Does anyone else find it disturbing that you may be paying the medical bills for the McDonalds eaters and the Aspartame/Soda/Fluoride drinkers? Medical bills for crackheads, heroin addicts and the rest? All those people getting fucked up and/or addicted to synthetic "medication".

Its obvious it isnt American, which no one gives a damn about anymore. But it doesn't even seem right. I've heard mixed things about Canada's medical. On one side its a utopia of perfect healthcare, on the other side Canadians cross the border for American healthcare.

Whats everyones opinions on this? And why should Joe Blow be paying for the med bills of crackhead McGee?

*edit*
or this kid

lets here some Canucks opinion on this?

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if socialized medicine is so good, why are so many canadians traveling south for medical care?

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Any Canadians want to comment?

Socialized medicine is on the bottom of the list of things I'm disturbed about paying for..

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Mine too, but thats only cause we're not paying for it yet. It's on its way, and people seem to be very excited about it.

Also, where are the socialist medicine defenders?

I'll bite, though I'm not looking for mud slinging contest, and I'll be the first to say that Canada's social medical care isn't what we should model our own on. But personally, I believe that the problems with socialized medicine are exaggerated out of a fear of redistribution of wealth, shortfalls in ones own health care, and mortality in general.

Let me start off by providing an example of a socialized system that is already in place in America, that few object to: Defense. This is, of course, just an example of how privatization is wrong for a situation, it doesn't necessarily mean that socialization is right for all situations. Let me get your thoughts on this and I'll post more, this is a bit lengthy.

Suppose the national defense of the United States were relegated to the private sector. Instead of the publicly funded Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, the country would be defended by private militias funded mainly by insurance companies. In the event of foreign attack on U.S. soil, the militias would defend those citizens in the affected areas who'd paid defense insurance premiums through their places of work (or, if self-employed, as individuals).

The best-armed troops would defend the wealthiest and most hawkish segments of the population, who would have paid the highest premiums.

The less-wealthy and more dovish customers who'd chosen a less-generous policy would likewise be defended against attack, but they could expect to pay heavily out of pocket because their insurance would only cover costs for weapons and manpower above a fairly high deductible. The doves' militias might or might not call in air support, knowing the insurance company would pay for it only in the most dire circumstances—difficult to calibrate as bombs are dropping all around you. Or perhaps these troops would belong to defense maintenance organizations (DMOs) that blended defense and insurance functions. If so, the soldiers would be required to follow strict protocols that would likely forbid not only air support but also the use of tanks.

Poor people and outright pacifists would buy no defense insurance at all, and therefore would end up being saddled with ruinously large debts to private militias they'd chosen hastily after the invasion was under way. Alternatively, these individuals might simply say the hell with it, wave a white flag, and surrender.

The advantage of a market-based national defense is obvious: Every citizen would receive an individualized amount of military protection, based on the value each of us placed on defending the homeland. Those who were particularly fretful about another 9/11 would pay a lot; those inclined to dwell on the rarity of foreign attack might prefer to use that money to buy a pottery wheel and a kiln for the basement. The freedom to choose is what this country is all about.

But the drawbacks of a privatized defense would weigh quite a bit heavier. The imposition of costs would bear no relationship to the buyers' ability to pay. Instead, cost would be driven by geography. People who lived in places that made particularly tempting targets, like Washington, D.C., would pay high premiums, and people who lived in places that had previously been attacked—Baltimore (War of 1812), Pearl Harbor (World War II), New York City (9/11)—would pay the highest premiums of all. Insurance companies would be reluctant to write policies for anyone living in these places and instead would seek out customers whose environments made unlikely military targets. Manhattan might be poorly prepared to repel enemy attack, but Middlebury, Vt., would be impregnable.

The overall cost of military defense would skyrocket even more than it does in our real-world, thoroughly socialistic system of national defense. This cost explosion would be partly due to welcome improvements as defense technology became able to kill many more people than previously thought possible. But costs would also be driven up by the enormous time and effort that defense insurers and militias would spend quarreling over who would pay the bills. (Assuming the militias were paid on a fee-for-service basis, rather than put on salary, soldiers would have an incentive to drive up costs further by putting deployment on a hair trigger.) Market purists would blame all cost problems on the inherently inflationary nature of third-party insurance payments and would argue for increasing the portion of national defense paid out of pocket in order to discipline buyers and pressure the private militias to get their expenses in line.

Bottom line: A market approach to national defense would give us a lousy national defense. That might be hard for many to perceive, since military technology, fueled by generous federal research grants to the more prestigious militias (and sometimes to less-prestigious militias via congressional earmark) might dazzle the world, and foreign potentates might flock to our shores to make use of our hardware and know-how. But too many Americans would be left undefended or underdefended, and too many militias and insurance companies would devote so much money and manpower to cost-shifting battles that they would lack sufficient funds to extend coverage or maintain existing coverage at an affordable level. The percentage of the defense-insured population would decline steadily, and people who purchased defense insurance would find that it covered a dwindling range of contingencies. The United States would end up more vulnerable to attack than Canada, Western Europe, or Japan.

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I can understand the defense concept, although I could see strong militias (if the ATF wasnt constantly harassing them), independently and heavily armed, not acting on behalf of insurance companies(Always the bankers...). This would at least insure we never headed into a needless war overseas.

My main fear of socialized medicine is that everyone will be taxed to save the cig smokers, mcdonalds eaters, fluoridated water drinkers, hardcore drug addicts rather than just let them die or make a life changing decision to finally help themselves. I don't know how to fit that in to your analogy about defense, but you see where im coming from right? Its that simple, thats my whole issue with this deal, other than the fact that it is unconstitutional - but im used to that.

I don't see any possible way to remedy this problem, unless everyone else, unlike me, wants to save EVERYONE from themselves. Privatization is tricky, especially when certain variables raise the price of med so high you NEED to be in the banks(insurance co) pocket. Something needs to change, but I sincerely doubt socialized medical is the way, especially with the lack of preventative healthcare. Especially with the American view of healthcare, popping pills and eating salad laced with chemicals that disable your thyroid, drinking water that can cause skeletal fluorosis, dental fluorosis, retardation and cancer. It's hard enough to avoid the obvious shit, try avoiding the stuff nobody tells you about, or everyone is in denial about. I still have a hard time avoiding stuff like MSG. I even had to switch chicken cause they pump them with phosphates?! I don't even know what that is, or how its completely unstudied and will one day be found to cause cancer or some other shit, but I know it isnt right and what reason do I have to trust someones wonder-chemical propaganda. Poison/Chem seems to be everywhere, and even if you're trying to avoid it, you will eat or drink some. I can see socialized healthcare, or even a total socialist dictatorship working, just not in this country.

The point I was trying to bring home with the defense analogy was that we will willingly pay for military protection for society as a whole, even though we rarely need it, having it there as a security blanket, knowing that in the event of a disaster we would have our bases covered, seems well worth the more than half of all taxes we pay on past and current military. But, we won't apply that same sound thinking to health care, which, as defense has, would benefit overall from public control, as far as coverage, advances in technique, and prevention are concerned.

It is quite threatening, taking into account all the people that can't, won't, or don't know how to take care of themselves. To take responsibility for all those people seems like an endeavor that is doomed to failure, because no matter how much there is, there will never be enough. And providing for them will take precious resources away from those of us who may or may not need it, but have earned the peace of mind that accrued wealth brings.

The question is; do the benefits outweigh the consequences? The benifits being; if we can successfully fund and manage socialized medicine, ideally, better than any previous country has before, American society as a whole will never know the horror of losing their entire lives to an untimely sickness. If we succeed in that respect we are guaranteed that if you get extremely, expensively sick, the illness will not bankrupt you and funds will be available to cover your treatment. The consequences are that you will be paying for medical coverage you may never need or use, at insurance rates or higher and that coverage will be used to pay for other peoples' health and prosperity, they will probably abuse it, they will most likely use if frivolously, and they won't care that your hard earned dollars went to fund it. It will force American tax payers to make hard decisions about what their tax dollars will go to, a reassesment of priorities will be neccessary. (Personally, I would go with dropping the "wars on" drugs, terrorism abroad, etc. And legalizing/taxing vices for additional income.)

I really don't know how social medicine would play out in the US. But I seriously think your fears of providing for addicts and obese Mc D's customers are unfounded.

Drug addicts already have the option of state care when it comes to rehabilitation, the overwhelming majority of them are not interested. Those that are genuinely interested in fixing their lives should receive care, the burden they bring to the table is marginal if they do indeed clean up their act and start contributing to society. As for the obese masses; the number one prevention of obesity is regular visits to the doctor, someone to help them understand that they are going to die a disgusting early death, and to provide options for them to stay healthy. Keeping the masses informed is half the fight to a cheaper health care platform. And of course, those that do die young and fat or face down in the gutter of an overdose are not going to be using their "end of life" or elderly health care, one of the most expensive as far as time and resource consumption goes.

Socialized medicine offers longer life expectancies, less infant mortality and better care than our system. And while those outcomes can't, and shouldn't, be chalked up solely to the health care, it's foolish to deny that health care plays a part. Indeed, there's just about no disagreement over which side achieves better health care outcomes. Outcomes, remember, are not simply who saves more folks from heart disease. Americans do more in the area of cardiac bypass, but then, we need it. We do more in the way of cancer treatment, but both France and the UK have significantly lower death rates from cancer, heart disease too, most of this comes because preventive care due to the low disincentives for visiting the doctor, is far more advanced compared to America. Much more is caught much earlier and lifestyle changes, medications, and small-bore surgeries used to keep folks healthy. And, indeed, life expectancies across the ocean and to the North are much better than they are here.

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If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face... forever.