Problems with Canada

Good point. But I must argue what you said about the "fact" that we are only doing harm to ourselves. Whatever pollution we create in Canada will surely affect the rest of the world.

It's not just hairstyles or fashion. Americans tend to want leaders that they personally feel for. I don't think any Canadian can say that they would personally be bosom buddies with somebody like Paul Martin or Stephen Harper. George W. Bush's appeal comes largely from the fact that a lot of people see him as "someone they could share a beer with". Of course, this comes from the less informed and more apolitical voter than the policy wonks of America. Kerry's biggest obstacle is that people don't really see him as a guy who's warm enough, in other words, he's no Clinton.

I agree, it's better to be focused on policy than personal charms. Too much focus on the latter leads to rubbish like Monicagate. Yet the flip side is that Canadians seem to be pretty indifferent to their PMs in terms of support or passion, with the exception of Trudeau.

 

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Good point. But I must argue what you said about the "fact" that we are only doing harm to ourselves. Whatever pollution we create in Canada will surely affect the rest of the world.

Well granted we will do some damage to the world’s environment, we do leave a large ecological imprint. But its not like Canada isn’t doing anything about it, we have joined Kyoto and Canada seems very committed to it.

I don't think any Canadian can say that they would personally be bosom buddies with somebody like Paul Martin or Stephen Harper.

Good…thank god Canadians don't say that. Prime Ministers aren’t going to come to dinner so who gives a shit? They have a job to do, that is run the country not eat pork chops at dinner at my house. I don’t want to be bosom buddies with people I will never talk to or meet; I want them to do their job.

George W. Bush's appeal comes largely from the fact that a lot of people see him as "someone they could share a beer with". Of course, this comes from the less informed and more apolitical voter than the policy wonks of America.

And look where that thinking has gotten the US…I proved my point…

Kerry's biggest obstacle is that people don't really see him as a guy who's warm enough, in other words, he's no Clinton.

Oh because that is so very important…yes intelligence is secondary to “likeability”. Do you understand why I hate mass democracy?

 

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That "likeability" thing bugs me too. I, for one, have always found Kerry likeable. Certainly more likeable than smirking Bush who thinks capital punishment is a laughing matter. There's probably a congregation of idiots in America who are glad to have one of their own in the White House, and are filled with resentment that a cosmopolitan and educated Lanky Yankee would try and take away an ungiven mandate.

I don't like it when people see Canada as some kind of wonderful miracle compared to ol' corrupted U.S.A. Canada may be the larger country in mass, but the large majority of people live near the U.S. border. What would America be like if all they consisted of was 30 million people from the NE coast, like Massachussetts, New York, etc.? That's basically Canada in a nutshell. There's Vancouver, which has its cross border equivalent of Seattle, and Toronto with Cleveland or Cincinnati.

There are some irritating Canadian nationalists, who are little more than your average anti-American since as I've already said, Canadians have a poor record of revering their past. The great irony is that John Molson, the founder of Molson Beer (the company that made the nationalistic I AM CANADIAN ads) was one of the strongest supporters of the Annexation Manifesto back in the 19th century which advocated joining the U.S. Anyway, there are some Canadians who love to feel smug and say, "We're so advanced... We allow gay marriage and drugs and look at stupid old conservative U.S.A.! We're more like those refined Europeans than those boorish sweathogs down south!" First of all, Canada has yet to resolve both gay marriage and marijuana, as opposition is still strong, just like in California or Washington or Massachussetts. Secondly, I think it's really inaccurate to try and compare Canada, a nation of 30 million that hugs the American border, with America, a nation of 300 million consisting of such different regions as the Deep South to the Southwest to the Midwest to the East Coast.

Lucky for Canada, two of their most progressive provinces are the most populous: Ontario and Quebec. An unfair balance of power has limited the voice of the conservative westerners of Canada, in Alberta and BC. The same cannot be said for America, with the liberal East Coast and the arch-conservative Deep South having about the same amount of people, and power. Then there are the "middle-of-the-road convince-me" voters in the Midwest, Southwest, and West Coast.

So in conclusion, the only fair way to compare Canada with America is to make apt comparisons, like juxtaposing Canada with the upper part of America. That part of the states is the one allowing gay marriage (Washington and Massachusetts) or civil unions (Vermont).

 

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Everyone says that Canadians are wasteful! I know that we do use a lto of resources... bou think of our situation. I live in Northern Ontario. Ther summers can get scorching hot (not so much this year...) where the temperature reached the high 30s. Last winter, we had over a week where the daytime high was -25 or lower. Curing these extremes, we have to use up a lot of heat and air conditioning. By the time we actually get used to the temperatures, the season changes. Secondly, our sparse population means that we have to travel long distances to reach destinations. I had to ake an hour and a half bus ride to school. I have to drive 4 hours to see a specialist for my knee injury. The nearest mall is 60 km away. Obviously, I spend a lot on gas to reach destinations that aren't so far away to most Americans.

I think the lower average disposable income is because we tend to have more people on welfare and indians (indians get a free house and a cheque ever month for NOTHING).

you may say that our government was corrupt because of the recent Sponsorship Scandal. At least our government doesn't spend TRILLIONS to create a military force in their own buisness interests. I agree that our government does have problems, but every government has problems.

Let's face it... Canada may not have a high income per family but our standard of living is higher. I think that our country is too easy to live in because welfare is given out too easily and affirmative action is implemented everywhere.

I wouldn't want to live in the United States mostly because of the overall state fo mind, goals and ideals. All I have to do is unblock CNN and watch American propaganda to see how corrupt their society is.

Canada isn't paradise, but I love living here. Canada allows more free htinking, we don't follow the masses. Our government isn't really in that bad of a situation since the NDP has the swing vote. At least our government makes the right decisions... like not going to Iraq.

 

My personal experience comparing Canada and the US goes something like this...
I am Canadian. On May 24th, 2004, our school band (yes... I am in a school band) left Pearson Intl. Airport to go to Orlando. That night, I spent too much time in the hot tub, and I passed out shortly before dinner. Luckily, the concrete floor of the 2nd floor balcony at our hotel provided a nice place to lie down as I waited for the ambulance, blood dripping from a gaping wound in my lower lip. I spent 3 hours in the hospital that night, and it was awful. My 3 hour stay cost $2503. And what do I have to show for it? A child's pair of ankle socks with no-skid bear paw prints on the bottom, and a small scar on my lip. The hospital staff was useless. We spent most of the 3 hours waiting for a fax to come from my insurance company, which was about an hour and a half late becuase of this nifty situation:
Nurse: "Your fax hasnt come in yet."
Me: "Is your fax machine on? The insurance company sent it twice already."
Nurse: "Of course it's on."
Me: "Is there paper in the machine?"
Nurse: "Uhhhhh... let me check."
For the next few minutes, some friends and I watched several nurses fill a fax machine with paper, and wouldn't you know it, two faxes from my insurance company came through. Being Canadian lets me enjoy "free" trips to the hospital, and competent hospital staff.

 

Does anything not suck?

 

Manrey, I agree with the health issue.

I can't believe that people actually have to PAY for emergency care and doctor appointments. I would be getting bills for thouands of dollars right now if I lived in the United States because I have been seeing specialists about an athletic injury on my knee. I just found out that I won't need reconstructive surgery on my knee. It would have been free here in Canada. Could you imagine the bill from the United Staes?!!

I think that americans might have more disposable income but they will eventully lost a lot of it in health care & services that are free in Canada.

 

It's not really like that for a typical American, for two reasons. Those with health insurance typically pay a small copayment or deductible (typically ten bucks for a check-up), with a maximium out-of-pocket expense that's usually in the neighborhood of $1,000 for a major hospital visit. There are, of course, exceptions, and those exceptions can be bad. But they're exceptions, not the general rule.

The other possibility is that the citizen in question won't have any health insurance, perhaps because he or she is poor. In those cases, major visits are typically covered by the hospital's insurance or the government in the form of indigent care. They try to extract payment from the customer over the long haul, if they get good information on their (name, address, etc), but typically they do not achieve much success this way. In some cases it's possible for litigation to take place, in cases where the patient is not poor and/or has assets that can be acquired, but don't feel too sorry for those folks -- they could have had health insurance and chose not to, for some reason.

Insurance is typically paid for by the insured, but many companies cover some or all of the cost. If for some reason you lose your job, you can continue health insurance under a government plan called COBRA, in which you pay the full cost for up to 18 months or less if you can arrange something else. Insurance companies tend to rape you a bit on the cost under COBRA (jacking the price even if your employer was paying nothing, on the obvious lie that it cost them less because you were getting a group rate, the bastards), so you typically get it replaced. I've been on COBRA a couple of times, and it's no big deal.

 

I'm not defending the American system, by the way, god knows. Just explaining how it works to those who may not be familiar.

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I think the health situation in the US is a national shame for the country. The US is the richest country one Earth (as of now) and actually spends the most on healthcare in the world yet 44 million people don’t have access to healthcare? Since Bush came into power 4 million more people now have no healthcare coverage at all, and I find that to be completely and utterly unethical. Canada has her problems with healthcare that is no mystery, but we have by far one of the best systems in the world. I went to the worst hospital in Toronto, and the waiting time was about one hour, a bit much but I’d rather wait then pay $1,000 to talk for 15 minutes to a doctor. There are problems in Canada’s system, for instance many Canadians go to the US for MRI treatments because of the backlog, and the government is starting to invest billions to correct that situation. I’d much rather live in Canada then in the US…no question.

 

I fully agree, Undecided.

 

The problem is getting people off their duffs to do something about it. Health care is something everyone loves to complain about, but talk about fixing it and people doze off faster than a door man at the DNC.

As you point out, Undecided, the Canadian system is not without its flaws, so I don't think most Americans are willing to just socialize the whole thing and call it a done deal (not that you were suggesting that). I think we need to focus on it and put our brains to work and come up with the right answers.

Thing is, even people who are *aware* of the problems seem blissfully unaware of the potential *solutions*, or what's even being looked at by leadership. I'm going to post some information here that I imagine 99% of *this forum* is unaware of, even though the members of this forum are far more focused and active about such things than the average citizen. That speaks *volumes* about the problem.

The best resource I've found for following efforts in the US to solve healthcare is Centrists.org, which has a non-partisan perspective on this thing. They've collected some resources that are pretty helpful.

http://www.centrists.org/index.html

In general, what these folks favor is a bipartisan approach that combines the Kerry plan along with the recent Frist "Healthy Mae" proposal. In a nutshell, that would be a system that increases the government involvement but stops a bit short of socialization.

The Kerry health plan is sketched out in broad, campaign-oriented strokes here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/health_care/

Jeff Lemieux at centrists.org has laid out an analysis of the two plans in an interesting article which may be found here:
http://www.centrists.org/pages/2004/07/13_lemieux_health.html

In a nutshell, the advantages of combining these two plans (which, by the way, is probably the most likely scenario over the next year, whether Kerry wins or not) are that it puts the vast majority of currently uncovered, high-risk, low-income citizens into health care plans and pretty much guarantees health care for children.

On the down side, it's still pretty murky on the details, and it clearly doesn't address the problem of companies charging off-the-scale prices for healthcare. I believe there's a quote out there from Kerry along the lines of "one thing at a time", but I don't have a source on that.

 

The US today cannot possibly create a universal healthcare system, with the baby boomers coming online in the next 5 years the healthcare costs are going to explode; I don’t even know how Canada can deal with such an influx of geriatrics’! The US is in big trouble in the next 20 years; Bush has created a simply horrid budget situation. People who like their tax cuts better like tax hikes because they sure are a coming. Inflation in the US should rise as a result, supply shocks are certain to happen, higher government spending, demand better start going down so the situation can correct itself. Canada has a healthy budgetary surplus, a luxury the US doesn’t have. Oh well…you wanted your retarded tax cuts and boy did u get it.

 

Well, I wouldn't say that the problem is any more insoluble than the savings and loan crisis, the deficit, or inflation, all of which were said to be impossible to fix. In fact if the problem is as directly tied to the economy and jobs forcast as many suggest, then an upswing in jobs and the economy greatly enhances our ability to take care of the problem.

One thing is for sure: Throwing our hands in the air and declaring it unfixable won't get it fixed. (grin)

 

Well, I wouldn't say that the problem is any more insoluble than the savings and loan crisis, the deficit, or inflation, all of which were said to be impossible to fix.

All of which afflict the US economy right now, those things are fixable. A demographic shift is not fixable unless you kill all those baby boomers. All those with a huge increase in the costs of taking care of the old is a situation that the US has to come to terms with. Also you seemed to forget a low US dollar

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In fact if the problem is as directly tied to the economy and jobs forcast as many suggest, then an upswing in jobs and the economy greatly enhances our ability to take care of the problem.

Not necessary, because the inflation aspect acts independently of wages, and inflation can stop all economic growth like it did in the 70’s.

 

On the contrary, all three of those problems (S&L, inflation, and deficit) were fixed. The deficit returned not because it's systemic but because we brought it back deliberately (not that I agree with the reasons for that, mind you). My point was that all of those issues were analyzed, treated and dealt with.

All of these things can, of course, become issues again, if we're not vigilent about dealing with the economy. But my point was that all of these problems seemed insurmountable, but turned out not to be.

 

On the contrary, all three of those problems (S&L, inflation, and deficit) were fixed.

Oh really? That’s news to me because all three are on the raise right now…

My point was that all of those issues were analyzed, treated and dealt with.

In a different era, and different mechanisms to deal with them.

All of these things can, of course, become issues again, if we're not vigilent about dealing with the economy.

LOL! They are issues right now Pangloss what do you honestly think that those are long gone dreams?

But my point was that all of these problems seemed insurmountable, but turned out not to be.

Ok so how to get deal with Healthcare consuming 21% of the GDP?

 

I think you're so busy making me wrong you've forgotten what my point is. (chuckle)

There is no more savings and loan crisis. Inflation is negligible, what about 1.5%? Yawn. I said initially that the deficit is back -- my point was that we dealt with it before, so clearly it's not an insurmountable problem.

At some point I'm going to let you have the last word here, because I know that's important to you (it seems to make you think you've won when I stop talking, hehe), and I don't think we're going anywhere with this.

 

There is no more savings and loan crisis.

Americans aren’t saving, per capita credit card debt is $7,000+ and with market rate mortgages with the increased home ownership in less then capable hands yes the US is in a big credit crunch. Why do you think Greenspan wants to raise Interest Rates?

Inflation is negligible, what about 1.5%?

I summarize the very bad situation the US in:

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=655898#post655898

Yawn indeed…

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I said initially that the deficit is back -- my point was that we dealt with it before, so clearly it's not an insurmountable problem.

Back when baby boomers were working, when there wasn’t an international war with no end, and back when outsourcing wasn’t even a real issue. This is a new reality; such pleasantries no longer exist as they did in 1992-93.

 

Um.... the savings and loan crisis was a specific event in history, guy. It didn't have anything to do with personal savings. No biggie, if you're not familiar with it. It was a crisis that the first Bush administration had to deal with, essentially bailing out the industry, at a cost of about $150 billion. It was brought about by poor management in the unregulated S&L industry, such as investing in junk bonds (does the name Michael Milken ring a bell?).

Looks like a good article on it here, if you'd like to read more:
http://www.erisk.com/Learning/CaseStudies/ref_case_ussl.asp