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With regard to Ron Hoggan's post on the subject;
I don't want to get into a prolonged debate regarding Canadian health care vs
U.S. health care but I feel it might be helpful to briefly outline our
experiences.

Marjorie and I lived in the U.S. for many years. During this time she was
diagnosed with CD. We were fortnunate in that the company I worked for paid
for a medical insurance policy covering both of us which initially paid 80%
of MOST of our medical bills. However, in the early 1990's insurance
companies were beginning to set their own fee schedules without regard to
the amount being billed by medical practitioners so that the 80%
reimbursement was gradually being eroded. Since returning to Canada, we have
had to use the Canadian health system for problems requiring  services
provided by our GP, several specialists as well as services provided by the
Emergency  Rooms at two major hospitals and one community hospital. In all
cases the services were excellent.

With regard to the points that Ron made:

>you can get decent health care in the U.S. by paying

Yes, you can get decent health care in the U.S. by paying for it. For
erxample, our total medical expense for 1992 came to US$ 10,759 or roughly
$14,847 Canadian and that's not taking 5 years inflation into account.
Without a comprehensive health care insurance plan (or the Canadian health
care system) how many of us on the list could afford this level of care?  We
couldn't.

>Why do we lose a lot of our specialists to the U.S.?

In a word...Money.  There is no cap on a physicians's earnings in the U.S.  I
understand that some of them are beginning to trickle back but that's only
hearsay.

>Tests.

We have had no opposition to tests either in the U.S. or in Canada.  As a
matter of fact Marjorie just had a biopsy which was recommended by her doctor
to verify that the villi were healthy after a severe accidental Gluten
challenge.

>The Canadian system is highly political and outrageously corrupt.

I can't argue with that statement but the same applies to the U.S. system.
Otherwise they would have a health care system modeled after our own.  Ask
Hillary Clinton - her efforts to revamp the U.S. system were sabotaged by
lobbyists for the medical community, the insurance and pharmaceutical
companies, and politicians who were greatly influenced by them or who are
terrified by the word "socialized" as in "Socialized Medicine" which the
opponents called the Canadian system.  To many of these people "socialiist"
is synonamous with "communist".

>The Federal government has fined the Alberta Provincial Government.

The fines were levied in order to force the Alberta government to comply with
the law which prohibits privately run medical schemes.  The Alberta
government was planning to allow the implementation of a "two-tiered" medical
system whereby those who could afford to pay hefty fees would receive
priority for medical services leaving the dregs of the sysem to the rest of
us who cannot afford the fees.  Again the politicians were being manipulated
by the medical, pharmaceutical, and insurance companies.

>Do you want your health care system managed by politicians?

That's what is happening on both sides of the border.  In the U.S.  the
Medicare and Medicaid programs are government sponsored and controlled.
So-called Managed Health Care is also controlled by legislation written by
the politicians who are not going to change things for fear of offending the
medical and pharmacutical companies who may or may not be big contributors to
political candidates depending......

Is the Canadian health care system perfect?  Absolutely not!  Ron is
absolutely right when he says that governments are not very good at running a
business, but what are our alternatives?  Turning it over to the medical,
pharmaceutical, and/or insurance industries?  That smacks of leaving the
chicken coop in care of the foxes.

In our opinion the Canadian health care system does need to be improved and
it is up to us, the citizens to let our politicians know what we want. If
you think we don't have the power to change things political, ask Brien
Muroney.

Best wishes to all,

Jim.