Ontario supposedly spends 45% of it's revenue on health care. You wouldn't know it trying to find a doctor or seeing the inside of a typical hospital.
I don't deny that they money is being spent, but it is not being done so in a manner that is remotely effective. The bureacratic overhead stikes me as criminal.
The measure of a "healty" socialist system, if ever there can be such a thing, is to compare what is taken from an individual in the form of taxes to provide a service to what that individual could have received elsewhere for the tax levied. Those who are subsidized will be better off, and those doing the subsidizing will be worse off.
The question is, how much better off are those who are subsidized, and at what cost does this come to those doing the subsidizing?
Many faiths suggest a tithe of 10% of income to "the church", ostensibly to "help the poor". And, while a libertarian, I do see value in helping those who, through no fault of their own, suffer the ravages of bad luck. Social peace as opposed to unrest has economic value to me even if I were completely cold-hearted. It is not irrational to be charitable -- to a point. I'd consent to a 10% voluntary tax if I saw it doing some good.
So, if someone who subsidizes the system only receives 90% of what they could otherwise, I'd let that sleeping dog lie. Yes, if taken by force (an involutary tax), it remains morally wrong, and might, in some circumstances mean the difference between life and death. Still, if the state is the provider to all, surely the benefit of the economy of scale they have can account for that 10%, and I'd likely pay 10% more in a completely free market because of the overhead of smaller competing companies. At least that's how the "planned economy" socialist theories go with regard to efficiency.
Lack of competition stiffling innovation, and encouraging inefficiency aside, this is a compelling argument. In a free market, it tends to result in few large companies, as opposed to many small ones, where economies of scale economic effects can be significant. The insurance industry, for example, benefits from the statistical "law of large numbers", which notes that sample means converge toward population means as samples get larger, and that the variance between them drops as the square root of sample size, IIRC. Big fish eat little fish.
But, with little or no competition, inefficiency and lack of innovation do set it, whether in a natural monopoly (which the libertarian notes can not survive indefinately), or an artificial state-sanctioned one.
Can the socialist have is state-run health insuance system, without the ill effects noted above? History says no -- people are too corruptable and will exploit a good thing. However, this does not mean it is economically impossible.
Indeed some socialist nations do a more efficient job of providing a nationalized health care system, as far as such things go (though I've heard horror stories from most of them, particularly the U.K.). However, none have gone to the extreme that Canada has: there is no private health care available for services that the state claims to provide, and it is illegal for a "covered" individual to pay for such services, or for them to be offered to such individuals. There are state of the art sports clinics that cater to foreign professional athletes playing for Canadian sports teams, for example. But, the market is small. Among them, Canada appears worst as far as service and waiting lists go.
It is telling that when our family briefly returned to Canada, and were not eligible for health insurance for 90 days (actually it's the second month after the month of arrival, or something like that, so 60-90 days, in practice), we were permitted to have private insurance for that purpose. My wife visited an ER for emergency IV antibiotics to treat a badly infected tooth. The cost came to around $500 which we paid, and yet the hospital could not provide a receipt! They cited
As others have pointed out, 911 on Vonage "works fine". Well, as long as your physical location does not change.
E911 is still too much in its infancy for me to trust it with my life, as reassuring as it is to have it. I want backup.
That means keeping a POTS line that I hardly ever use. There's a hardwired single line phone on each floor of our house on that line (that does not require power to get dialtone -- an increasingly rare thing in these days of phones with integrated digital answering machines).
I use a two line cordless system, with line 2 on the POTS circuit as well, and line 1 on the VoIP link. The cordless base station is not on a UPS (yet), though it eventually will. I also plan to have the VoIP analog port switch over to the POTS line if ever the data link is lost.
While I could go "plain vanilla" on the POTS line, I do retain a basic "call anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for $0.10 a minute" plan on it for $4 a month -- just because VoIP might go out doesn't mean that I won't want to make LD calls (and Verizon charges $0.75 a minute for calls from Washington state to Canada without an LD plan). And, with the eventual analog failover, a phone user might not even know that VoIP has "gonee out" and not curtail their LD use. (Hmm, I wonder if the dialtone is programmable on a Sipura 3000 to be able to tell when it fails over...).
That US source is heavily biased in favour of countries with strong socialist tendencies. Canada used to rank #1 on that list. It is telling, that Canada has dropped to #4 whereas the U.S. has pretty much remained the same.
What I take from that is this: for the "poor", Canada was, indeed, the best place to live. However, the standard afforded them was unsustainable, and the effect on the middle class crippling. You can rob the productive only so long before you kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
I take enough comfort in that if I am in a car accident, I can go to any hospital I want, and not pay a cent.
Funny, so can I. My family health insurance runs about US$14k a year and is a non-taxable benefit paid by my employer over and above my salary. I will grant that it is platinum-care: Premera Blue Closs "Plus". Typical plans cost about half that.
Now, let's say I had to pay that out of pocket. The difference in taxes I'd pay in Canada and the US would more than cover it. My earning power is about 30% greater in the U.S. (after accounting for the cost of living).
So, I ask my self, "Self, if I paid such high taxes in Canada, why can't I get Premeria Blue Cross 'Plus' level health care there?" The money is going somewhere but not where it is supposed to.
And, it's not as if we don't have the option of privately funded healthcare *in addition* to what the government provides.
This is illegal in Canada (for citizens, anyway -- i.e. anyone covered under the state plan). On can only pay for or obain supplementary insurance for things the government insurance plan does not cover. One can't pay to skip the queue (and this results in long queues).
The U.K. has two-tier healthcare and is far better off than Canada (and even then, I've heard complaints and horror stories). As you said, "a little socialism..." Canada has a lot.
Suicide rates and rates of violent crime against women are higher in Canada than the U.S.
I've often wondered about the better mortality stats as well -- the only conclusion I can come to is that 15 years of socialized medicine when it was of a high quality paid off. Unfortunately, that level of care is unsustainable. We'll see if the rates start to get worse over the next 5-10 years.
I work in the orthopeadics sector, and can tell you what a big difference joint replacement makes to quality of life amongst the elderly, and can also tell you that waiting lists are routinely months to years.
Please, then, speak up! And, I don't mean, ask for more money. Instead, condemn the existing system for the pain and suffering it inflicts on people: taxing them highly during their working lives supposedly to fund a benefit that few actually receive in reasonable order.
It just plain doesn't work.
A two-tier system, would be a good first step -- while "the rich" would get to pay for service, they'd make the waits for "the poor" much shorter.
Canada is the only country in the world with one-tier universal healthcare, and it has proven unsustainable.
Almost all of industrialized world has a social welfare system similar to Canada
Wrong, buddy.
Canada is the only country with one-tier universal healthcare. And the quality of service it provides is far worse than that available in other socialist countries with two-tier healthcare systems. It used to be better, but the chickens have come home to roost.
Ah, but taxes are the biggest part of the difference.
As for property taxes, I paid CA$3800 on a CA$240k home in Whitby, ON, and now pay US$2400 on a US$265k home in Monroe, WA.
The highest property taxes I paid were around US$5800 on a US$190k property in Allen, TX. But, there was no state income tax, and boy, you should have seen the quality of the elementary schools (more than half the property tax burden supported the local schools, and a small percentage of that was a subsidy for good schools in poor nehghborhoods)! Like I said, good value for the money.
As for the medically uninsured, catastrophic insurance is relatively cheap. Also, no hospital can turn away a medical emergency for an inability to pay. So, overall, the worst care one gets in the U.S. is on a par with the average care one gets in Canada.
There will always be those for who life is better in Canada than the U.S., particularly those who's lives are subsidized by the state. However, I am not one of them, and the degree that the government expects me to subsidize those who are is extortionate. 10%, perhaps even 20% higher taxes might be arguable -- most faiths encourage tithing 10% to the church for the poor -- but 100% higher? I don't think so.
Canada's politicians trot out the nations' poor and prostitute their suffering -- "He's poor! Gimme money!!" -- for caviar money.
I've considered all factors, and I find our quality of life *much* better in the U.S. than Canada.
I will grant that other socialist nations do manage their tax dollars more effectively than Canada does.
While opposed philosophically to taxation, I would recognize if I got value for the taxes paid, with a modest subsidy for the truely destitute. In Canada, many (particularly families with one breadwinner) do not.
Most people employed in the U.S. have their medical insurance provided as a subsidized benefit by their employer -- their out of pocket expense is around $200-$250 a month for family coverage. In my case, it is all covered by my employer, and the benefit is non-taxable. But, I presumed "worst case" and that insurance would have to be purchased privately.
But, what insurance you can purchase! Even if the overall expenditure were the same between the two countries, the quality of service in the U.S. is light-years ahead of what it is in Canada. My son needed a tonsillectomy. Referred to a surgeon on Monday, seen that Thursday, and as far as scheduling goes, "is next Tuesday fine?". Same story with my daughter's strabismus surgery. I've heard horror stories of worst-case tomisllectomy waiting lists in Sask. approaching 80 weeks! Many (about 25%) cardiac patients die before seeing a specialist. Personally, I've experienced an inability to find a doctor taking new patients in Ontario in 2003.
One does have to weigh the overall cost of living. Urban California is *very* expensive, with relatively high tax rates (compared to the rest of the U.S.)
I find that most things cost about the same in the U.S. as they do in Canada, taking into account the exchange rate. Many essential things are cheaper (like food and clothing). Housing tends to be more expensive, though I find Seattle about on a par with Toronto.
While a libertarian, and thus opposed to all forms of taxation as theft, I am not so ideologically blinded to not see a "good deal" when the state gives me one. So, I look at the services I can obtain with my own after tax dollars and those my tax dollars fund. Canada offers abysmal value for the money for traditional families with one "breadwinner" (of course, being a minority, they get exploited the most tax-wise, by the government). I remember well when my mother had to reenter the workforce solely to help pay the increased income taxes levied on my father, yet we were too "rich" to qualify for any of the benefits they funded.
Other socialist countries, with two-tier healthcare, sensible employment insurance, etc. appear to be far more efficient -- they tend to see the value in "single payor" insurance systems, particularly mutual insurers (which is what a state insurer really is), because larger populations of insureds lead to lower variance in year to year claims - the "law of large numbers" - standard deviation of sample means drops as the square root of sample size, IIRC. But, they do not degenerate into a welfare free for all, whereas Canada's has.
Canada literally taxes people to death, levying high taxes to fund, amoung other things, universal healthcare of dubious quality and value. Spending one's own money (if there's anything left after taxes) for a service that the government claims to provide, but either doesn't in a timely or state of the art manner, is, furthermore, illegal, as it is deemed unfair to those that can't afford it.
For what my father paid in that share of his taxes earmarked for national health care, his life could have been saved ten times over. Instead, an operable, discovered abdominal aortic aneurism was left untreated until it ruptured, killing him.
But, enough of rhetoric. Let's have some numbers. For varying levels of U.S. income, the Candian equivalent is listed, followed by the income taxes for someone in Ontario (US$ and CA$) and Washington State (US$ and CA$). I have included social security and medicare on the U.S. side and CPP (Canadian Pension Plan) and EI (Employment Insurance) on the Canadian side. I have not taken into account the U.S. federal sales tax credit when itemizing, and the earned income credit so the U.S. tax burden is actually a bit lower. I have taken into account the U.S. child tax credit, but not the Canadian "baby bonus". I figure the differences of those small amounts are a relative wash.
The assumption is that of a typical married couple, with one spouse working, with two kids, owning their home, with US$12k of mortgage interest, US$2500 of property taxes a year, contributing 20% of income to a RRSP/401(k) (to the 401(k)maximum of US$14k a year), and an exchange rate of 80 U.S. cents per Canadian dollar, at 2005 tax rates.
Income: US$30k/CA$37.5k US Tax: US$2235/CA$2794 CA Tax: US$5068/CA$6335.
Income: US$40k/CA$50k US Tax: US$2980/CA$3725 CA Tax: US$7455/CA$9318
Income: US$50k/CA$62.5k US Tax: US$3725/CA$4656 CA Tax: US$10067/CA$12583
Income: US$60k/CA$75000 US Tax: US$4845/CA$6056 CA Tax: US$12560/CA$15700
Income: US$70k/CA$87.5k US Tax: US$6790/CA$8488 CA Tax: US$15237/CA$19046
Income: US$80k/CA$100k US Tax: US$9035/CA$11294 CA Tax: US$19642/CA$24552
Income: US$90k/CA$112.5k US Tax:US$11280/CA$14100 CA Tax: US$23983/CA$29979
Income: US$100k/CA$125k US Tax:US$12905/CA$16131 CA Tax: US$28324/CA$35405
Look at the difference!
What kind of health insurance coverage could that purchase?
So, while Canada might have plenty of water, and, by extension hydroelectric power, it hardly has an overall top quality of life index, given what Canadians pay for their sacred social services. In fact, it has been slipping badly lately.
The astute reader will notice that I have taken advantage of the two biggest benefits to the U.S. tax payer, that the Canadian does not have: the ability to file jointly with a spouse, and deduct mortgage interest and property taxes. But, why is it that Canada punishes traditional marriage and home ownership with its tax code?
"Top of the quality of life index," my ass. For welfare bums, perhaps. But certainly not for hardworking breadwinners: mothers and fathers struggling to put a roof over their kids' heads.
Actually, if I understand him correctly, he has a business, and wants the GST and Ebay.ay tax id on the invoice eBay.au sends him, so he can claim it as an input tax credit (ITC).
I suppose he's not entitled to the ITC if he didn't pay the tax, but its reasonable to assume that Ebay's invoice to him is "tax included", and so he wants the documentation to claim the ITC.
If Ebay.au "forgot" to levy it and started to, then yes, he'd pay 10% more, but get it back in the ITC (because businesses that collect GST get to claim ITCs on the GST they pay). So, he'd be no worse off (except that the 'old' price, lacking GST, allowed for no ITC and cost him more out of pocket).
But yeah, if Ebay.au "corrected" such an oversight, it would cost all non-businesses more.
While an undergrad, and later in grad school, I knew this short (I am short at 5'7", but he was shorter, about 5'2"), Vietnamese fellow, who spoke in halting English. He was scary brilliant.
I remember his Masters' Thesis defense well. At one point he made an assertion and proceeded to use it as the basis for a greater proof. He was interrupted by one of his examiners, who noted something to the effect that he hadn't mentioned that his proof was conditional on the "blah" conjecture having been proved.
He stopped, looked somewhat confused, and then a look of understanding and pride swept across his face. In his halting English he responded, "No. Wait. I prove. Last week. I have preprint of paper. Want see?" (Yes, he did, and it turned out to be correct).
As I recall, there were two more such incidents during his defense, which lasted about two hours.
Needless to say, his thesis was accepted as submitted (which is rare: most Masters' thesis are accept "with minor modification" (as in, someone found a typo, or an uncited reference)). What's ironic is that he'd effectively had enough material for three PhDs in that Masters thesis.
He went on to a doctorate, and possibly a post-doc in Mathematics.
What's really scary is that he claimed to have an older brother who was much smarter than he was.
I was thinking of something similar: a 1.0 GHz VIA C3 Eden in the nano-BGA form factor on a nano-ITX board in a Silverstone LC-08 case. No room for an add-on card, but tuners can be installed in a backend server elsewhere.
I'm just starting to plan to put together a silent MythTV front end based on a Via EPIA N nano-ITX board with a 1GHz nano-BGA Eden C3, CN400 MPEG2/MPEG4 decoder/accelerator, and VT1625 HDTV encoder. So, this is timely good news!
I was planning to house it in a Silverstone LC08 case, with a slimline DVDROM drive and bring the YPbPr signals out to extra connections on the back panel. The case can also accomodate a 3-1/2" hard disk drive, but that might run too hot without active cooling.
Still, the idea of using networked Myth backends with PVR250s, pre-ripped media, with HD playback capability at the front-end is appealing.
What did Jefferson say about the tree of liberty and the blood of martyrs?
That would be "tyrants" and "patriots", not martyrs. (Though, I suppose a patriat who acts in a way that will result in his death for a noble effort, and recognotion thereof, is a martyr.)
"Harcort Fenten Mudd, where have you been?
Have you been drinking again!?"
"Shut up, Stella!"
"...ing, ing, ing."
And later,
"Five hundred?! Kirk, that's inhuman!!"
And, yes, I knew it was Spock who chose the Pi thing.... I just took a bit of poetic license.
The "Norman" episode was "I, Mudd" (not to be confused with "Mudd's Women") and, IIRC, the "Redjack!" episode was "Wolf in the Fold".
One of the more interesting episodes was "All Our Yesterdays", costarring a young Joan Collins as "Sister" Edith Keeler (listed as "Sister" in the credits, but simply a Depression era misson worker, and not a nun). It was written by Harlan Ellison, who supposedly found the end product so to his dislike that he wished to not be listed in the credits.
Geez, are we old, or what?
I seam to have the same problem with some of the neighbors across the street.
The house I recently bought came with a well-lanscaped yard... two owners ago. I have a brown thumb, but I appreciate such things so I asked my lawncare company to "take a look" and tell me what it would cost to "fix and maintain" things.
Mostly, it's in desperate need of pruning, but I learned a few surprising things: as they were walking the property, they'd stop and explain the work to be done. At one point, they noted, "We'll cut these weeds out and... Oh! Look! You have a blabedyblah!! Have you any idea what this plant is worth!?... My, it's even a single-stemmed blabedyblah! Sir, this plant is worth at least $350. Ah, I see you have a second one over there..."
Time to google for blabedyblah...
I don't (yet) know to what degree (if any) they were bullshitting, but, looking at the overgrowth, I'm just happy if they make it stop! (or at least not look like something from a tropical jungle):-)
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I don't deny that they money is being spent, but it is not being done so in a manner that is remotely effective. The bureacratic overhead stikes me as criminal.
The measure of a "healty" socialist system, if ever there can be such a thing, is to compare what is taken from an individual in the form of taxes to provide a service to what that individual could have received elsewhere for the tax levied. Those who are subsidized will be better off, and those doing the subsidizing will be worse off.
The question is, how much better off are those who are subsidized, and at what cost does this come to those doing the subsidizing?
Many faiths suggest a tithe of 10% of income to "the church", ostensibly to "help the poor". And, while a libertarian, I do see value in helping those who, through no fault of their own, suffer the ravages of bad luck. Social peace as opposed to unrest has economic value to me even if I were completely cold-hearted. It is not irrational to be charitable -- to a point. I'd consent to a 10% voluntary tax if I saw it doing some good.
So, if someone who subsidizes the system only receives 90% of what they could otherwise, I'd let that sleeping dog lie. Yes, if taken by force (an involutary tax), it remains morally wrong, and might, in some circumstances mean the difference between life and death. Still, if the state is the provider to all, surely the benefit of the economy of scale they have can account for that 10%, and I'd likely pay 10% more in a completely free market because of the overhead of smaller competing companies. At least that's how the "planned economy" socialist theories go with regard to efficiency.
Lack of competition stiffling innovation, and encouraging inefficiency aside, this is a compelling argument. In a free market, it tends to result in few large companies, as opposed to many small ones, where economies of scale economic effects can be significant. The insurance industry, for example, benefits from the statistical "law of large numbers", which notes that sample means converge toward population means as samples get larger, and that the variance between them drops as the square root of sample size, IIRC. Big fish eat little fish.
But, with little or no competition, inefficiency and lack of innovation do set it, whether in a natural monopoly (which the libertarian notes can not survive indefinately), or an artificial state-sanctioned one.
Can the socialist have is state-run health insuance system, without the ill effects noted above? History says no -- people are too corruptable and will exploit a good thing. However, this does not mean it is economically impossible.
Indeed some socialist nations do a more efficient job of providing a nationalized health care system, as far as such things go (though I've heard horror stories from most of them, particularly the U.K.). However, none have gone to the extreme that Canada has: there is no private health care available for services that the state claims to provide, and it is illegal for a "covered" individual to pay for such services, or for them to be offered to such individuals. There are state of the art sports clinics that cater to foreign professional athletes playing for Canadian sports teams, for example. But, the market is small. Among them, Canada appears worst as far as service and waiting lists go.
It is telling that when our family briefly returned to Canada, and were not eligible for health insurance for 90 days (actually it's the second month after the month of arrival, or something like that, so 60-90 days, in practice), we were permitted to have private insurance for that purpose. My wife visited an ER for emergency IV antibiotics to treat a badly infected tooth. The cost came to around $500 which we paid, and yet the hospital could not provide a receipt! They cited
E911 is still too much in its infancy for me to trust it with my life, as reassuring as it is to have it. I want backup.
That means keeping a POTS line that I hardly ever use. There's a hardwired single line phone on each floor of our house on that line (that does not require power to get dialtone -- an increasingly rare thing in these days of phones with integrated digital answering machines).
I use a two line cordless system, with line 2 on the POTS circuit as well, and line 1 on the VoIP link. The cordless base station is not on a UPS (yet), though it eventually will. I also plan to have the VoIP analog port switch over to the POTS line if ever the data link is lost.
While I could go "plain vanilla" on the POTS line, I do retain a basic "call anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for $0.10 a minute" plan on it for $4 a month -- just because VoIP might go out doesn't mean that I won't want to make LD calls (and Verizon charges $0.75 a minute for calls from Washington state to Canada without an LD plan). And, with the eventual analog failover, a phone user might not even know that VoIP has "gonee out" and not curtail their LD use. (Hmm, I wonder if the dialtone is programmable on a Sipura 3000 to be able to tell when it fails over...).
The U.S. should send all its commies up to Canada in exchange for hard workers to come down to the U.S.
What I take from that is this: for the "poor", Canada was, indeed, the best place to live. However, the standard afforded them was unsustainable, and the effect on the middle class crippling. You can rob the productive only so long before you kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Funny, so can I. My family health insurance runs about US$14k a year and is a non-taxable benefit paid by my employer over and above my salary. I will grant that it is platinum-care: Premera Blue Closs "Plus". Typical plans cost about half that.
Now, let's say I had to pay that out of pocket. The difference in taxes I'd pay in Canada and the US would more than cover it. My earning power is about 30% greater in the U.S. (after accounting for the cost of living).
So, I ask my self, "Self, if I paid such high taxes in Canada, why can't I get Premeria Blue Cross 'Plus' level health care there?" The money is going somewhere but not where it is supposed to.
This is illegal in Canada (for citizens, anyway -- i.e. anyone covered under the state plan). On can only pay for or obain supplementary insurance for things the government insurance plan does not cover. One can't pay to skip the queue (and this results in long queues).
The U.K. has two-tier healthcare and is far better off than Canada (and even then, I've heard complaints and horror stories). As you said, "a little socialism..." Canada has a lot.
I've often wondered about the better mortality stats as well -- the only conclusion I can come to is that 15 years of socialized medicine when it was of a high quality paid off. Unfortunately, that level of care is unsustainable. We'll see if the rates start to get worse over the next 5-10 years.
It is illegal for Canadian citizens to pay for covered medical services in Canada.
Please, then, speak up! And, I don't mean, ask for more money. Instead, condemn the existing system for the pain and suffering it inflicts on people: taxing them highly during their working lives supposedly to fund a benefit that few actually receive in reasonable order.
It just plain doesn't work.
A two-tier system, would be a good first step -- while "the rich" would get to pay for service, they'd make the waits for "the poor" much shorter.
Canada is the only country in the world with one-tier universal healthcare, and it has proven unsustainable.
Wrong, buddy.
Canada is the only country with one-tier universal healthcare. And the quality of service it provides is far worse than that available in other socialist countries with two-tier healthcare systems. It used to be better, but the chickens have come home to roost.
As for property taxes, I paid CA$3800 on a CA$240k home in Whitby, ON, and now pay US$2400 on a US$265k home in Monroe, WA.
The highest property taxes I paid were around US$5800 on a US$190k property in Allen, TX. But, there was no state income tax, and boy, you should have seen the quality of the elementary schools (more than half the property tax burden supported the local schools, and a small percentage of that was a subsidy for good schools in poor nehghborhoods)! Like I said, good value for the money.
As for the medically uninsured, catastrophic insurance is relatively cheap. Also, no hospital can turn away a medical emergency for an inability to pay. So, overall, the worst care one gets in the U.S. is on a par with the average care one gets in Canada.
There will always be those for who life is better in Canada than the U.S., particularly those who's lives are subsidized by the state. However, I am not one of them, and the degree that the government expects me to subsidize those who are is extortionate. 10%, perhaps even 20% higher taxes might be arguable -- most faiths encourage tithing 10% to the church for the poor -- but 100% higher? I don't think so.
Canada's politicians trot out the nations' poor and prostitute their suffering -- "He's poor! Gimme money!!" -- for caviar money.
I will grant that other socialist nations do manage their tax dollars more effectively than Canada does.
While opposed philosophically to taxation, I would recognize if I got value for the taxes paid, with a modest subsidy for the truely destitute. In Canada, many (particularly families with one breadwinner) do not.
But, what insurance you can purchase! Even if the overall expenditure were the same between the two countries, the quality of service in the U.S. is light-years ahead of what it is in Canada. My son needed a tonsillectomy. Referred to a surgeon on Monday, seen that Thursday, and as far as scheduling goes, "is next Tuesday fine?". Same story with my daughter's strabismus surgery. I've heard horror stories of worst-case tomisllectomy waiting lists in Sask. approaching 80 weeks! Many (about 25%) cardiac patients die before seeing a specialist. Personally, I've experienced an inability to find a doctor taking new patients in Ontario in 2003.
One does have to weigh the overall cost of living. Urban California is *very* expensive, with relatively high tax rates (compared to the rest of the U.S.)
I find that most things cost about the same in the U.S. as they do in Canada, taking into account the exchange rate. Many essential things are cheaper (like food and clothing). Housing tends to be more expensive, though I find Seattle about on a par with Toronto.
While a libertarian, and thus opposed to all forms of taxation as theft, I am not so ideologically blinded to not see a "good deal" when the state gives me one. So, I look at the services I can obtain with my own after tax dollars and those my tax dollars fund. Canada offers abysmal value for the money for traditional families with one "breadwinner" (of course, being a minority, they get exploited the most tax-wise, by the government). I remember well when my mother had to reenter the workforce solely to help pay the increased income taxes levied on my father, yet we were too "rich" to qualify for any of the benefits they funded.
Other socialist countries, with two-tier healthcare, sensible employment insurance, etc. appear to be far more efficient -- they tend to see the value in "single payor" insurance systems, particularly mutual insurers (which is what a state insurer really is), because larger populations of insureds lead to lower variance in year to year claims - the "law of large numbers" - standard deviation of sample means drops as the square root of sample size, IIRC. But, they do not degenerate into a welfare free for all, whereas Canada's has.
And this is better, because...?
My ass.
Canada literally taxes people to death, levying high taxes to fund, amoung other things, universal healthcare of dubious quality and value. Spending one's own money (if there's anything left after taxes) for a service that the government claims to provide, but either doesn't in a timely or state of the art manner, is, furthermore, illegal, as it is deemed unfair to those that can't afford it.
For what my father paid in that share of his taxes earmarked for national health care, his life could have been saved ten times over. Instead, an operable, discovered abdominal aortic aneurism was left untreated until it ruptured, killing him.
But, enough of rhetoric. Let's have some numbers. For varying levels of U.S. income, the Candian equivalent is listed, followed by the income taxes for someone in Ontario (US$ and CA$) and Washington State (US$ and CA$). I have included social security and medicare on the U.S. side and CPP (Canadian Pension Plan) and EI (Employment Insurance) on the Canadian side. I have not taken into account the U.S. federal sales tax credit when itemizing, and the earned income credit so the U.S. tax burden is actually a bit lower. I have taken into account the U.S. child tax credit, but not the Canadian "baby bonus". I figure the differences of those small amounts are a relative wash.
The assumption is that of a typical married couple, with one spouse working, with two kids, owning their home, with US$12k of mortgage interest, US$2500 of property taxes a year, contributing 20% of income to a RRSP/401(k) (to the 401(k)maximum of US$14k a year), and an exchange rate of 80 U.S. cents per Canadian dollar, at 2005 tax rates.
Income: US$30k/CA$37.5k US Tax: US$2235/CA$2794 CA Tax: US$5068/CA$6335.
Income: US$40k/CA$50k US Tax: US$2980/CA$3725 CA Tax: US$7455/CA$9318
Income: US$50k/CA$62.5k US Tax: US$3725/CA$4656 CA Tax: US$10067/CA$12583
Income: US$60k/CA$75000 US Tax: US$4845/CA$6056 CA Tax: US$12560/CA$15700
Income: US$70k/CA$87.5k US Tax: US$6790/CA$8488 CA Tax: US$15237/CA$19046
Income: US$80k/CA$100k US Tax: US$9035/CA$11294 CA Tax: US$19642/CA$24552
Income: US$90k/CA$112.5k US Tax:US$11280/CA$14100 CA Tax: US$23983/CA$29979
Income: US$100k/CA$125k US Tax:US$12905/CA$16131 CA Tax: US$28324/CA$35405
Look at the difference!
What kind of health insurance coverage could that purchase?
So, while Canada might have plenty of water, and, by extension hydroelectric power, it hardly has an overall top quality of life index, given what Canadians pay for their sacred social services. In fact, it has been slipping badly lately.
The astute reader will notice that I have taken advantage of the two biggest benefits to the U.S. tax payer, that the Canadian does not have: the ability to file jointly with a spouse, and deduct mortgage interest and property taxes. But, why is it that Canada punishes traditional marriage and home ownership with its tax code?
"Top of the quality of life index," my ass. For welfare bums, perhaps. But certainly not for hardworking breadwinners: mothers and fathers struggling to put a roof over their kids' heads.
I suppose he's not entitled to the ITC if he didn't pay the tax, but its reasonable to assume that Ebay's invoice to him is "tax included", and so he wants the documentation to claim the ITC.
If Ebay.au "forgot" to levy it and started to, then yes, he'd pay 10% more, but get it back in the ITC (because businesses that collect GST get to claim ITCs on the GST they pay). So, he'd be no worse off (except that the 'old' price, lacking GST, allowed for no ITC and cost him more out of pocket).
But yeah, if Ebay.au "corrected" such an oversight, it would cost all non-businesses more.
I remember his Masters' Thesis defense well. At one point he made an assertion and proceeded to use it as the basis for a greater proof. He was interrupted by one of his examiners, who noted something to the effect that he hadn't mentioned that his proof was conditional on the "blah" conjecture having been proved.
He stopped, looked somewhat confused, and then a look of understanding and pride swept across his face. In his halting English he responded, "No. Wait. I prove. Last week. I have preprint of paper. Want see?" (Yes, he did, and it turned out to be correct).
As I recall, there were two more such incidents during his defense, which lasted about two hours.
Needless to say, his thesis was accepted as submitted (which is rare: most Masters' thesis are accept "with minor modification" (as in, someone found a typo, or an uncited reference)). What's ironic is that he'd effectively had enough material for three PhDs in that Masters thesis.
He went on to a doctorate, and possibly a post-doc in Mathematics.
What's really scary is that he claimed to have an older brother who was much smarter than he was.
I was thinking of something similar: a 1.0 GHz VIA C3 Eden in the nano-BGA form factor on a nano-ITX board in a Silverstone LC-08 case. No room for an add-on card, but tuners can be installed in a backend server elsewhere.
I was planning to house it in a Silverstone LC08 case, with a slimline DVDROM drive and bring the YPbPr signals out to extra connections on the back panel. The case can also accomodate a 3-1/2" hard disk drive, but that might run too hot without active cooling.
Still, the idea of using networked Myth backends with PVR250s, pre-ripped media, with HD playback capability at the front-end is appealing.
Geez, if you're gonna make something up, get your facts straight.
That would be "tyrants" and "patriots", not martyrs. (Though, I suppose a patriat who acts in a way that will result in his death for a noble effort, and recognotion thereof, is a martyr.)
I stand corrected. Like I said, "IIRC". Apparently, I didn't.
"Shut up, Stella!"
"...ing, ing, ing."
And later,
"Five hundred?! Kirk, that's inhuman!!"
And, yes, I knew it was Spock who chose the Pi thing.... I just took a bit of poetic license.
The "Norman" episode was "I, Mudd" (not to be confused with "Mudd's Women") and, IIRC, the "Redjack!" episode was "Wolf in the Fold".
One of the more interesting episodes was "All Our Yesterdays", costarring a young Joan Collins as "Sister" Edith Keeler (listed as "Sister" in the credits, but simply a Depression era misson worker, and not a nun). It was written by Harlan Ellison, who supposedly found the end product so to his dislike that he wished to not be listed in the credits. Geez, are we old, or what?
I am James T. Kirk.
You have erred.
Perform your primary function!
For my next trick, I will ask the computer to compute the last decimal place of Pi.
I seam to have the same problem with some of the neighbors across the street.
The house I recently bought came with a well-lanscaped yard... two owners ago. I have a brown thumb, but I appreciate such things so I asked my lawncare company to "take a look" and tell me what it would cost to "fix and maintain" things.
Mostly, it's in desperate need of pruning, but I learned a few surprising things: as they were walking the property, they'd stop and explain the work to be done. At one point, they noted, "We'll cut these weeds out and... Oh! Look! You have a blabedyblah!! Have you any idea what this plant is worth!?... My, it's even a single-stemmed blabedyblah! Sir, this plant is worth at least $350. Ah, I see you have a second one over there..."
Time to google for blabedyblah...
I don't (yet) know to what degree (if any) they were bullshitting, but, looking at the overgrowth, I'm just happy if they make it stop! (or at least not look like something from a tropical jungle) :-)