Scott Schuckert wrote:

In article .com,
RobGN wrote:


However, I must mention that our healthcare system, with all its
faults, has one advantage we cannot take for granted: Should anyone of
us have a serious accident which would cause us to be hospitalized, our
healthcare system pays for our stay, our Doctors, our Therapists, our
Nurses, our medications while in hospital. I cannot imagine the cost I
would have had to incure when I was involved in a highway accident last
winter and was in the hospital for 3 weeks.


A few years ago, a friend of mine was hit by a bus while crossing the
street in Denmark. It was probably even his fault; no one asked or
cared. They scooped him up, took him to the hospital, and fixed him.

As he tells it, there was almost no paperwork - they only asked his
name and address so they could let his family know where he was. If
government is going to run healthcare, THAT'S how it should work. Of
course, they have a 50% income tax to pay for it - but I'm told it's
the ONLY tax, so it's probably equivalent to the total tax load we have
in the US.

IMHO, our biggest problem with our current system in the states is the
insurance industry. Aside from the incredible cost of the paperwork to
track it all, there's no reason to find ways to make it affordable -
the consumer is never really faced with the cost. My fathers
(unsucessful) cancer treatment was over half a million dollars! If we
routinely charge more for services than ANYONE could pay, it can only
come crashing down on us eventually.

In Quebec, we do have the public healthcare system. And we do pay the
highest taxes in North America. If the service was good, it wouldn't be
a problem. But the service is crap. People are actually dying while on
waiting list for a surgery. The systems is so badly administrated that
it is just useless to put any more money into it. On top of that, we
probably have the highest union rate in North America as well and, of
course, all public sector workers are unionized.
Result, if you're sick you better have good contacts to bypass the few
months waiting list to see a specialist...