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healthcare is a Provincial thing.

That would explain why wait times are unthinkably long in New Brunswick, but merely atrocious in Ontario -- as documented by Canada's Fraser Institute.

Nice anecdote, but the plural of anecdote is not data. Here's some data from Canada's Fraser Institute.

The U.S. is not necessarily more capitalist than Europe. If you look at common rankings of economic freedom, you will find that there are many European countries with as much or more economic freedom than the United States.

There is this pervasive and pernicious notion that the United States is somehow the bastion of free market capitalism and that Europe (particularly the Scandinavian countries) are immensely socialist. If you start looking at very specific parts of each, you can find plenty of examples where there is a sharp contrast, but taken as a whole, they are very similar.

Remarkably little? As a Canadian I'm a little miffed at that, as Trump has taken away a massive amount of our foreign investment with his reduction of taxes and regulations. To be fair, he's had Trudeau on our side increasing taxes and regulations which has exacerbated Trump's successes, but the data is quite clear. (Examples here and here).

You might think these are just economist talking points but they have significant effect on economic growth and quality of life for each country, and Trump is clearly winning here.

~100 years of the federal government paying natives under treaty, and it's effectively collapsed their entire culture and society.

Got any additional blanket wisdom for the entire continent of Africa? All those darkies, can't hardly tell 'em apart, at least not until they open the wallet they don't have.

In the modern era, the one where we've discovered distributed representation (machine learning), you might model the plight of the many indigenous groups who have fallen into social decay as a combination of alcoholism, racism, residential schools, and the prevailing economic policy, among many other things an ML algorithm would factor into a 1000-term vector we don't fully understand.

Taxpayers are generous to First Nations — byline date-fucked; inferred as circa 2014

Thus, let's start with some hard numbers and look at the trend-line.

In the federal department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, with data gleaned from federal archives, department spending per registered First Nations person rose to $9,056 per person by 2012 from $922 in 1950 (and the figures are already adjusted for inflation so this is an apple-to-apple comparison).

In comparison, federal program spending on all Canadians (including native Canadians) rose to $7,316 per person in 2012 from $1,504 per capita back in 1950. [alarmist word revised]

Wow, somehow that whopping $1700 increment—as reported by the right-leaning Frasier Institute—leads diverse indigenous populations across the board into economic malaise and social ruin.

And this paltry increment is only a recent figure. Back in 1950 it was a decrement (as reported by the Frasier Institute). I don't think Canada has a track record of any consistent policy on this front, certainly not over 100 years.

We do have closer to a 100-year track record on discrimination, residential schools, and rampant alcoholism (though many progressive native communities, having come to terms with their genetic and cultural propensities, now consume far less alcohol than the Canadian average).

This is the key question. In Canada during the trial of UBI, it was simply taken from taxpayers. See here for how much tax is paid by each income bracket. The chart tops out at "$186,000 and up" but I would be curious how much the ultra-rich pay vs. those doing pretty well.
As a middle-class tax payer, it infuriates me that I seem to pay for everyone else's education, family benefits, etc. and don't qualify for any of those benefits myself because I make "too much money", and therefore it must be ok to take more and more from me until I make "barely enough money". That seems to be the goal - to keep hard working people like me under someone else's boot. UBI is just giving the mixing bowl a bit of a stir so the divide between low and middle income gets blurrier. The ultra-rich will remain ultra rich.

Oh, I don't know, maybe you could consult a report and take a closer look at Kenya or Botswana? If you were actually interested in doing anything real instead of scoring cheap "hur dur, Africa is backwards!" points on /., that is.

Free healthcare.

The wait times are insane: see this for a 2017 report.

A wait of 21 weeks to see the surgeon? In non-SPH country I got an appt for a surgeon the day after I saw the GP.

I spoke to a candian recently who waited two weeks for an MRI. Apparently that is normal. I waited 30 minutes for the MRI after seeing the neurosurgeon, and four days later I had my operation.

Did it cost? Certainly, but that's what my medical insurance is for and they covered it almost fully. The co-pay was small enough that I didn't care about it.

SPH sounds like a good idea on paper. In practice it reduces all patients to the same level of importance to society. While the capitalistic system may have its problems, as long as society finds you important enough to pay you well, you'll get prioritised over those people who cannot afford top-of-the-range insurance.

I prefer it this way. I don't see why an active and contributing member of society should receive equal priority to a welfare recipient. Give them both healthcare services, and let the one with the money jump the queue, because if they have the money then it means that society found them useful enough to give them money.

There *are* problems that must be fixed with this system, but they won't be fixed with single-payer healthcare.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=...

Patients also experience significant waiting times for various diagnostic technologies across the provinces. This year, Canadians could expect to wait 3.7 weeks for a computed tomography (CT) scan, 11.1 weeks for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and 4.0 weeks for an ultrasound.Nov 23, 2016

https://globalnews.ca/news/308...

https://www.fraserinstitute.or...

However, Canadian's lifespans exceed that of both U.K. and the U.S. significantly at 82.14 years.

Wikipedia is absolute shit in terms of understanding what's going on here, and the article itself is so poorly written that it's silly. Try reading that and you'll get a better understanding. Ontario already has guaranteed rates for nuclear power plants, just a FYI. It adds a production cost of between 0.02-0.03kWh to the base cost during the last 15 years prior to refurbishment. The last government audit before the watch dog on electricity prices was gutted by the provincial liberals put the minimum cost that FIT and green energy was increasing the price was 16.5%, that was in ~2013.

People are so quick to jump on the FIT program and green energy costs here in Ontario. They seem to forget the billion dollars we have to pay off in order to cancel a contract for a couple of gas turbine generating stations to be built so the Liberals could win those seats in an election. In a statement concerning the rate hikes a couple of years ago (2 or 3) raising wages were responsible for approximately half of the hike. There are a lot of people making over $100k in the power companies.

Except that the FIT program and subsidies are directly responsible for those energy costs. Not those "gas power plants" that they cancelled and screwed the province over. See that link above that says "global news" where the provincial Liberal government openly states that it's the "green energy program" aka FIT that's the direct cause of the high electricity prices. Maybe you can enjoy reading this article instead. Or perhaps you can read this one. You know where the blame falls directly on the green energy program and the FIT system. Or perhaps even this one. Yeah, it all falls back to one place. Then you can get into this bullshit.

People living under "green energy" recoil in horror as energy prices go through the roof due to FiT programs. Progressives continue to wonder why all those people don't vote for them and, tell their friends that they know what's best for everyone.

You are listing ages old US installations.

No idea why they are such expensive.

New installations in Germany are cheaper than nuclear since years. And Germany is not a particular good country for either wind (except the coast) or solar.

Thanks for showing that you're nothing but a shill pushing an agenda. Those are "brand new CANADIAN" installations.

The fact that you don't understand why, explains a lot. I know why, because of FIT programs. These are exactly the same programs that cause electricity prices to skyrocket in Germany, Greece, UK, Norway, Sweden. The fact that you don't understand that Ontario generate more electricity then it uses, and consumers are charged an outrageous amount to off-set the costs of green energy is the problem. You're trying to turn around and claim that green energy isn't the reason that it's driving electricity rates through the roof. When not only the energy producers say so, but the leftist pro-green energy media and government itself says so.

Nothing is perfect but rail is objectively safer.
https://www.fraserinstitute.or...

You suggest that there are pipeline leakages. There must be but surely this becomes an oversight/maintenance problem.

The oil still has to move from A -> B. Trains/Trucks have far more risk than pipelines.

If you want to abstain from usage, fine. But until you do, you need your fix to get to you.

It would be the height of hypocrisy to type on your plastic keyboard on your electric computer in your heated home and pretend to be against fossil fuels.

For another thing, the people who would benefit most from this would be Inuit and good luck with that because Canadians seem to fucking hate the Inuit.

Um, no. At least not when it comes to economics. Some very conservative numbers: https://www.fraserinstitute.or...

I suppose some Canadians hate Aboriginals because it is so hard to fire them when they're doing a bad job, and of course there's some basic racism, but there's such a huge immigrant population in Canada these days that I think more of the racism is directed toward the immigrants, and or to the old favorite (French speakers if you're outside of Quebec) (English speakers if you're in Quebec). Plus of course the politics.

Per person, Ontarians currently owe $20,166 (Cdn) compared to $3,844 for Californiansâ"more than 5 times the per capita level of debt. Consequently, Ontarians shoulder much higher debt servicing costs: 9.2% of budget revenues in Ontario are devoted to interest payments compared to 2.8% in California.

People make fun of California and talk about them teetering on bankruptcy. But they look positively peachy compared to California. Granted this is from a right wing think tank, but the truth is the truth. And the new liberal government's budget proposals promise to run 10+ billion dollar deficits per year for the following several years. Ontario is doomed. It is the last place anyone would want to go now.

I'm pretty sure the rest of the world loves the USA because we have the most freedoms

Citation needed

Hear, hear! Health care should be completely decoupled from employment. That would be pro-business, and I'm always amazed it hasn't been promoted as such. It works for Canada and many other countries.

If we based our views only on what we are generally told during these discussion on Slashdot we would have to believe that nationalized medical care is a bountiful panacea with no drawbacks. For some reason we seldom hear about the problems. Pretty much every nationalized healthcare system has it's problems, often significant ones.

For example, although many Britons are proud of the NHS for the high standard of care they feel it provides, it does have its critics and issues. The same is true for Canada's system, and those of other nations. An honest appraisal should include both sides of the story when they are being advocated.

Americans pay more, it is true, but they don't end up in the long queues for treatment that often exist in those systems. There are various other implications as well in terms of available treatments, and who the system is willing to treat.

The Canadian Patients’ Remedy for Health Care: Go to America!

. The annual study “Paying More: Getting Less“ produced by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, found that government-run monopolies established in each province of Canada (simultaneously barring private operators from competing for the delivery of public health services) produce rates of growth in government health care spending that are “not financially sustainable through public means alone.” Each province’s policy of insulating consumers from price signals, such as premiums, co-payments and deductibles, has naturally led to over-consumption of medical treatment. Thus provincial governments, encountering fiscal restraints, must resort to long queues and the rationing of care.

And wait patients must. A hospital survey of five countries (United States, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia), conducted by Robert Blendon and colleagues in Health Affairs found that “waits of six months or more for elective surgeries were reported to occur ‘very often’ or ‘often’ by 26–57 percent of executives in the four non-U.S. countries; only 1 percent of U.S. hospitals reported this. Half of all Canadian hospitals reported an average waiting time of over six months for a 65-year-old male requiring a routine hip replacement; no American hospital administrators reported waits this long. --- more

The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
The Canadian Patients’ Remedy for Health Care: Go to America!

Patients facing eight-hour waits in ambulances outside A&E departments
'Cruel and neglectful' care of one million NHS patients exposed
British healthcare in crisis despite massive investment
'Right to die' can become a 'duty to die'

Hear, hear! Health care should be completely decoupled from employment. That would be pro-business, and I'm always amazed it hasn't been promoted as such. It works for Canada and many other countries.

If we based our views only on what we are generally told during these discussion on Slashdot we would have to believe that nationalized medical care is a bountiful panacea with no drawbacks. For some reason we seldom hear about the problems. Pretty much every nationalized healthcare system has it's problems, often significant ones.

For example, although many Britons are proud of the NHS for the high standard of care they feel it provides, it does have its critics and issues. The same is true for Canada's system, and those of other nations. An honest appraisal should include both sides of the story when they are being advocated.

Americans pay more, it is true, but they don't end up in the long queues for treatment that often exist in those systems. There are various other implications as well in terms of available treatments, and who the system is willing to treat.

The Canadian Patients’ Remedy for Health Care: Go to America!

. The annual study “Paying More: Getting Less“ produced by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, found that government-run monopolies established in each province of Canada (simultaneously barring private operators from competing for the delivery of public health services) produce rates of growth in government health care spending that are “not financially sustainable through public means alone.” Each province’s policy of insulating consumers from price signals, such as premiums, co-payments and deductibles, has naturally led to over-consumption of medical treatment. Thus provincial governments, encountering fiscal restraints, must resort to long queues and the rationing of care.

And wait patients must. A hospital survey of five countries (United States, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia), conducted by Robert Blendon and colleagues in Health Affairs found that “waits of six months or more for elective surgeries were reported to occur ‘very often’ or ‘often’ by 26–57 percent of executives in the four non-U.S. countries; only 1 percent of U.S. hospitals reported this. Half of all Canadian hospitals reported an average waiting time of over six months for a 65-year-old male requiring a routine hip replacement; no American hospital administrators reported waits this long. --- more

The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
The Canadian Patients’ Remedy for Health Care: Go to America!

Patients facing eight-hour waits in ambulances outside A&E departments
'Cruel and neglectful' care of one million NHS patients exposed
British healthcare in crisis despite massive investment
'Right to die' can become a 'duty to die'

It's a misleading number. It comes from this study by the Fraser Institute. Basically, they said "the government spends X% of it's income on health care, therefore we can take X% of each citizen's tax bill as the amount that they paid for health care". This is perfectly reasonable on its own, but the GP cherry-picked the number for a married couple with no kids because they have the highest tax bill. This makes Canadian health care costs seem higher than they truly are.

If you do an apples to apples comparison, the Canadians have a clear advantage.

Single adult: $3780 in Canada, $5884 in US
Family of four: $11320 in Canada, $16351 in US

Canadian numbers are from the Fraser Institute study, US numbers are from this study by KFF.

1 - Hong Kong
2 - Singapore
3 - Australia
4 - New Zealand
5 - Switzerland
6 - Canada
7 - Chile
8 - Mauritius
9 - Denmark
10 - United States

Fraser top 10 (Chapter 3, page 9):

1 - New Zealand
2 - Netherlands
3 - Hong Kong
4 - Australia
5 - Canada
6 - Ireland
7 - United States of America
8 - Denmark
9 - Japan
10 - Estonia

So they seem to be in agreement that Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong are freer than the United States.

I'm sure the proposal is missing a few items, but in theory, it's a good one.

I don't know that a sales tax would generate enough revenue at palatable rates. The national Canadian sales tax (the GST) seems to generate a bit under $5 billion per percentage point ( http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2009/06/16/f-gst-cut-estimate-deficit.html ) but that does have various exemptions including groceries. While the total of the federal income tax and consumption tax seems to be a bit under $200 billion per year ($153 billion income tax, $43 billion consumption tax for 2009 for example - http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/govt02a-eng.htm ) For 2011 it looks like the federal budget was about $270 billion ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_federal_budget ).

Since basic groceries are currently non-GST taxed in Canada, we could get a bit more than $5 billion per tax percentage point. From ( http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/03/america-food-getting-cheaper-unless-youre-poor/4923/ ) we see that Canadians as a whole spend about 10% of their family budget on food at home. Since the $5 billion per percentage point does not include these groceries purchases, it only represents about 90% of purchases. If we taxed that food too, we should generate about $5.6 billion per percentage point. To generate $270 billion we would need to charge a rate of 48.2% on total purchases of about $560 billion.

Is this total purchases number reasonable? Stats Canada says ( http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil131a-eng.htm) the average family consumption for 2011 was about $55k for 13.3 million households ( http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011003_2-eng.cfm ) for $731 billion so this is not an unreasonable number. I'll use the $731 billion as it is probably more accurate than the calculation based on GST collection. So if we have $731 billion in purchases, we will need to collect at a 37% rate to generate $70 billion.

If you make exemptions for "necessities" the rate would need to be higher. How much higher? Well, if we want to exempt the necessities, one way would be to in some way not collect taxes on "basic needs", or give a rebate on the taxes paid for those amounts. We can get a figure for what these "basic needs" might cost ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Canada#Basic_needs_poverty_measure and http://www.fraserinstitute.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=3443 for 2006 data) . Not taxing these "basic needs" would be "better" than just excepting categories like "food, gas, utilities" in that we would be able to collect taxes on food and gas and utilities beyond the "necessary" level - people buying "rice and beans" end up getting them without being taxed while those buy8ing caviar and foie gras get dinged by the tax-man. Yeah this might be hard to administer, but we are trying for the best possible argument for this type of system.

In 2006 this seemed to be about $16,000 per couple or for the whole population of a bit under 32 million, this would to about $256 billion in exempted purchases. Gosh, that's a big fraction of all purchases! Maybe the average family size is bigger than that? Actually, it seems to be about 2.5 for the whole country, b

real wages are down from their peak (which occurred more than 35 years ago)

However real hourly compensation has been rising pretty steadily. More benefits are being passed through employers tax free, such as health care costs, which don't show up in wages. And the government pulls out more of your money in payroll taxes (of course, if you think Social Security and other taxes are a waste, then you might be able to argue that real compensation has not actually been going up).

minimum wage is just over half of its peak

Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Only 2% of workers over age 25 earn the minimum wage. About half of minimum wage earners are under age 25, and about one-fourth are age 16-19.

The minimum wage probably causes more unemployment (and for illegal aliens, informal employment) than it helps to reduce poverty. Most people in poverty earn more than the minimum wage, but are poor because they work fewer hours than those not in poverty. Often this is because they are single parents.

there are 12 million more Americans living in poverty today than 30 years ago

Of course, the definition of "poverty" has been raised during this time. 30 years ago, most people in poverty did not have microwave ovens or refrigerators or a car. See this article for a comparison of "the poor" from 30 years ago to today.

I'm not saying it is cool to be poor, but it is far easier to be poor in 2008 than 1978.

Keep in mind we have taken on about 30 million illegal immigrants over the last 30 years as well. They are doing a heck of a lot better in the US than they would have were they came from (where they would be truly "poor"), but they will pull down average wage numbers as they don't come in highly skilled.

millions are now losing their homes

That is true, but of course homeownership was at an all time high of 69% before the bubble burst. It still remains higher than most other developed countries. Plus while they may be defaulting on home loans, most are able to rent.

Unemployment is at 6 percent nationwide and 11 percent in my state of Michigan.

US unemployment is actually 5.7%, while Michigan's is 8.5%.

But this does make one think that Michigan is doing something wrong. According to the Economic Freedom of North America study, Michigan is ranked 39th of the states and provinces in terms of subnational level economic freedom. Thus, I suggest that Michigan improve its policies to enhance its economic freedom.

You might not be aware of this fact it if you come from a background of privilege, but that doesn't say good things about you.

Well I've done the taxes for many poor immigrants to help them get the Earned Income Tax Credit, which actually does something to reduce poverty.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/admin/books/files/F ailedExperimentRev.pdf would be a good read for you.

Don't let the facts get in your way. BBC Fraser Institute