to live comfortably. Coupled with the higher quality of life up here, I find your "fact" that a lot of the best doctors leave, questionable. I have no doubt that there is a brain drain from Canada into the US, that is inevitable when you have ten times the population, and often high paying jobs, but as often as not it'll be your average Joe "hacksaw" Henderson, (specialises in pouring cheap whisky over the limb before hacking it off) from Newfounbdland who's looking to make big bucks who makes the move.
hang on, let's get some facts...
So, yes, the brain drain is happening, are they necessarily the "best", .... who knows? If I was offered quadruple my salary to move to the states, I doubt if I would, my kids are settled in School here, a lot of my family are here, I can afford a very comfortable life, there's more to life than just money, and I think most people see it that way. You might just find that you are getting the money-grabbing doctors
Well the hospital that my wife works as now there are quite a few Canadian doctors and nurses working with her. Also a lot of her friends that she went to school with are working in the US. I get the fact first hand from my wife and from what I have read.
You are right there is no way to tell the expertise of the doctors and nurses that are coming to the US. Some might be as you say just looking for more money; others might want the chance to work in a top hospital, some maybe a little of both. The US has some very prestigious hospitals that draw doctors and nurses from all over the world. My wife worked at the Mayo Clinic which is one of the top hospitals in the world, not only did doctors and nurses come from all over the world to work there, a great number of patients came from all over the world to get care there as well.
If you know anything about doctors or nurses (which to me sounds as if you don’t if you think most are just looking for more money) most of them care about working in top hospitals and getting the best work experience they can for their career. The US is tops in research and teaching in the medical field which is why a lot in the medical field come here to learn and work. So it wouldn’t surprise me a lot of the top doctors from all countries would want to come to the US to work, not just for money, but the chance to work at some of the best hospitals in the world.
X
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Originally Posted by MasterBlaster
Of course I am.
You always are. It's one thing I have most appreciated about you.
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If you don't know what % of your gross income has gone to taxes every year, you need to fire your accountant. Typically to be efficent you should Owe the IRS $0 at the end of the year and the IRS should owe you $0 at the end of the year. If you are getting a refund at the end of the year, the government has just collected 1 years worth of interest on your money instead of you. You need to work with your accountant to get that figured out man.
You misunderstood what I was getting at here. I pay federal income tax, state income tax, gas taxes (federal everywhere, state in some places, municipal also in other places), sales tax (different rates on different purchases), room and meals tax, property tax, DJ taxes (you never see them, do you even know what they are?), maybe PR taxes (I don't know what these are myself), etc. and etc. Of the total gross income I take in, how much is going to tax in one form or another? I haven't a clue, and doubt anybody else knows for certain. However, it is relevant to this discussion since people were talking about their tax burden, especially the US tax burden. At the very least, the income tax you pay is dependent on which state you live in, since some states tax income, while others don't. Apparently, some municipalities do, as well, since I have a tab on my W-2 for them, though I have never used it.
As for the concept that you should owe nothing to the IRS and the IRS should owe nothing to you, I totally agree. In most economic situations, I think that owing somewhat each year would be better than breaking even. However, my accountant is worth every penny I pay him. I pay him nothing, and get the full value that amount buys (yes, it's me). Frankly, I have been getting a refund for the last few years, and am not going to change it because I haven't faced the same tax situation in the last few years as our legislature keeps tinkering with property taxes just enough that I never know whether I will be paying more or less. The bank can't figure it out, either, which is entertaining. They've had to give me fat checks because they overcharged for escrow. Now I think they are undercharging me because the taxes changed again. If they can't figure out how much I am paying in property taxes, how much easier would it be for me? I wait for the bill to see what each new move will be. Last year I paid half the property taxes that I did four years ago. Now I appear to be back to 80% of what I paid the first year in this house. It's a joy.
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
You misunderstood what I was getting at here. I pay federal income tax, state income tax, gas taxes (federal everywhere, state in some places, municipal also in other places), sales tax (different rates on different purchases), room and meals tax, property tax, DJ taxes (you never see them, do you even know what they are?), maybe PR taxes (I don't know what these are myself), etc. and etc. Of the total gross income I take in, how much is going to tax in one form or another? I haven't a clue, and doubt anybody else knows for certain. However, it is relevant to this discussion since people were talking about their tax burden, especially the US tax burden. At the very least, the income tax you pay is dependent on which state you live in, since some states tax income, while others don't. Apparently, some municipalities do, as well, since I have a tab on my W-2 for them, though I have never used it.
Yes I misunderstood. I was speaking of federal taxes.
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
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Originally Posted by Xanith
If you know anything about doctors or nurses (which to me sounds as if you don’t if you think most are just looking for more money)
X
I believe my point was that most good nurses and doctores aren't interested in more money.
As for your wife working in the Mayo clinic, that is very cool, as it does have a rightly deserved excellent world reputation. And I fully understand that Canadians (and other nationalities) would travel from all over to come work at such a place. However, that is not representative of you average city general hospital......
Anyway, gotta dash. It's 5.30am (jet-lag!) and I'm in a hotel in Karachi where the "high-speed" is more like dial-up - probably due to the cable damage. So have fun folks. I'll tune in again soon. :thumb:
Re: Hurrah!!!!! Rudy hints at getting out
So when does the world do their yearly taxes?
I believe the US's TaxDay is April 15th or so.
