[quote=“Ivan”]If you needed a hip replacement, would you wait six months to show your support for universal healthcare if there was a private clinic that could do it in three weeks?
[/quote]
I think you’re confused. There’s nothing stopping you from paying for a hip replacement if you want to pay for it.
That “alternative” always has, and always will exist. I think you’re assuming that people don’t currently have choice – they do. If you want to pay the full cost of a hip replacement and have it done on your terms, go for it. You can just jump over the border and do it.
That’s not what this is about. This is about making that the only option.
Right now, the federal government funds a lot of the public health system by giving the provinces money. There are strings attached to that money. If a province doesn’t want to follow those rules, they don’t have to take the money.
Healthcare has to be paid for, whether it’s paid for directly by the user or by everyone with taxes. Anyone who thinks Canadian healthcare is “free” is a fool. The same goes for education.
My question is, should society as a whole be burdened with the health and education expenses of the few? If someone wants to go to university, or get a hip replacement, why shouldn’t they have to pay for it, 100%? Why should I, a healthy person with no further educational needs, have to pay a portion of someone else’s expenses through my hard-earned tax dollars?
This is about making it the only option? Why does either system of healthcare have to be the only option?
As I acknowledged in my post above, people can go to other places for treatment. I don’t consider travelling to another country a viable alternative to our flawed healthcare system.
OK, your given a situation, there is only public healthcare, and someone very close to you needs a new heart. He is days from death and you get waitlised. Then, you think to yourself, if only there was private healthcare, you could afford if, and the persons life would be saved.
I think just having private healthcare would blow chunks, but sometimes only having public healthcare blows chunks too. Why would it be so bad to have both. People who can afford private can have privatem, and people that can’t afford private, have free public.
[quote=“brian_177”]
OK, your given a situation, there is only public healthcare, and someone very close to you needs a new heart. He is days from death and you get waitlised. Then, you think to yourself, if only there was private healthcare, you could afford if, and the persons life would be saved.
I think just having private healthcare would blow chunks, but sometimes only having public healthcare blows chunks too. Why would it be so bad to have both. People who can afford private can have privatem, and people that can’t afford private, have free public.[/quote]
Just like in the States? If you’re on welfare you get minimal state medicare, if you’re rich you can afford private medicare. It only leaves out the huge chunk in the middle that can’t afford private medicare so they get none at all.
You’re going to attend a government-funded university? Why not go to a free-market one in the USA?
Are you going to pay the full tuition, your share and the government’s share? Afterall, “if someone wants to go to university … why shouldn’t they have to pay for it, 100%” ?
I’ll bet you won’t, though. Because you’re full of shit.
So tell me, hoshq, “Should society as a whole be burdened with the health and education expenses of the few? If someone wants to go to university, or get a hip replacement, why shouldn’t they have to pay for it, 100%?”
Do you have an answer or not?
You really paint yourself into these logical corners (see your “I don’t believe in dictionaries” example), then just ignore them.
That’s why I said that you are in need of further education.
“Why should I, a healthy person with no further educational needs, have to pay a portion of someone else’s expenses through my hard-earned tax dollars?”
To be sure, my question was pointed, but that was only so that people would consider it from that angle, and was in no way stating my personal beliefs. If we didn’t consider things from different angles, all we’d hear is the same rhetoric over and over from you and the other Coons Cronies, the NDP Backroom Boys.
My answer? I may indeed want or need more education. Someday, god forbid, I may have children, and they’ll definitely need education. Someday I might get old and/or sick and require health services. In terms of costs and “why should I pay,” it actually costs less for us to collectively pay for the services than to just pay for them individually when we need them. And by doing so, everyone gets good access to services, no one is left out and the overall standards are higher. I do believe in the idea that society should collectively take care of itself, that the rich should pay more so that the poor have equal access to the same services. Considering how we’re moving away from a manual labour economy and more towards technology, I do believe it’s in society’s best interest that more people be well educated. And not only technology, we should educate so that more people can better think and take part in society. And I believe it’s not right to have private health and education, where a higher standard would be available to only those who could afford it.
Only one word to describe you, hoshq, and I keep coming back to it over and over.
Ignorant.
That pretty much sums you up.
If you want to believe I’m a Coons Cronie (is that a basketball team) or an NDP Backroom Boy, then that’s further proof (as if I needed it) that you are the true definition of the word ‘ignorant’.
Interesting you picked Ryerson (based on you comments about paying for education, etc). You do realize that Ryerson was basically the grandfather of “PUBLIC” education in Canada.