<<Canadians live about 80.7 years....Americans about 78.2.....whooopDeeeeDoo!>>
2 and 1/2 years longer ain't chicken feed. There's a reason for it, too.
<<You've already spoken about the tiny black population in Canada,
<<In comparison to the US a tiny minority poplulation.
<<Do you deny minorities and blacks in particular have higher mortality rates?
<<There are many reasons unrelated to socialized healthcare that affect the small longevity difference.>>
You've got more blacks but only 1% of your population is Indian and we have 3.5% Indian. They DO have shorter life spans, due to poverty, and its side-effects. Anyway, we don't live in an apartheid society, we count ALL our citizens in determining national life expectancy, you should too. Your system owes as much to black Americans as it does to white Americans. And when each side counts ALL its citizens, we are living 2 and 1/2 years longer on average. All of us - - whites, blacks, Indians and Asians.
<<If it's so great why did the Supreme Court of Canada declare in June 2005 that the government
health care monopoly in Quebec is a violation of basic human rights?>>
The decision was a 5/4 split so it's a pretty controversial decision. They found the wait times were unacceptable. It's a good thing for your argument that the Supreme Court of Canada didn't also consider the state of the U.S. health care system. If they found Quebec's system violated basic human rights, they would have found the U.S. system was an even bigger violator, since it leaves 42,000 Americans to die unnecessary deaths every single year.
<<In 2006, the average wait time in Canada for seeing a primary care doctor to getting treatment by
a specialist was more than four months!....FOUR FREAKING MONTHS!>>
So what's the average wait time for an American with no money and no insurance to get to see a doctor? A whole fucking lifetime, because he just doesn't see the doctor. Period. Which is WHY you have 42,000 unnecessary deaths a year. In Canada, we have a system where for elective and non-emergency care, the waits are longer, but for urgent care, the wait is minimal. The "average" wait time is just reflecting the fact that most primary care and most specialist visits are for elective and non-urgent situations., so naturally the average wait time is longer. The proof of the pudding is that we are living 2 and 1/2 years longer than you are, so I guess the longer average wait times aren't having much of an effect on the general population.
<<Out of a population of 32 million, there are about 3.2 million Canadians trying to get a primary care doctor.>>
So why don't you show out of a population of 302 million people, how many Americans are waiting to get a primary care doctor? (Obviously with 47 million Americans uninsured, there are plenty who aren't even waiting because they don't want to be taken in as a charity case or because they know the doctor won't take them in anyway.)
<<Today, according to the OECD, Canada ranks 24th out of 28 major industrialized countries in doctors per
thousand people.>>
But what good are doctors if the people have no money and no insurance to see them? Sure there are doctors for the rich, raking in huge amounts of money but relatively few of the bastards really want to serve the people. They make more money on 100 rich patients than they do on 2,000 poor patients, so you figure it out - - they make enough working half-days on a smaller number of rich folks and spend the extra time on the fairway. THAT'S maybe good for the doctor, not so good for the people, and even worse for the uninsured people.
