Here is a longer 18 minute video of more of Senator Burr's questions to the witnesses. I wish I could find the full hearing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1m0Gxtsz1A

It includes this little gem from Senator Burr, "The American system HAS access to healthcare for everybody, it's called the Emergency Room. Now we don't admit that because clearly we are lobbying for a particular angle, but every American can access healthcare."

Nice slight of hand there Senator, only difference is whenever I go to the emergency room (I live in Canada), I don't get a bill in the mail a few weeks later that I have to pay.

The average American ER visit costs $600 dollars in 2009, today it's probably well more than that, and that's just for simple problems. Anything more serious than a urinary tract infection and you are going to be paying thousands of dollars.

I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll give my 2 cents on my experiences with the Healthcare system in Quebec.

I use the public system and private system and constantly dabble between the two. Wait times can be long for sure. I've had a long running ankle problem since my teens, and to get my first appointment with an ankle specialist here took 1 year and 3 months!

My MRI was covered by private insurance, so it only took a couple days to have the scan done. I was put on a surgery waiting list for just over 2 years. The Dr let me know that he operated at a private clinic in Montreal. I could have had the surgery in only 2 weeks, at a cost of around $5000, but because my pain was minimal and I could still walk, I opted to wait.

Post surgery access to follow up appointments was swift. I could easily see the Dr in a week or two, with very little advanced notice. Follow up MRI's weren't covered by my new private insurance, so I had to wait for an MRI scan, which took around 2 months. I was supposed to have an MRI arthrogram, but the waiting list for that procedure is about twice as long, so the Dr just opted for a regular MRI. Cost for an MRI arthrogram is $875 in private. Again I just waited it out.

I've only needed to go to the emergency room twice, since I've been here, both times I was in and out in under an hour and a half.

I've been to many walk-in clinic's. These are a crapshoot, sometimes they're incredibly fast, sometimes incredibly slow.

I don't have a family Dr, so I opt to go to a Dr at a private clinic for my annual checkups. Even private clinics are a grey zone sometimes, as some services are covered by the provincial plans, so visits to the GP cost out of pocket, but visits to specialists within the same clinic are free.

Finding a family Dr is definitely plausible, it just involves phoning around every clinic and/or Dr in Montreal asking if they have space, but I just haven't invested the time yet. Some people get lucky this way, but even then, getting an appointment with your family Dr can take many weeks, appointment times can be inconvenient (mid afternoon, etc), so I'd rather make the investment of seeing someone at a private clinic, where I can have an appointment at 8:30am within a couple days.

I contrast all this with the fact that I was born and lived in South Africa well into my mid 20's. South Africa has abysmal public healthcare, and being born into a white middle class family, thanks to my parents I had access to private healthcare.

Private insurance in South Africa is less exploitative than in the U.S. Much less fighting with insurers to pay for coverage etc. Access to most Dr's is swift, and most procedure's are well covered. Obviously the overall experience compared to Canadian healthcare was much better, but the S.A private system only barely covers 20% of the population's needs and even with the disparity in wait times for service, the Canadian healthcare system at 100% coverage feels like an undeniable success, and a model that needs to be improved and iterated upon.

The debate around healthcare is tough here. Health issues and frustration with waiting can easily escalate the egocentric side of our human nature, but even with my negative experiences I would never denounce this system, because the broader social contract that has been written is valiant, and the price paid for this is worth it.

Nobody should be financially ruined because of health issues.

Things will change in Canada now, Harper did a sneaky modification to health care. They're limiting the amount that the Federal gov't will give the provinces. They're also putting limitations on things that should not be limited (eg. nurses, Veteran support, specialists.)

In Ontario, things are pretty good. It has it's problems, but everyone can get seen. I think, unless this legislation gets changed, it's going to start going down hill in the next five to ten years.

2 week hospital stay nurses checking in every half hour, even while we slept.

liquid food for 8 days through an IV, nurse told me it was 750 per bag/24 H

Specialists attending..

Four CAT scans maybe six. depending on how you want to group the time frame.

um...

ambulance ride covered by the province.

they took blood work twice a day.. I mean people were all up in my shit, LITERALLY ! oh a colonoscopy, and dietician.

SO those two weeks cost Alberta/Canada a lot of money. How much would that cost a person who is poor as fuck with a pre existing condition ?

I really wonder because if it was more than 500 dollars I would be in debt pretty decent if it was not for the health care system Canada has.

This elective stuff.. when I was getting scanned for tumors in my head or abnormalities again a CAT scan, I had to wait for a month, and it was not life threatening stuff, the EEG I waited 2 weeks for. again not life threatening.

My experience has been very well, although sometimes it has pissed me off. If I had this shit happen to me in America I think a bullet that costs .05 cents would be a better option that a life of 12 thousand a year debt for.. ever.

I did not like that one person, senators a -ok, doctor a-ok.. name plate hidden jack ass- not so much.

Oh and my pills costs roughly 90-120 dollars a month, I actually don't know because I have never paid for them.

GO CANADA!
GO ALBERTA !
being poor sucks though. been sick for a year.

I used to run store inventories for RGIS (inventory specialists) years ago and we always had to be somewhere despite the foul weather. Watching this felt like deja-vu because we were always driving like idiots trying to make up time in rain or snow. (Side note: I used to really like driving, but not after working there)

A real solution does not exist in modifying drug laws or even making any and all drug use a matter of free-will choice: The solution? One would be to dismantle the police state before it grows more Hydratic heads exponentially and turns the entire population of humans in the United States into criminals.

Police are screened psychologically in order to get the best candidates for the job. Low-intellect, hind-brained thugs with control issues who were abused as children, as adults. Police have become a developmentally-disabled army of legalized extortion, blackmail, and assault-specialists with no conscience save that of their duty to the State.

ALL police, all troupers, sheriffs, constables or federal agents are felons.

ALL POLICE will eventually or intentionally in their careers, either witness a felony being perpetrated by another cop which they will not report because of their sick fraternal ideals, or will commit one themselves with the sanction of the state, her courts and judges. Law enforcements' a broken, pathetic farce, and will eventually turn this country into a chasm of shit, and very soon.

Best not to plan a family until the shits repaired, as an reasonable adult one wouldn't want a child born into a situation they are wholly unprepared for under the guise of illusion and order.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Men-in-Black-by-US-Army-Specialist-Colby-Buzzell

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by Norsuelefantti. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Men-in-Black-by-US-Army-Specialist-Colby-Buzzell

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by Norsuelefantti. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Men-in-Black-by-US-Army-Specialist-Colby-Buzzell

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by Norsuelefantti. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

Power corrupts. Business and politics are not-so secret lovers. Does anyone not think our governments are filled to the brim with self serving assholes? Since the dawn of our civilization!

In order to be at the top you need to gain an edge, an advantage over the basic humans and their basic, law-abiding, selfless peers. Duh.

We're pattern detecting machines. Stop being so ignorant. If you're in management or leadership of anything in our spectrum of existence you'll see this type of behavior (usually not outright but often obvious rule skirting) allllllllll the time.

And to avoid lying about or being accused of self serving we've made it a rule to be self-serving and divided the transparency of how the system truly works; not to balance but to provide for those making these difficult decisions.

And then you reach that plateau and you find that the lack of transparency and smoke screens by those who have already been there for all these years, well, that's just part of the system; part of business; part of politics, woven for those who play the game and continue to pattern seek and change the rules and/or adapt to the rules to continue reaping the benefits of power.

Devil is in the details, which is where specialists come in, but sometimes you need a holistic perspective of the entirety of being.

And here's more info on him. It sounds like he's a really bright individual who society completely failed to position for success.

After dropping out of community college, Hahn joined the Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise as an undesignated seaman.

Hahn had hoped to pursue a nuclear specialist career. EPA scientists believe that Hahn may have exceeded the lifetime dosage for thorium exposure, but he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station.

And then a sad bit:
On August 1, 2007, Hahn was arrested in Clinton Township, Michigan for larceny, in relation to a matter involving several smoke detectors, allegedly removed from the halls of his apartment building. His intention was to obtain americium, a radioactive substance, from the detectors. In his mug shot, his face is covered with sores which investigators claim are possibly from exposure to radioactive materials

Finally: fer christ's sake, son! what the hell happened to you!
http://blogs.kansascity.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/03/boyscout.jpg

This is a false or misleading statement. The reasons for some Canadians having to wait or not being able to have a doctor are different. Canada has had a terrible drain on it's medical system with doctors and nurses going down to the US, because they make more money there. This has lead to new programs to entice them to stay in Canada. It looks like they have been working, but it's a 10 year study and we need to see the numbers.

As a Canadian who has been though the healthcare system in Ontario, and had family members who've had been through health care in Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, Halifax and Newfoundland.Labradour, I can tell you the parts that work and the parts that don't.

I'm a type I diabetic and I've had cancer twice. I've had a sarcoma in my saliva gland and as a result of radiation therapy, I've had melanoma skin cancer crop up on my body as well. I've had four major surgeries on my body. Two of them were serious complicated nervous system surgeries or lymphatic resecctions. I've been through my fair share of Canadian health care.

First things first. It's not a national healthcare. Anyone saying national healthcare doesn't know what they're talking about. The provinces and territories have their own health care. Granted, the territories get a lot more help from the Federal Gov't, but the health needs of people in Ontario are different from those in Manitoba.

Let's get into the brass taxes. I've had the nerve surgery and radiation therapy that was done on my face evaluated at a hospital in West Virgina as part of a study to compare American HC vs. Canadian HC. For my first surgery, I got to choose my doctor, I was given a list. They recommended one doctor, who was an expert in North America for nerve surgery, but he was recovering from a surgery of his own. They suggested I wait for him to be ready, but if I wanted to proceed, I could wait if I wanted.

I waited and surprise, no facial paralysis. I then had to do 30 days of intense radiation therapy in my parotid bed, to make sure they got it all.

I paid a total of $300 dollars in parking. I also have private health insurance for diabetic supplies, which means any medication I had to get to deal with the after effects of radiation had an 85% payback.

Years later when the effects of radiation had settled and I had a tumour form from the radiation, I had gone to my family doctor, saw a specialist the next day and then within the week I had an excision done. It came back positive and within a week of that, I was given a sentinel node biopsy to see if it had spread.

It had.

Within a month of the first examination, I had a full lymphatic ressection of my left leg and groin done. This wasn't as complicated as the facial nerve surgery, so I got a list and a suggestion of who to do the surgery.

That came back clean, but I now deal with a lot of complications from that.

That surgery cost me nothing.

In West Virgina at a hospital (they didn't tell me which one they used.) The total for all the exams (CT, MRI, etc.) the surgery and the radiation therapy came out to $275,000. Give or take.

This is why it drives me nuts when I see people get things wrong about Canada. We have problems, oh yes we do. For example, don't be over the age of 65 in BC or Quebec. The diagnostics training in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland if pretty terrible. But, I got to choose my doctor, and I saw everyone really quick. Why? Because you don't fuck with melanoma.

So, I'm sorry Trancecoach, I saw that video you linked. The guy lost a lot of credibility at "Communist State of Canada." You're already skewing your message to say something. You are just plain wrong about health care in Canada, the way you talk about. I am living proof of how well it works.

I'm a self employed photographer and the most I've ever had to pay was for parking at the hospital. That was the $300 dollars. I paid my taxes and that paid for my health care. If I didn't, and if other Canadians didn't, I would not be here, as with many other Canadians.

Critique us for the things we do shitty, but I have yet to see anyone do that. I see talking points and misinformation from people just spreading false info.

Get your facts straight. I know how it works in Ontario the best. But, I also know for a vast majority of the other country. I can tell you Saskatchewan has had an exodus of nurses, but that's not bad health care system. That's a gov't system that can't keep nurses in the province. If we can keep doctors and nurses, the system works great.

The guy you linked to, most of his sources for data are absolute crap and he misleads a lot of his talking points. This stupid lottery doctor that happened was because it was an isolated town in the wilderness and there was only one doctor left after the other passed away. So yes, he had to do a lottery for people so he wouldn't get swamped, unless it was an emergency. It was a town, I believe about 10,000 people, but I'm not sure on that.

I'd lean more towards enouraging men to be autodidacts and polymaths than specialists and experts. The latter relies upon society to survive, but society relies on the former to survive. Indepednance is always prefereable to interdependance in my mind. A jack of all trades, master of none, is always better than a master of one.

I'd remove 'change a diaper' from that list by Robert Heinlein and replace it with 'make a baby, deliver a baby'.