Free as in "free speech", not "free beer" - this is the new open source health care.

In this case, you don't get what you pay for.

Those doing the paying never get what they pay for with govt.

The 1-arm bandits in Vegas have a much better payback percentage than govt.

Hey guys, read their story, and make a donation will ya? It's kind of hard not to want to do so. I pitched in $50 canadian via their site: http://save.anu-vie.org
to quote ben stiller in starsky & hutch: do it!

"Every son needs a mother," Linda said.
"My mother is my world," Jonathan said.

Jesus Christ, my teeth.

Hey - someone get that Krugman-quoting troll in here.

In all seriousness, the Cdn system does acutally deliver pretty good primary care (check-ups, visits to the GP, basic preventative healthcare, etc). Basically, anything you can get from your doctor or a specialist in his or her office will be fine. As soon as you have to enter a Cdn Hospital, all bets are off. No matter how good your doc (and most of them are very good) the hospital and its admin will find a way to frack you and the doc. Sometimes to death.

I suggest

Oh, and in BC, where I come from, anyone who earns more than nothing still has to pay "premium" to the govt for this wonderful service, in addition to the crippling tax burden. AND a lot of services still aren't covered by this "universal" healthcare, so you better hope that you have anemployer that offers supplemental insurance - for which you will also pay premiums. How great is that.

See the Barbarian Invasion

At my current job in the US I pay about USD $220 / month for coverage for my wife and myself. In Canada we paid USD-equivalent $110 for just the Supp Insurance plus another $60 or so to the govt in premium plus a lot more tax - and I now live in NY, a damned high-tax jurisdiction, where my income taxes are still a lot lower than in BC. And the charity hospitals for the "poor" are pretty much as bad/good as the ones to which ALL British Columbians a relegated.

Canada is a great place if you have a cold.

Not so much if you have SARS.

Off-topic, but I don't care. Look what Ed over at Captain's Quarters has found.

Al-Watan al-Arabi (Paris) reports that two Iraqis were arrested in Germany, charged with spying for Baghdad. The arrests came in the wake of reports that Iraq was reorganizing the external branches of its intelligence service and that it had drawn up a plan to strike at US interests around the world through a network of alliances with extremist fundamentalist parties.

The most serious report contained information that Iraq and Osama bin Ladin were working together. German authorities were surprised by the arrest of the two Iraqi agents and the discovery of Iraqi intelligence activities in several German cities. German authorities, acting on CIA recommendations, had been focused on monitoring the activities of Islamic groups linked to bin Ladin. They discovered the two Iraqi agents by chance and uncovered what they considered to be serious indications of cooperation between Iraq and bin Ladin. The matter was considered so important that a special team of CIA and FBI agents was sent to Germany to interrogate the two Iraqi spies.

What the HMO system in the US has made us forget is, basic healthcare isn't all that expensive. My HMO went belly up a few years back, so I bought insurance against major catastrophe and paid for the routine stuff out of pocket for a few years.

It was amazing. An office visit was $60. A full blood workup $110. I easily spent more maintaining my car than my self.

Now, you get hit by a bus, that's another story...

S. Weasel,

I might be wrong, but I'll bet the cash payers are subsidized by those that have insurance. I've had friends do the cash only option with dental and their charges are about half what the insurance companies get billed.

Ace, I think you're missing the point. Under socialized medicine, everyone is equal. Isn't that great? The rich can afford to pay for healthcare if they need to, and everyone else is equally fucked.

Skinbad, I don't know if "subsidized" is the right word. Cash payers do pay a lower rate, but there's approaching zero paperwork associated with the transaction. We take up the doctor's time. People with insurance take up the office manager's time, too. And people with a government subsidy take up even more of it.