Posted on 08/17/2010 12:11:36 PM PDT by Lorianne
Today, Canadians familiar with America's new healthcare law are recognizing remarkable similarities between our healthcare future and their healthcare past. Obamacare adheres closely to the Canadian rubric for how to nationalize a formerly private healthcare system.
Republicans can stop this march back to the future if they win control of the House and Senate this fall, take the presidency in 2012, and commit to repealing Obamacare quickly and completely. Anything less will consign the United States to repeat Canada's 50-year journey toward socialized medicine.
To see how incremental reforms of the sort advanced by Obamacare can result in a full government takeover, it's instructive to consider the Canadian story.
Proponents of the reforms touted them as a happy medium between the British system, where the government owned and operated hospitals, and the American system, where healthcare services were largely left to the private market. Canada's federal government provided funding to the provinces, which the provinces used to deliver care.
This happy medium soon crumbled. With health care now effectively "free" -- that is, paid for by other taxpayers -- Canadians began visiting the doctor twice as much. Exploding demand drove up costs. To keep spending under control, the federal government simply reduced how much it sent to provinces to run the system. Provinces in turn cut payments to doctors and covered fewer services and cutting-edge treatments.
At first, doctors responded by billing patients directly for amounts greater than the government reimbursements. But in 1984, the federal government outlawed such practices -- thereby banning private delivery of services covered under the Canada Health Act. At this point, the Canadian government effectively controlled health care in the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
The window to repeal is closing fast. Once the people get hooked(hoodwinked) on ‘free’ anything, there is no turning back.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=192033
4 dozen names would launch Obamacare repeal
House plan could undermine entire nationalization program
Eight more members of the U.S. House have signed on to a plan that calls for a re-vote on Obamacare, enabling members to repeal the massive nationalization program estimated to cost Americans a trillion dollars or more.
The signature total now stands at 170, just four dozen shy of the 218 needed to advance the discharge petition sponsored by U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa
Anyway, where will the Canadians go to get good health care?
People will not be hooked on it. They will be disgusted with it.
And that’s what happened to the UK and Canada, no addiction to free anything, just disgust.
The reason there was no going back was because there was nothing to go back to. There were no private clinics, private practitioners etc. All had been put out of business.
So a typical Canadian will say sure we would like a better healthcare system but there are no alternatives.
“There are no alternatives” <— that’s the block.
Watch what Cameron does in the UK, he may reverse socialized medicine there but the UK has to find doctors willing to go private amd most of them have become bureacratic, similar to our VA doctors. Tall order for him.
To Mexico, where all the good American and Canadian doctors will be practicing.
"Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won’t change — whether you get them through Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan.”
“First of all, if you've got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan" President Barack Hussein Obama
“Cynics beware, I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. … The NHS is one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times.” (Donald Berwick) America's new health care system 
So I don't know where your getting this 'just disgust' info from.
I sure hope not. We’ll have nonstop whining that the trip is too long and arduous since it was historically only a short hop across the border.
I was campaigning with the Reform Party(based in Western Canada) 10-15 years ago when it first started out. A small-c-conservative-hate-the-gov-in-Ottawa-running-everything crowd.
At one of he meetings, just casually I mentioned I hope we win so we can turf this Stalin state run HC.
Not a word of lie - most asked if I was an American. Stating such a thing was taboo.
So, even in the most conservative crowd, 'leave my state HC alone,' is predominate.
Sure, normally I only post one of them.
I believe that the mandates will be very difficult to enforce. 0bamacare currently allows religious exemptions for Muslims and the Amish so there may be some move to eliminate the mandates through legislation. Others will pay the fine and “game” the system as in MA.
I doubt that we will have a draconian system that prohibits private care as was the case recently in Canada. In most socialist countries, private medical care has created a viable niche with the upper and upper middle classes. I was in Rome recently and saw many sidewalk ads promoting private medical care for all sorts of specialties.
As far as Medicare and some Medicare programs are concerned, I believe that we will see some type of rationing relatively soon. Capitation will probably be the only workable model. Some capitation schemes will give physicians incentives to limit care. This can work well for analytical services, but this model is problematic for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures that have higher fixed costs and fewer opportunities for efficiency. Simply ratcheting down rates to providers will only lead to an implosion of the entire system. Coercive attempts to force providers to provide services below cost will only lead to a back-lash and even more non-participation.
As the old Soviet saying goes:
“You pretend to pay and we’ll pretend to work”
Where are you hearing that the Canadians hate their health care? From what I hear their system is virtually untouchable politically.
From other Canadians.
You mentioned the operative word ‘taboo’.
I am in Seattle and when Canadians come south for medical treatment they unleash all the frustration and starting ranting without stop. They try and keep the cultural British reserve but they get wind up, try to make it humorous and before too long they are into a full blown rant.
Because they see the fantastic treatment facilities we have here and compare with what they left. There is no comparison. So they become disgusted at what they left.
And then they turn apologetic and say but “we have no alternatives up there”.
They try and defend their not being able to change what they have. And I have heard on several occasions that they would never say in public what they say in the private clinic here.
This took place during a rotation of mine at Swedish Hospital on First Hill, Seattle.
Canadians have a bad, actually awful case of political correctness.
See Post #17.
They will never say in public what they really think about it.
Out of the 200-250 family relatives, friends and co-workers I associated with, only 1 other agrees with me on private HC. And it isn't a family member.
Even mentioning 'American style private for profit HC' has ended many a Christmas/birthday party early.
My wife and I have a joke about leaving a party early or getting people to leave.
Instead saying that I'm sick, mention that the HC is sick and they leave in droves(especially my mother). Great times.
Sure there are some Canadians who bitch and complain, travel to other countries for service, but a super super slim minority of these complainers(from my experience) will contemplate alternatives to state run HC.
As I said early, once people get the idea that something is 'free,' where it is or not(most people are not smart enough to figure out it isn't free), it is hard to disengage them from it. And the longer it goes on, the greater the difficulty.
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