...y una vergüenza. Folks from Buenos Aires and everywhere else in Argentina have a hard time believing this kind of thing ...but it's for all to see in today's NYT:The new stimulus package at least temporarily changes the rules. If you lost your job after last Sept. 1 and your family income is less than $250,000 a year ($125,000 for individuals), you will have to pay only 35 percent of the premium for the first nine months. The government picks up the rest."Very few other countries on earth ...and none in the so-called "1st world" ...do not regard health care as a human right.
Everyone in the US suffers. Even those well-off suffer from either providing health-care for their employees or suffer competion from those that do. Those fewer and fewer companies that do provide some sort of health care for their employees, are under increasing pressure from competitors in countries that provide national health care.
Canadians y canadiennes be proud. Be proud that your own Tommy Douglas struck while the iron was hot ...and kept striking ...before the American Medical Association could smother his efforts in the crib ...as was done in my old country. And be proud, as well, that your national government recognised that his model should be the Canadian model.
People outside the US and Canada often have difficulty discerning between people from those two north american countries. Pardon my lifelong career in logistics but I find the following old saying worth considering ...while considering the distinct difference:
"The United States is a nation that built a railroad;
Canada is a railroad that built a nation."
Canada is a railroad that built a nation."
We yanquis, however, tend to think of "nation building" as something that we impose upon other peoples of the planet.
7 comments:
"Canadians y canadiennes"
That HAD to be wrong, eh?
Pardon my French ...but the little I picked up as a G.I. hitchhiking through Quebec during the last century got me some "propers" in the bars of Montreal.
Somebody hep me. Hep me, please!
Your spelling is correct...both versions.
people in the US can't understand 25% to 30% inflation in Argentina. What are you trying to say? that Argentina has a better health system? Do you have private insurance or do you use the public hospitals in Argentina? I am from Argentina and I am currently living in the US.
Thank you, Joli!
besos a todos,
Mike
Dear Anon,
I didn't mention Argentina ...but its system certainly resembles Canada more than the US. Here's a good description of the latter:
"The United States spends about twice as much per capita on health care than other industrialized countries. Yet it is a myth that the United States has the best health care in the world. The United States ranks near the bottom of industrialized countries in terms of important morbidity and mortality outcomes (for example, life expectancy and infant and maternal mortality). Out of 19 industrialized countries, the United States ranks last in reducing deaths from treatable conditions (Health Affairs, 2008). About 18,000 American adults die unnecessarily every year due to lack of insurance (Institute of Medicine, 2002). As reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2003, repair of an aortic aneurysm cost $8,647 in Canada and $13,432 in the U.S. What accounted for the substantial difference? Most of the difference was due to much greater overhead costs in the U.S. The surgeons and surgical facilities are top-notch in Canada. The surgeons are very well-paid. The difference is that Canada has adopted a true insurance system for financing health care, one that spreads risk across a broad population: a publicly funded single-payer national health insurance plan that eliminates the parasitic, investor-owned “insurance” companies that make profits by enrolling the healthy, screening out the sick and denying claims."
I have a prepaga ...at the insistence of my Argentine wife. However, I personally would not fear seeking medical treatment at a public hospital. Our 350 pesos a month, in my opinion, buys us much more convenient care ...not better care.
There would certainly be a longer wait at a public hospital ...as people with a greater need for medical care would be treated first. But that doesn't strike me as unfair or poorer treatment than the US.
I am the anonymous, thanks for the answer. What does a yanqui do in Argentina by the way? Your blog is nice, even though I am in the opposite spectrum in terms of political ideas. You seem far left, do you recognize yourself as far left or do you see yourself as moderate?
Thank you so much, Anon! I'm glad that you like my humble blog.
I raise cattle in the province with my wife for a living. I'm also the National Chairman of the US Democratic Party in Argentina.
Yes. I recognize myself as far left ...in as much as a "left" exists nowadays!
besos,
Mike
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