i've wondered recently just how much of a difference Canada's socialized medicine has made in the SARS epidemic. It just seems that their exposure should not be that much greater than in the U.S. and yet in comparing the number of deaths of the U.S. and Canada their is a great disparity. Merely idle speculation.

i also wonder if there aren't similar horror stories in the US due to lack of health care insurance. Those without insurance go the emergency rooms, as I have understood the scenario... I can only imagine the stories that could be told.
Health care for all would be nice; alas, in every system some will always be left behind.

Health insurance is available to everyone. It is merely a factor of how much you pay for it, and how. Even those of us that get health insurance from our employer end up paying for it. It just doesn't seem like it, because it is in the form of lower wages.

People that are self employed or unemployed always have the option of going out and purchasing health care insurance on their own. Surprisingly, it isn't all that expensive for an individual (I found a provider for $2000 a year for me). It is more of a question of how willing those people are to go out and get insurance.

For the most part, there is a large segment of society that will go without health insurance, or life insurance, but then spend thousands of dollars per year on luxuries such as the lottery, cigarettes, drugs, booze, rims for their cars, or what have you. It is usually just a question of priorities.

Granted there is a portion of people that genuinely cannot afford health care, (or food, etc) and they must rely on welfare. Those people are provided for under medicare, medicaid, or private charities.

What aggravates me are the deadbeats who spend all their money on lottery tickets and beer, and then bitch about wanting me to subsidize their health care.

SARS is more an epidemic-control rather than treatment-availability issue, since there is no known cure for the illness -- which makes the system of medical care delivery irrelevant. The death toll was higher in Canada due to a greater exposure rate. For example, Canada has far more SARS cases than the US (see links at http://www.who.int/en/); was the first non-Asian country to be infected, before the disease became well-publicized (see http://sarsreference.com/sarsref/timeline.htm); and has much higher per capita travel than the US with the disease origin of China/Hong Kong (see http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/50-501-XIE/sect10.pdf , page 5).

And in regards to the original blog-post, many Canadians acknowledge the shortcomings of nationalized healthcare but prefer it to the prospect of millions of people without any medical insurance amidst corrupt HMOs. There's probably a happy medium, though. Merely dropping by courtesy of the Carnival.

HMOs seem (to me) to be going out of style. I've used a PPO for years, and have gotten excellent service.

Politicians have been successful at propagating a myth that health insurance MUST come from your employer. Paranoid libertarians like myself think that it is the first step in indoctrinating people into believing that health care MUST come from the government.

In America, you don't HAVE to use an HMO. If you are unhappy with the choices that your employer offers, than go get a better job. Or better yet, simply waive the coverage and go get better coverage on your own.

As for affordability, it is usually just a matter of priorities. People choose cable TV and fancy cars to good health insurance. Then when they get sick, they want their neighbor to foot the bill.

Actually, the US health care system has its own horror stories, many just as awful as the ones recounted here. They result from two things, primarily: people can't afford care (yes, I know, you think they are all a bunch of welfare queens spending money on the wrong thing, but you are wrong), or they can afford care but the standard we expect in the US is so expensive that insurance companies have to figure out ways to deny care in order to make money.
Anyway, an important fact you apparently do not realize is that you ALREADY pay for the care the uninsured receive. And because we don't have a rational system for providing that care, you pay MORE because this care is provided in more expensive settings and often after a condition has worsened - meaning, instead of paying $100 for prevention, you paid $1000 for a cure. How, you ask, do you pay for this? Primarily state and local taxes that pay for indigent care, and federal taxes to pay for Medicaid's Disproportionate Share Program, which compensates hospitals to some degree for the uncompensated and charity care they provide. You also pay through higher insurance premiums, because the providers out there who don't get paid in full or at all for the care they provide (and remember, emergency rooms by law may not turn away anyone with a real emergency) and cost shift to people who are insured (or to Medicaid and Medicare, which still costs you since your taxes support those programs).
To oppose some form of universal health coverage is, in my opinion, morally wrong because I consider health care a basic right. We can argue about that, it is certainly a matter of opinion. What CANNOT be argued, though, is that taxpayers already foot the bill for alot of health care for the uninsured, though in indirect ways, and that money could be spent alot more wisely if we did it more directly and could put some controls on it.

Please, allow me to address a few points.

You should not divine rights that take away property from others and then try to claim the moral high ground. Your 'basic right' to health care is very much different than something like freedom of speech or right to bear arms. Your unalienable rights don't take away rights from other people. In other words, you don't lose any rights by my exercising my freedom of expression, owning a gun, or practicing my religion.

However, when you divine the 'basic right' to health care, you are using the threat of lethal force to seize money from taxpayers to pay for it. That is morally wrong. The indigent should be cared for by private charities and people that actually voluntarily donated money, goods, or services to benefit their fellow man. When the government sticks a gun in my face to collect taxes to pay for your health care, that is thievery, not charity. (Am I being over dramatic? No. Taxes are collected by the point of a gun. Don't believe me, try not paying your taxes some time.)

What else is morally wrong is the idea of universal health care. Universal health care would dictate that we are all in the same boat. Even people that have the money to pay for quality health care, will be forced to wait in line with the rest of us down at the 'social' clinic. Denying someone the right to pay for better service is also morally wrong.

As I said, whether or not health care is a basic right is a matter of opinion. What cannot be argued is that you already pay for care for the uninsured, and will continue to whether you like it or not. The question is, do we continue as is, which is highly inefficient and expensive, or do we set up something more rational so that we can control it, measure it, etc.

Hope,

I think you are aptly named. Grin.

Everything the government does is highly inefficient and expensive. Throwing good money after bad is probably not going to make it better.