This leads to another problem, non-christians think that the fundies represent all christians, that all christians are fascist-like who would murder anyone who disagrees with them. Of course, that affects all religions -- a segment will always use it to prey on the weak minded.
Kinda like non-Muslims thinking that all Muslims would murder anyone who would disagree with them?
I happen to be agnostic, but find the parallel hard to ignore.
Alberta was always a bit more sane than the rest of the country. Pity that Trudeau raped Albertans over their oil reserves.
There had been some movement toward private clinics in Ontario as well, but their legal status has always been questionable. There have been recent promises to close them, gnerally by the new Ontario Liberals under McGuinty because it's "unfair" that "the rich" can pay for care.
Well, both borders need to be monitored. Canadians have traditionally had an easy time of entering the U.S., and that tends to make Canada a desirable staging area.
It used to be be the case that the U.S. didn't even require identification to enter temporarily from Canada! Many Canadians are now appalled that they have to provide a passport (which was always a good idea to have).
Whenever I leave and reenter the U.S., I just make sure my papers are in order, and have a copy on hand for the benefit of the INS officer, if necessary. I've never been hassled, though I have seen some Canadians get indignant over tightened security regulations. Hint: guests should not piss of their hosts.
Well, of course it's hard for your wife: she married a Canadian! If you were both refugees (with the term defined rather loosely), she'd have an easier time of it!
Canada treats foreigners generally better than citizens: I can't legally pay for health care in Canada, but I can pay for my son's care (he is an American citizen) and get him moved to the "head of the line" (in practice, it's a separate line that Canadians can't enter).
Having lived in Canada from 1961 to 1997, and briefly in 2003-4 I can definately attest to the crumbling of social programs: what was predicted 25 years ago is coming to pass.
Investigating requirements for health care coverage in Ontario when I returned briefly in 2003, I was appalled to find that, besides the 90 day waiting period (which is reasonable), there is a requirement to agree to never leave the province in order to obtain coverage. A minimal residency requirement would be reasonable, but a permanent ban on moving, even to another province? This is a desperate move to keep tax dollars in Ontario.
In the end, choosing to not obtain government coverage, I just paid out of pocket.
Canada wants babies to live so they can pay taxes as they age and enter the work force. Canada wants those no longer paying significant taxes to die so as not to be a drain on services.
Well, this Canadian considers his government a bunch of murdering bastards, and any of its citizens that support socialized healthcare accessories to murder. You money is taken so you're too poor to buy the health care you needed it in the U.S. (it's illegal for Canadians covered by the health care system to pay for "covered" care in Canada), and when you need care desperately, you either have to wait so long you die first, or are told flat out that it isn't worth saving your life -- even if the cost to do so is a fraction of what you paid toward that particular socialized service over a working lifetime.
For all the shit and insanity in the U.S. right now, I definitely prefer it: I can feed my family, get them to a doctor on a moment's notice, and provide a normal middle class lifestyle. I can support charitable causes to a far greater degree than I could in Canada. the cost of living is higher, the salaries double, and the tax burden half. I qualify to work in the U.S. legally and my son is an American citizen (yes, I expect him to register for the armed services when he's 18 -- no running off to Canada for him).
The U.S., like any strong nation, has a government bent on controlling its population, using whatever strategies work. Public sentiments swing between civil liberties and the illusion of security rather like a pendulum: witness the McCarthy era contrasted against the Civil Rights Movement. The pendulum has swung far toward curtailment of civil liberties, but I have faith that it will swing back: already their are demonstations of civil unrest and disobedience against the current administration, and attempts to quash them are only fuelling opposition: The U.S. is not like Canada, where criticizing the government over non-control issues is enough to get a faux apology and self-congratulatory oratories about "listening to the people". Because of such small "victories", Canadians do not criticize the big issues: it's "bad form" to note that the government can overrule the highest court in the land (1982 Constitution "notwithstanding clause"), that self-defense is not justified (force used in defense results in one being charged as one's attacker is -- you're supposed to wait for the police to protect you (and they have no obligation to do so)) , or that spending your money to save your life is "unfair". In the U.S., if you want to challange the state, you better be prepared to be arrested, roughted up, and blacklisted. The U.S. government plays hardball. It listens when opposition runs into the millions. Powerful nations have powerful corrupt governments (all governments being corrupt), and taking the "tiger by the tail" takes some doing.
Nevertheless, when it matters, the dirty work of restraining the monster gets done. Canadians, OTOH, try to position themselves on the beneficial receiving end of any government corruption.
As for security of the person, recent statistics show the per-capita murder rate in Canada is slightly lower than that in the U.S. (about 12%), but the non-firearm related crime rate is about double: women, particularly, are vulnerable since they can't arm themselves to protect against would-be attackers and rapists posessing greater physical strenghth (firearms and even mace are heavily controlled).
Canada's social programs are on the verge of collapse (there's a shortage of 1400 doctors in the city of Toronto alone), and unlike skilled people qualified to work in the U.S., there will soon be a flood of people trying to escape south of the border.
More troubling is Canada's open immigration policy, and, up until now, generally benign "not-American" as opposed to "anti-American" sentiment. With the outright refusal to participate in Bush's folly in Iraq, many Canadians have become emboldened, anti-American, and consider anti-American activists "heroes" of a sort: middle-eastern individuals with alledged ties to terrorist activities are held in respect by many for "standing up" to the "bad old U.S.A". This does not bode well: I fully expect the
Actually, the orbital speed, or magnitude of the velocity, is C/t. Speed is a scalar quantity, and velocity is a vector quantity (which, in orbit, is always changing, but remains perpendicular to the surface).
Just thought I'd mention that before some pedant rips my post to shreds.
A synchronous orbit is one where the revolution of the satellite matches the rotation of the earth, thus appearing to be over one place all the time. This is a useful property for communications satellites, and, in particular those providing satellite television (DirecTV, Dish, Voom (ugh, I hate that name), ExpressVu (which, IIRC, is Dish repackaged for the Canadian market, without the benefit of stacked LNBs and multiswitches). It also limits the number of orbital slots available, since satellites have to remain a certain distance apart.
Now, there is only one altitude at which a synchronous orbit is possible: that where the gravitational attraction matches the centripital force. Recall from high school Newtonian physics: GMm/r^2 = mv^2/r. Solving for v: v = sqrt(GM/r). The orbital velocity is also C/t, where C=2*pi*r. We note that t = 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.09 seconds or 86164.09 seconds.
So, you solve for r, where GMt/4/pi^2 = r^3.
Turns out, this is about 22500 miles, or 37500 km.
A far cry from 735 km.
Of course, there is no need for a space telescope to be in synchronous orbit, and this one probably isn't: it would take a lot more energy to get it that much further out of Earth's gravity well. (But, that's a calculation for another day).
That's a nice moral point of view, but it's not a fiscally viable one. If medical science found a way to cure every disease and malady for $500k a pop, then everyone would start sueing their medical provider to pay for whatever is going to kill them. People would run up tens of millions of dollars in medical bills before finally dieing in random car wrecks or getting murdered or hit by an asteriod at 150 years old.
Well, no. At that rate the premiums for the coverage you describe would be exorbitant. Most health insurers have lifetime caps anyway. The very wealthy might be able to take advantage of such plans, but they can afford to self-insure anyway.
Here in the USA we have a social program for able bodied seniors to retire from working. We pay our elderly not to work. Then we pay more to keep them alive longer... and not work. Usually when things really go bad, they run up hundreds of thousands of dollars just to live a few months longer. Three or four kids can go to college on the money that many americans use to extend their lives a few extra months.
It's questionable whether social security provides an adequate income. I know I don't count on it and save for my retirement accordingly. Same with medicare. It IS wrong for one to drain the public coffers in the manner you describe as they age. If there is to be a public health insurance system then it should be run as a viable insurance system, with appropriate premiums and caps, and perhaps somewhat of a subsidy for the very poor (Funded by those why die unexpectedly or from natural causes, never having collected on the insurance purchased with their premiums to excess -- most insureds don't, actually).
When my grandfather's health finally started to degenerate (aside from nuisance problems like asthma, arthritis, hip problems), he ended up in the hospital facing perpetual health care costs of about $1000 per day to keep him alive... in the hospital. Once he ran out of money, he could have lived off the state's coffers for a year or two because it's difficult to kick him out once he starts treatment. My grandfather told them to take him home. Not because he didn't want to die in the hospital, but because he didn't want to leave my grandmother with nothing. You see, she needed the money more than he did, so he knew it was his time to die.
He was a noble man, then. But, the important thing was that the choice was in his hands, and not the state's. I repeat: it is abhorrent for the state to play at God.
The problem with health care today is that everyone thinks they need the attention and money more than the other guy.
Death penalty: if the jury gets it wrong and condemns an innocent person to death, they should be executed. So, while I am not opposed to the death penalty, I think those who condemn others to die be prepared to pay with their lives in the event of an error. In practice, this should be a strong deterrent in calling for the death penalty except in "obvious" cases of mass murder.
Abortion: where a woman has had sex consentually and does not take immediate steps to terminate a pregnancy at the earliest effective date, it can be argued that there is an implied contract with the fetus to support it. This does not extend to the fetus threatening the mother's life. I support over the counter access to the "morning after" pill and traditional oral contraceptives.
State Millitary apparatus: I do not support a standing army, though I am not opposed to an established millitary to provide infrastructure and equipment to volunteers in times of crisis, and ongoing training in the "millitary arts". Defense should be decentralized much like it is in Switzerland.
Except I pick the insurer in the U.S. and unscrupulous ones get a bad reputation. often get to chose among competing insurers (on a company-wide basis, by vote), once a year.
With government run insurance, I'm at the mercy of an incompetent, and unscrupulous monopoly.
US$80-US$100k in a major metro area is not "rich". It affords a middle class lifestyle. Canada, however, had descended into the realm of third-world countries. Look up "Laffer Curve" to understand the long-term economic implications of high levels of taxation. And to think that the Canadian Dollar used to trade for around US$1.10.
If that system keeps people alive who would otherwise die simply from the all too common affliction of being born without wealth and priviledge, then the people running the system are also heroes with a keen eye on the one great rule of wealth:
If that system takes money from hard-working individuals, and promises health care when they need it, and fails to deliver, even to the level of the taxes paid to fund it, it is fraudulent. It may save some who might otherwise die, but it certainly kills others who would otherwise be able to use the money they legitinately earned to save their own lives. It is the state playing at God. For shame!
Do not speak of wealth and privilege: My father came from a wealthy family, losing everything to Soviet Communists -- he came to Canada as a refugee without a penny, and started from scratch. Cold and shivering walking home in the dead of winter from an overtime shift one night in the 1950s, he once stopped to warm up in a Catholic church (to which his family had once donated the equivalent of millions of dollars). He was told to "pay a quarter for the privilege of sitting in a pew to warm up". He could not afford this, and left on his way. While an isolated incident, our family's experience with government "compassion" in times of distress has been similar. We prefer to pay our own way, and help others less fortunate when we can. We have enjoyed good times and suffered bad ones (mostly in Canada). (Do you donate $500 a month to charity? Do you know what the Alex de Touqeville Society is? Do you know the meaning of private philanthropy? Like most socialiests, you likely think everyone is greedy like yourself, and can't fathom wealth redistribution except by force, to your benefit, no doubt.) Do not speak to me of compassion.
All this talk of socialism as "compassion" is a big fat lie, rather like a lottery: sure, someone wins the big prize, but playing the lottery certainly isn't a sure road to riches.
People of your ilk are parasites on society: liars, theives, and murderers -- guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.
You don't even have sufficient courage of conviction to post non-anonymously.
When the government claims the taxes I pay are to provide health care for me, it bloody well remains my money: I expect no less than the amount I paid to be available to save my life.
Otherwise, you are supporting the notion of taxing someone to death, literally.
Then again, you probably are. Murderer. The government has no business playing God.
Electric utilities are publicly traded companies most places: I pay a non-subsidied electic bill.
Water and sewer systems are paid for by property taxes -- I can chose to move to a county with better fiscal responsibility. Canada, with interprovincial transfer payments does not even make it possible to punish a badly run province by "voting with one's feet."
Roads too, are, for the most part, paid for out of property taxes, the exceptions being state and federal highways. There are also toll roads in some places (particularly state roads).
By your arguments, nothing I earn is mine, except by permission of the government. That smacks of Communism. Pat Buchanan is right to call Canada "Soviet Canuckistan".
I wrote: There is no triage in the U.S. medical system...
ER services in times of crisis with local hospital staff and equipment shortages are, obviously, an exception. I meant to say there is no triage for non-immediate-emergency planned and scheduled procedures.
There is no triage in the U.S. medical system except for government provided survices and organ transplants (because organs can not be bought and sold on a free market).
86% of Americans have health insurance that provides access to rapid, high-quality care. The rest get care on a level available to all in Canada.
I have access to one of the best health care policies available: Primera Blue Cross Primera Plus. Premiums cost about US$1000 a month for family coverage. That sounds like a lot (and my employer covers the whole tab, which is rare), but it's well within the capacity of a middle class software engineer: the income taxes are so lo, that the money saved (when compared to Canadian income taxes on comparable income) can pay for the premiums and still leave an excess left over: I could afford it out of pocket even if I was earning significantly less.
All in all, we live far better in the U.S. than we ever could in Canada -- and we're not rich by any means.
You have to realize that the standards and costs of living in a major metropolitan area in the U.S. are such that salaries in the US80k-$110k range qualify as "middle class". There are some places where people earning less than US$65k qualify for government subsidies for the poor.
A system that takes your money, claiming to provide care for you when you need it, and then denying you as much care as you paid for when you do need it, is a system run by liars and thieves. If someone dies as a result, the people running the system are also murderers if your participation was not voluntary.
I think I had that in my original post but I'll restate it here... part of the perpose of a universal health care system is to prioratize people and triage them into whom needs it more.
It's bad when people die.
It's evil when the government gets to decide who dies.
part of the purpose of a universal health care system is to prioratize people and triage them into whom needs it more
You realize that you're worth more to society dead than alive: your organs can be harvested to save more people who need organ transplants than the loss of your own life.
But, as long as it's someone else's money that's being taken so they can't spend it to save their lives, and reassigned to someone deemed "more worthy", that's fine?
I don't think so.
I particularly don't think that a 70+ year old should be denied access to care they've paid dearly for all their lives when the become sick. My father was 78, needed an operable aortic anurysm repaired, and was told "shut up and die already -- you're taking too much old age pension" by bureaucrats adminstering Canadian health care funds in Quebec. His situation is becomming increasing common for seniors in Canada: if you're no longer working and paying taxes, they want you dead.
It's obscene to have to wait for care, and doubly obscene to not even be allowed into the queue for the care for which one has paid all their working lives, by way of their tax dollars.
I know it doesn't always come down to money but to be honest if I had to spend 50 thousand dollars to save someone I'd pick the person who seems like they are most likely going to contribute as much back to the system as possible.
I think you'd think differently if it were your $50k, and your life vs. that of some teenager.
Guess what?
It is your $50k. You paid it in taxes (and many times more), for, among other things, your health care.
You deserve to spend your own money to save your own life, regardles of how old you may be.
Funny though, how easy it is to take someone else's money and decide who "deserves" it more.
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What was that about a triple eclipse every 5000 years in The Fifth Element?
"F - l - o - r - i - d - a"
Kinda like non-Muslims thinking that all Muslims would murder anyone who would disagree with them?
I happen to be agnostic, but find the parallel hard to ignore.
There had been some movement toward private clinics in Ontario as well, but their legal status has always been questionable. There have been recent promises to close them, gnerally by the new Ontario Liberals under McGuinty because it's "unfair" that "the rich" can pay for care.
It used to be be the case that the U.S. didn't even require identification to enter temporarily from Canada! Many Canadians are now appalled that they have to provide a passport (which was always a good idea to have).
Whenever I leave and reenter the U.S., I just make sure my papers are in order, and have a copy on hand for the benefit of the INS officer, if necessary. I've never been hassled, though I have seen some Canadians get indignant over tightened security regulations. Hint: guests should not piss of their hosts.
Canada treats foreigners generally better than citizens: I can't legally pay for health care in Canada, but I can pay for my son's care (he is an American citizen) and get him moved to the "head of the line" (in practice, it's a separate line that Canadians can't enter).
Having lived in Canada from 1961 to 1997, and briefly in 2003-4 I can definately attest to the crumbling of social programs: what was predicted 25 years ago is coming to pass.
Investigating requirements for health care coverage in Ontario when I returned briefly in 2003, I was appalled to find that, besides the 90 day waiting period (which is reasonable), there is a requirement to agree to never leave the province in order to obtain coverage. A minimal residency requirement would be reasonable, but a permanent ban on moving, even to another province? This is a desperate move to keep tax dollars in Ontario.
In the end, choosing to not obtain government coverage, I just paid out of pocket.
Canada wants babies to live so they can pay taxes as they age and enter the work force. Canada wants those no longer paying significant taxes to die so as not to be a drain on services.
For all the shit and insanity in the U.S. right now, I definitely prefer it: I can feed my family, get them to a doctor on a moment's notice, and provide a normal middle class lifestyle. I can support charitable causes to a far greater degree than I could in Canada. the cost of living is higher, the salaries double, and the tax burden half. I qualify to work in the U.S. legally and my son is an American citizen (yes, I expect him to register for the armed services when he's 18 -- no running off to Canada for him).
The U.S., like any strong nation, has a government bent on controlling its population, using whatever strategies work. Public sentiments swing between civil liberties and the illusion of security rather like a pendulum: witness the McCarthy era contrasted against the Civil Rights Movement. The pendulum has swung far toward curtailment of civil liberties, but I have faith that it will swing back: already their are demonstations of civil unrest and disobedience against the current administration, and attempts to quash them are only fuelling opposition: The U.S. is not like Canada, where criticizing the government over non-control issues is enough to get a faux apology and self-congratulatory oratories about "listening to the people". Because of such small "victories", Canadians do not criticize the big issues: it's "bad form" to note that the government can overrule the highest court in the land (1982 Constitution "notwithstanding clause"), that self-defense is not justified (force used in defense results in one being charged as one's attacker is -- you're supposed to wait for the police to protect you (and they have no obligation to do so)) , or that spending your money to save your life is "unfair". In the U.S., if you want to challange the state, you better be prepared to be arrested, roughted up, and blacklisted. The U.S. government plays hardball. It listens when opposition runs into the millions. Powerful nations have powerful corrupt governments (all governments being corrupt), and taking the "tiger by the tail" takes some doing.
Nevertheless, when it matters, the dirty work of restraining the monster gets done. Canadians, OTOH, try to position themselves on the beneficial receiving end of any government corruption.
As for security of the person, recent statistics show the per-capita murder rate in Canada is slightly lower than that in the U.S. (about 12%), but the non-firearm related crime rate is about double: women, particularly, are vulnerable since they can't arm themselves to protect against would-be attackers and rapists posessing greater physical strenghth (firearms and even mace are heavily controlled).
Canada's social programs are on the verge of collapse (there's a shortage of 1400 doctors in the city of Toronto alone), and unlike skilled people qualified to work in the U.S., there will soon be a flood of people trying to escape south of the border.
More troubling is Canada's open immigration policy, and, up until now, generally benign "not-American" as opposed to "anti-American" sentiment. With the outright refusal to participate in Bush's folly in Iraq, many Canadians have become emboldened, anti-American, and consider anti-American activists "heroes" of a sort: middle-eastern individuals with alledged ties to terrorist activities are held in respect by many for "standing up" to the "bad old U.S.A". This does not bode well: I fully expect the
Dunno if an 800 km orbit can counter the earth's revolution around the sun though (and am too lazy to calculate that right now).
Doh! need more coffee. :-)
Just thought I'd mention that before some pedant rips my post to shreds.
Now, there is only one altitude at which a synchronous orbit is possible: that where the gravitational attraction matches the centripital force. Recall from high school Newtonian physics: GMm/r^2 = mv^2/r. Solving for v: v = sqrt(GM/r). The orbital velocity is also C/t, where C=2*pi*r. We note that t = 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.09 seconds or 86164.09 seconds.
So, you solve for r, where GMt/4/pi^2 = r^3.
Turns out, this is about 22500 miles, or 37500 km.
A far cry from 735 km.
Of course, there is no need for a space telescope to be in synchronous orbit, and this one probably isn't: it would take a lot more energy to get it that much further out of Earth's gravity well. (But, that's a calculation for another day).
That's a nice moral point of view, but it's not a fiscally viable one. If medical science found a way to cure every disease and malady for $500k a pop, then everyone would start sueing their medical provider to pay for whatever is going to kill them. People would run up tens of millions of dollars in medical bills before finally dieing in random car wrecks or getting murdered or hit by an asteriod at 150 years old.
Well, no. At that rate the premiums for the coverage you describe would be exorbitant. Most health insurers have lifetime caps anyway. The very wealthy might be able to take advantage of such plans, but they can afford to self-insure anyway.
Here in the USA we have a social program for able bodied seniors to retire from working. We pay our elderly not to work. Then we pay more to keep them alive longer... and not work. Usually when things really go bad, they run up hundreds of thousands of dollars just to live a few months longer. Three or four kids can go to college on the money that many americans use to extend their lives a few extra months.
It's questionable whether social security provides an adequate income. I know I don't count on it and save for my retirement accordingly. Same with medicare. It IS wrong for one to drain the public coffers in the manner you describe as they age. If there is to be a public health insurance system then it should be run as a viable insurance system, with appropriate premiums and caps, and perhaps somewhat of a subsidy for the very poor (Funded by those why die unexpectedly or from natural causes, never having collected on the insurance purchased with their premiums to excess -- most insureds don't, actually).
When my grandfather's health finally started to degenerate (aside from nuisance problems like asthma, arthritis, hip problems), he ended up in the hospital facing perpetual health care costs of about $1000 per day to keep him alive... in the hospital. Once he ran out of money, he could have lived off the state's coffers for a year or two because it's difficult to kick him out once he starts treatment. My grandfather told them to take him home. Not because he didn't want to die in the hospital, but because he didn't want to leave my grandmother with nothing. You see, she needed the money more than he did, so he knew it was his time to die.
He was a noble man, then. But, the important thing was that the choice was in his hands, and not the state's. I repeat: it is abhorrent for the state to play at God.
The problem with health care today is that everyone thinks they need the attention and money more than the other guy.
Aye, people are greedy bastards, ain't they?
Abortion: where a woman has had sex consentually and does not take immediate steps to terminate a pregnancy at the earliest effective date, it can be argued that there is an implied contract with the fetus to support it. This does not extend to the fetus threatening the mother's life. I support over the counter access to the "morning after" pill and traditional oral contraceptives.
State Millitary apparatus: I do not support a standing army, though I am not opposed to an established millitary to provide infrastructure and equipment to volunteers in times of crisis, and ongoing training in the "millitary arts". Defense should be decentralized much like it is in Switzerland.
With government run insurance, I'm at the mercy of an incompetent, and unscrupulous monopoly.
US$80-US$100k in a major metro area is not "rich". It affords a middle class lifestyle. Canada, however, had descended into the realm of third-world countries. Look up "Laffer Curve" to understand the long-term economic implications of high levels of taxation. And to think that the Canadian Dollar used to trade for around US$1.10.
If that system takes money from hard-working individuals, and promises health care when they need it, and fails to deliver, even to the level of the taxes paid to fund it, it is fraudulent. It may save some who might otherwise die, but it certainly kills others who would otherwise be able to use the money they legitinately earned to save their own lives. It is the state playing at God. For shame!
Do not speak of wealth and privilege: My father came from a wealthy family, losing everything to Soviet Communists -- he came to Canada as a refugee without a penny, and started from scratch. Cold and shivering walking home in the dead of winter from an overtime shift one night in the 1950s, he once stopped to warm up in a Catholic church (to which his family had once donated the equivalent of millions of dollars). He was told to "pay a quarter for the privilege of sitting in a pew to warm up". He could not afford this, and left on his way. While an isolated incident, our family's experience with government "compassion" in times of distress has been similar. We prefer to pay our own way, and help others less fortunate when we can. We have enjoyed good times and suffered bad ones (mostly in Canada). (Do you donate $500 a month to charity? Do you know what the Alex de Touqeville Society is? Do you know the meaning of private philanthropy? Like most socialiests, you likely think everyone is greedy like yourself, and can't fathom wealth redistribution except by force, to your benefit, no doubt.) Do not speak to me of compassion.
All this talk of socialism as "compassion" is a big fat lie, rather like a lottery: sure, someone wins the big prize, but playing the lottery certainly isn't a sure road to riches.
People of your ilk are parasites on society: liars, theives, and murderers -- guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.
You don't even have sufficient courage of conviction to post non-anonymously.
Otherwise, you are supporting the notion of taxing someone to death, literally.
Then again, you probably are. Murderer. The government has no business playing God.
Electric utilities are publicly traded companies most places: I pay a non-subsidied electic bill.
Water and sewer systems are paid for by property taxes -- I can chose to move to a county with better fiscal responsibility. Canada, with interprovincial transfer payments does not even make it possible to punish a badly run province by "voting with one's feet."
Roads too, are, for the most part, paid for out of property taxes, the exceptions being state and federal highways. There are also toll roads in some places (particularly state roads).
By your arguments, nothing I earn is mine, except by permission of the government. That smacks of Communism. Pat Buchanan is right to call Canada "Soviet Canuckistan".
ER services in times of crisis with local hospital staff and equipment shortages are, obviously, an exception. I meant to say there is no triage for non-immediate-emergency planned and scheduled procedures.
86% of Americans have health insurance that provides access to rapid, high-quality care. The rest get care on a level available to all in Canada.
I have access to one of the best health care policies available: Primera Blue Cross Primera Plus. Premiums cost about US$1000 a month for family coverage. That sounds like a lot (and my employer covers the whole tab, which is rare), but it's well within the capacity of a middle class software engineer: the income taxes are so lo, that the money saved (when compared to Canadian income taxes on comparable income) can pay for the premiums and still leave an excess left over: I could afford it out of pocket even if I was earning significantly less.
All in all, we live far better in the U.S. than we ever could in Canada -- and we're not rich by any means.
You have to realize that the standards and costs of living in a major metropolitan area in the U.S. are such that salaries in the US80k-$110k range qualify as "middle class". There are some places where people earning less than US$65k qualify for government subsidies for the poor.
A system that takes your money, claiming to provide care for you when you need it, and then denying you as much care as you paid for when you do need it, is a system run by liars and thieves. If someone dies as a result, the people running the system are also murderers if your participation was not voluntary.
It's bad when people die.
It's evil when the government gets to decide who dies.
You realize that you're worth more to society dead than alive: your organs can be harvested to save more people who need organ transplants than the loss of your own life.
But, as long as it's someone else's money that's being taken so they can't spend it to save their lives, and reassigned to someone deemed "more worthy", that's fine?
I don't think so.
I particularly don't think that a 70+ year old should be denied access to care they've paid dearly for all their lives when the become sick. My father was 78, needed an operable aortic anurysm repaired, and was told "shut up and die already -- you're taking too much old age pension" by bureaucrats adminstering Canadian health care funds in Quebec. His situation is becomming increasing common for seniors in Canada: if you're no longer working and paying taxes, they want you dead.
It's obscene to have to wait for care, and doubly obscene to not even be allowed into the queue for the care for which one has paid all their working lives, by way of their tax dollars.
I think you'd think differently if it were your $50k, and your life vs. that of some teenager.
Guess what?
It is your $50k. You paid it in taxes (and many times more), for, among other things, your health care.
You deserve to spend your own money to save your own life, regardles of how old you may be.
Funny though, how easy it is to take someone else's money and decide who "deserves" it more.
The assumption that I am a Canadian citizen is correct. It is a distinction of which I am not proud.