What is really sad is that there are viable models out there that would be better. But what we have so far, and what we are likely to get for changes, are much more likely to make things worse rather than better.

A pity. Maybe it'll start you on the right path though.

Our system needs to be made better too. Just read an article saying while Canada's system is quite good, there are other models that are even better, but they are hard to implement because public opinion is that Canada has the best healthcare model in the world.

The writer then went on to describe how it could be made better and compared it to other countries that did have a better model. Depressingly, the comments were filled with people saying we have the best healthcare system in the world despite an article outlining exactly what needs to be improved and which countries have managed to do it. Rather amazing that people who can't read with comprehension are still able to use a keyboard to let everyone know they can't read with comprehension. If only communication abilities were disabled until a critical threshold of knowledge were reached.

That's why monarchy is the only way, Ken. Why should millions of fools be in charge when you can get away with employing only one?

It's hard to judge that without knowing what rhetoric you mean. Or what the Canadian system was like before. Or why non-specific rhetoric that was wrong about a single-payer system must necessarily be wrong about a completely different system. I don't see any validity to the idea that ANY bill that increases government involvement in healthcare, no matter what it says, must necesssarily be a good thing, simply because the criticiss of it vaguely resemble criticisms of a completely different system, but that's what you seem to be saying here.

With Canada, at least somebody wanted what they got. Nobody wanted Obamacaare, Democrats included. They only settled for it because it was the best they could do without bipartisanship after the people of Massachusetts got uppity and elected Scott Brown. The Democrats never intended for this to be the final bill, which is one of the raesons why it's a mess.

Rhetoric like it's Socialism, will lead to Communism, will cause loss of jobs and economic collapse, will encourage people to take advantage of the system.

It isn't Socialism and doesn't lead to anything more sinister than the usual limp democracy. It provided many more jobs. The economy didn't collapse and in fact got much better (not necessarily because of healthcare although worker productivity went up as fewer people were out of work from long-term preventable illnesses. In fact, cost savings from universal healthcare have exceeded the costs of providing universal healthcare by hundreds of millions of dollars on a consistent basis).

That cost savings, by the way, is being used for an argument to provide people with universal dental coverage because there is a very strong link between heart disease and periodontal disease. Prevent the periodontal disease and you can reduce heart disease (and subsequent financial costs from that) by a huge margin. Like healthcare, it is an investment in your country and people.

Some people will take advantage of the system, but that's a price I accept because pretty much every other person (family, friends, me, most Canadians) do not have to make a decision between paying for rent/food or medical care.

So you're saying the Republicans messed it up as they were busy inciting the Tea Party with talk of Socialist agendas and other fear-mongering rather than sitting down and hammering out a workable plan with Democrats? If they weren't so busy with their goal of making sure Obama is a one-term president vs the goal of doing what is best for Americans, then you'd have a better system?

The Republicans weren't involved in its creation. Neither were 90% of the Democrats. The rank and file Democrats who went on TV to promote it had to do so in the most general of terms, becauese they had no idea what was in it until the last minute. It was concocted in secret by a small committee, who rolled it out as soon before the vote as they could. This is not what we were promised. We were promised a completely open process, with negotiations on C-Span, so everyone could see who was fighting for them and who was against them. The breaking of that promise alone is reason enough to oppose it. Obviously they realized that they didn't dare show us that.

I'd be interested to hear which of these criticisms also appeared in the Canadian debate in the 60's.

Small committee. Check.
Not what we were promised. Check.
C-Span. Okay, no televised proceedings.

It received fierce opposition by politicians, many doctors and other Canadians when it was finally rolled out. Doctors had actually opposed the idea itself for decades but during the dust bowl and Depression, many doctors started to change their minds.

There were some aborted attempts shortly after the Depression and subsequent War that didn't last more than a year (BC, Alberta). And MacKenzie King (PM) promised to introduce a national plan but didn't deliver when he became prime minister.

Then it was first introduced in Saskatchewan on a small scale with just partial coverage for people. Later it spread to the rest of Canada once people saw how it actually worked (as opposed to what pundits were claiming how it worked).

You can find some of the details in this book about Tommy Douglas.

The Douglas plan has changed considerably...coverage has improved and been extended, for example, as people realize it was working well and that it could work even better. So not written in stone but can be improved.

So since history is repeating itself maybe this poor act available now can be improved in the next few years, and continue to improve over the decades. It seems the first step is the hardest, most opposed, but the most important.

Things are quite different now in some ways though. It is extraordinarily easy to disseminate falsehoods on a large scale. It has become very easy for propaganda networks to sway large numbers of people by propagating the falsehoods and twisted truths. Given the success of these networks in combating science, influencing policies, delaying actions, I wonder if it will ever be possible to make headway on any important issue again. The Montreal Protocol may turn out to be the high point of our civilization where every country in the world worked together to protect the ozone. It is doubtful we could do the exact same thing again today as the ideologists outshout truth and evidence much easier than before.

Is socialism a dirty word in Canada like it is in the US? Western Europe seems to be more or less okay with the term, but here people react so strongly to it that the politicians would rather lie than try to change people's minds, so they swear that something isn't socialist, even in cases when it is. But is Canada that way too?

Obamacare isn't socialism, it's just a bad bill (surely they have those in Canada too?). It requires everyone to buy a product from a monopoly without doing anything to get the costs of that product down. It doesn't do me much good to know that the insurance companies can't refuse me, if I can't pay their premium, and if my employer drops health care coverage because it's now too expensive for him to offer. In that case I end up worse off than I was before.

As far as I can tell, this is totally different from the Canadian system, so the implication that this system must be good because the Canadian system is doesn't make much sense to me.

Add to that the fact that the plan concocted in secret, despite broken promises of transparency, that it was never sold to the public, and passed with a majority opposed to it just naturally makes people distrustful. In a democracy, even with a good plan, you really need to sell it to the public before passing it. Was the Canadian system passed on an unwilling public, or were more people for it than against it? Was the Canadian system passed by bribing representatives to give their district an exemption from the system as long as they'd vote to apply it to others? I haven't heard that any parts of Canada are exempted from the Canadian system. If the argument is that Obamacare is good because it's just like a successful Canadian system, then we haven't heard these dirty details about your system.

Incidentally, I've been thinking about what I said to Sam, that people like to argue with Chess Fan because he reinforces their prejudices that anyone who takes an opposing view on one of the big issues is a complete porridge brain. With that in mind, I was thinking that we could employ a rating system, similar to Politifact to try to gauge where we stand. You know, like Politifact's "True" would equal "0% Chess Fan", and their "Pants on Fire" rating could equal "100% Chess Fan". So, if you could rate a post like this as "40% Chess Fan", or "25% Chess Fan", or something like that, then at least I'd have an idea when an argument was getting no traction, and something else needed trying.

Directly below, I have posted columnist Cal Thomas' commentary opinion article, (which is titled, "Bait and Switch on Obamacare"), in which he pretty much "says it like it is" concerning all of the devious shenanigans that were employed, both by the United States government, and the Supreme Court in order to enable "Obamacare" to become the law of the land in the United States of America.

Here now is the link to that article by Cal Thomas: -- "Bait and Switch on Obamacare"


Chess Fan