Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 3:48 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 2:33 am
Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 2:24 am
Why wouldn't everyone still be able to contribute to universal healthcare if there were Medicare for all? No one would make any money at their jobs to pay taxes if we all had universal health care coverage.
Here, the system is the number one government expenditure. It's more than twice as much of the government budget than the next item, education. Everything else, like welfare, homelessness, addiction relief, psychiatric care, infrastructure, etc. is way down the list. And still...long wait times, more antiquated technology, fewer doctors and nurses, fewer procedures performed...the system is running the whole government into the ground...People have died in emergency waiting rooms.
But we have universal health care. Of a sort. For now. But it's not good, and getting worse, and no matter what we do, it won't last. It will not only take itself down, but everything else, too.
Thinking about it more, IC; does this perhaps mean that Canada should move some of its universal healthcare resources into things like welfare, homelessness, addiction relief, psychiatric care, infrastructure etc?
If it does, the healthcare system won't survive.
Perhap also privatize part of the system to compete with the public sector?
The public won't allow it. They've come to think of access to medical care as a kind of "right," and absolutely refuse any privatization, even to save the system itself.
That's typical with Socialist thinking. It's like, "If my neighbour has a pig, I deserve a pig, too...or if I can't get a pig, kill his." Equalization comes before the welfare of others, and even the welfare of oneself, in such thinking.
Perhaps Canada is unrealistically thinking it can have top grade health care without also attending to things like infrastructure? I mean if they think they can have a strong economy without good infrastructure then they are dreaming.
That's the problem. There isn't an infinite pot of magic money on which they can fund everything.
That's what "economics" really means: it is the study of what to do
with a finite pool of resources. There isn't enough money to do everything -- not nearly -- and everything given to one goal destroys something relevant to another legitimate goal. If you have lavish healthcare, you're not going to have upkeep of roads and bridges; if you have roads and bridges, you're going to lack retirement funds. And so forth. So very hard choices need to be made.
Worse still, government does nothing efficiently. The private sector, disciplined as it is by finances, has to behave responsibly or be bankrupted. But government waste can be infinite, because government is always fooling around with other people's money, money they can waste with no loss to themselves but with huge costs to us. So they never try to be efficient and responsible. They just throw money at stuff, then tax us to death to pay for their inefficiencies.
How do you know the problem is subsidizing health care?
Oh, that's easy. It's far and away the most expensive item on the budget, which public information. I think I said this. It's more than double the next largest cost, which would be public education. So any budgetary strategy that leaves half of the expenditures untouched is unlikely to resolve a fiscal crisis, and is unlikely to be able to increase significantly the budget needs in other areas. If you want better education, it's going to cut into healthcare, for example... or infrastructure...or social security...or resource distribution...or psychiatric and addiction programs...or farm subsidies...or aboriginal care...or....
