Hey, we took it to those Brits, did we not? Dirty bastards. But those chickenshit Canadians still have a regal presence on their currency.

Oh well, they sure the hell know how to play hockey though.

And how exactly did those Canadians handle those lousy stinking Brits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59NNupminV8

Okie dokie, we shall move on.

How about health care? How is that all working out?

In America the physician purchases malpractice insurance. When the doctor is sued, he contacts his insurance company and it supplies an attorney. The doctor will often retain his own personal attorney in addition to this to make sure his ass is being covered besides the insurer's.

I discovered a nice link reviewing some of the intricacies of Medical Malpractice in Canada. It is long and involved. Here are some of the more salient points:

The Canadian Medical Protective Association is a nonprofit, mutual defence association of physicians.

Canada has one fifth of the malpractice suits that we have in this country on a per capita basis.

Canada has a population of about 331/2 million people so it has about one tenth of our population. So figure it out. California has a population approaching 40 million, just for reference.

But Canada has far more polar bears. So there!!

In Canada, the physician notifies the  Canadian Medical Protective Association) when she receives notice of legal proceedings.  Now I cannot believe that the physicians, the rich ones anyway, do not have a solicitor on the sidelines just in case.  Certain claims have an affect upon licensing no matter where your practice.

In Canada, one claim is filed annually for every 50 doctors in practice, or currently about 1400 claims nationwide. This rate has been increasing at 10% per year over the last decade, but remains about a fifth the rate of claims per physician in the United States.

A useful rule of thumb for filed claims is that two-thirds will be abandoned, over a quarter will be settled, 6% will go to trial and of these two-thirds will be found in favour of the defence (various 1990s figures from the Canadian Medical Protective Association).

Not a good forum to make money suing doctors and hospitals and such. (I like English spelling, kind of quaint)

Now, does that mean that everybody in Canada is happy? I mean excluding all that stuff about the French and such?

In 2003, CBC News broadcast Inside the CMPA,[3] the first in-depth look at the Canadian Medical Protective Association. Featured was former CMPA insider Paul Harte who broke with that organization and blew the whistle. Harte offered firsthand, material knowledge of how that organization works. The broadcast discussed five patients (Morgan Bystedt, Betty O'Reilly, Shannon Shobridge, Anne McSween, and Lorraine Emmonds) who suffered serious injury or death due to medical negligence. At the very time those patients were ill and in anguish, all were subjected to deliberate wearing-down tactics from the CMPA. Lawyers and judges said in interview: "The CMPA fights them so hard. The CMPA takes the view that anyone suing doctors is basically in the extortion business. Sounds outrageous, but that's what the editors of a medical journal said 100 years ago when the CMPA was first established. Most of these cases arise out of complete ignorance or from a desire to extort money, the journal read. Doctors therefore needed a powerful and well managed protective association to defend them."   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Medical_Protective_Association

You do not achieve change without giving up something.

For neurosurgeons in Miami, the annual cost of medical malpractice insurance is astronomical -- $237,000, far more than the median price of a house.

In Toronto, a neurosurgeon pays about $29,200 for coverage. It's even less in Montreal ($20,600) and Vancouver ($10,650).

The costs are strikingly different, largely because of the ways in which Canada insures doctors and protects those who are sued:

• In 1978, the Canadian Supreme Court limited damages for pain and suffering. Adjusted for inflation, the cap now is just over $300,000. The United States has no federal cap on damages, though a few states, including Florida, have imposed them.

• Instead of buying insurance from a for-profit company, as most U.S. doctors do, Canadian physicians are covered through their membership in the nonprofit Canadian Medical Protective Association.

Membership fees vary only by the type of work and region of the country. All neurosurgeons in Ontario, for example, pay the same amount regardless of how many times each may have been hit with a claim.

You can see what the repubs in this country wish to do. They wish to appease doctors by lowering malpractice premiums (good luck with that doc, your insurer will keep most of those savings). You see you cannot, in my opinion, screw with one part of medical care and let the rest of it languish.

It does not work. The malpractice insurers are upset because our courts allow the average citizen to kick them in the balls once in awhile. You can see how the real malpractice insurer in Canada is NON PROFIT. That is why it works for those doctors. Management in the CMPA does not take home fifty mill a year. That is a key factor in all of this. And people who deny this are just plain lying.

And here is just a quick quip about Canadian healthcare: 

What kind of healthcare system does Canada have?

Since 1962, Canada has had a government-funded, national healthcare system founded on the five basic principles of the Canada Health Act. The principles are to provide a healthcare system that is: universally available to permanent residents; comprehensive in the services it covers; accessible without income barriers; portable within and outside the country; and publicly administered.

Under this system, Canada's provinces and territories are responsible for administering their own healthcare plans, and must provide residents with prepaid coverage for all medically necessary hospital and physician services.

Provincial and territorial responsibilities therefore include planning, financing, and providing hospital care, medical care, public health, and some facets of dispensing prescriptions. Coverage for services such as dental care, prescription drugs, optometric services, hearing aids, and home care, varies by province or territory. For example, the province of Ontario has instituted its own prescription drug plans, The Ontario Drug Benefit (ODB) Program and the Trillium Drug Program, in order to help seniors and others with the high costs of prescription drugs. These differ from British Columbia's Fair Pharmacare Program, and from Alberta's prescription drug plans, which are offered in conjunction with Blue Cross, a private insurer.

It should be pointed out that the Canada Health Act's principle of "portability" applies primarily between provinces. Although the Act entitles Canadians to "receive necessary services in relation to an emergency when the absence is temporary, such as on business or vacation", reimbursement for treatment in a foreign country is partial. Because of the high costs of medical care in some countries (e.g. the United States), most Canadians purchase travel insurance when travelling abroad.

How is the healthcare system funded?

Canada's healthcare system is funded by both the federal government, and by the provincial and territorial governments. The main source of revenue is taxation, i.e., personal and corporate income taxes (in some provinces, sales tax is also used). Some provinces also charge a yearly healthcare premium based on annual income. In Ontario, for example, an individual with taxable income of C$48,500 (US$40,500) would pay a premium of C$575 (US$480) in the 2005 tax year.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) 2001 statistics, Canada's total expenditure on health as an expenditure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 9.5%. This can be compared with 13.9% in the United States and 7.6% in the United Kingdom. And Canada ranks 30th on the WHO's year 2000 report on the cost effectiveness of global healthcare.

Health expenditures in Canada have increased in recent years. In 2000-2001, health expenditures totaled C$97.6 billion (US$81.5 billion), an increase of 7.2% when compared with 1999-2000. The figures given for 2000-2001 amount to C$3,174 (US$2,652) per capita.

The largest part of the government healthcare budget goes to hospitals. As a percentage of overall healthcare spending, spending on prescription drugs has increased in recent years, whereas it has decreased for doctors.

In addition to healthcare premiums, some provinces in Canada have attempted to reduce the burden of healthcare costs by contracting out health services to so-called P3s, or "private-public-partnerships." The institution of P3s has proven to be controversial. Although private companies, P3s continue to be paid for by public funds, and constitute a middle ground between a public and a fully privatized healthcare system. Ontario's provincial government plans to build P3 hospitals in the cities of Ottawa and Brampton, and similar projects are underway in the provinces of British Columbia and Quebec.   http://www.medhunters.com/articles/healthcareInCanada.html

There are great tomes written about various aspects of Canadian Health Care. There are movies and documentaries.

Whatever you do, do not take the propaganda spread by corporate sponsors like Fox News without a grain of salt.

Any system that makes a Miami Neurosurgeon pay over $200,000 a year for insurance sucks big time. And remember, all this crap about rural health care suffering in this country as a direct result of Health Care Reform cannot be true. Canada has one tenth of our population and it is spread out over a land mass larger than the United States.

Oh well. And I really do not understand why they call those Canucks Loonies:

Canadian dollar
Dollar canadien (French)
Twenty-dollar bill One-dollar coin (loonie)