I'm a Canadian with "socialized" health care listening to the bullshit the debaters are spewing.

[glarius]

I'm listening to the Republican debaters falling all over themselves trying to outdo each other on who would get rid of "Obama Care" the fastest when they become President.
I'm a Canadian who has lived with so-called "socialized health care" since we got it...in the 1960s....It has been a godsend to all of the citizens of my country. We get the best of care...and not after long waits as the rightwingers would have you believe. The waiting is for elective surgery. Import operations are done right away. Everyone has access to all specialists and all specialized treatments. We all choose our own doctors despite the lies you have heard in the U.S.A. No politician would dare to suggest getting rid of our health care system.

I just had to get this off my chest.
P.S...We are a democracy...just as you are.

[MedleyMisty]

1. Can we come there?

And apply for political asylum as refugees?

[WildNovember]

2. Ignore those people, they're batshit insane. My apologies.

[glarius]

4. It angers me to think that many of your citizens probably

believe the lies they spew.

[WildNovember]

5. They're batshit inane too. It's a social condition.

[Enthusiast]

28. It's a propaganda condition.

[Arugula Latte]

6. Just count yourself lucky to live in a country where most people are sane.

Here, it's probably half sane, half not. :(

[tabatha]

3. Yes, I cannot stand the BS either.

[RC]

7. Actually, you are living in a better democracy that we have down here.

Our government is working real hard to neutralize our Constitution for friend and foe alike.

[lovuian]

8. Americans are so stupid Socialized Medicine is healthy

Medicine...we are enslaved by these corporations who are destroying themselves as we speak

Socialized Medicine will happen whether they like it or not

[riverbendviewgal]

9. I am Canadian

but American born...Canadian by choice..

I have redneck Republican American relatives. It sickens me to hear my brother spout the Fox News hatred of Obama...
It sickened me to hear my cousin's husband advocate Obama meet the same fate as JFK..

The Canadian health care system took good care of my husband and younger son.. They were given the best treatment for their cancers. My younger son had the same type of brain tumor as Ted Kennedy and the same treatment.
3 brain surgeries, two types of chemos, radiation, blood transfusions, counseling for him and all the family 5 weeks in intensive care and one week in hospital palliative care.
My husband had surgery, three types of chemo, radiations, stem cell harvesting and implanting after chemo (one month in hospital for that>) 3 months in hospital palliative care. Oh, and counseling for him and family. AND the Canadian government gave me money for funeral costs.. Over 2 thousand dollars for each of them..

COST for the health care treatment: ZERO.

Most Canadians can not believe that Americans are so brainwashed by the Republicans and Fox News regarding health care. I have American friends who have the audacity to tell me they get their prescription medicine from Canada because it costs less, yet they are staunch Republicans.

My recent health care experience was in September - My optometrist saw I had a detached retina and was going blind....Same day he sent me to a eye surgeon - 2 hour drive - where I was operated on the same day.
The health care paid for all the treatment and MY GASOLINE!!!!

America has the best health care ONLY FOR THE RICH.

Canada is a real democracy...America is actually a Republic....Survival of the richest and strongest.

[glarius]

10. You speak for millions....my family has had similar experiences.n/t

[polly7]

11. As has mine ..... and I'm so sorry for your losses, riverbendviewgal. n/t.

[riverbendviewgal]

13. Thank you Polly7

for your kindness.

[riverbendviewgal]

12. Like Canadians say

we are all in this boat together....I like to think of our boat as a big blue marble.

[area51]

23. +1

A lot of rightwingers don't give a damn if their fellow Americans die due to untreated diseases.

If any freak republic knuckledraggers are reading this, think on this if you can: people here are running around with communicable, treatable diseases that won't stop at the border of your elite gated communities. Also, consider the situation of someone with untreated epilepsy, having a seizure behind the wheel, then plows their car right into yours. C'mon, try to kick a few brain cells into life, freakers.

[Demonaut]

14. healthcare in this country is a shackle by employers and a money maker for an industry

I lived in the UK, very similar to Canada

[jwirr]

15. Thank you for posting. We here on DU are working very hard to

follow your example of health care but we have a ways to go.

[joshcryer]

16. I've read Perry's arguments here on DU.

By progressives.

[Darth_Kitten]

17. Fellow Canadian here backs you up.

:)

[roamer65]

18. AND you're now caring for A LOT of uninsured Americans...

...who come across the border to get medical procedures done at a much lower cost.

Hats off to Canada!

[glarius]

20. I didn't know about that...but it's great!!! /nt

[roamer65]

21. Even Sarah Palin has gone to Canada for health care.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/03/08/85592/palin-canada-travel/

[applegrove]

19. At our health care is about 1/3 less expensive as the total of that in the USA.

[tex-wyo-dem]

22. Thank you, glarius!

Perhaps you see the incredible amount of propogandist BS we live with in this country.

I work for a Canadian company and all of the ppl I've talked to in the company who live in Canada back up what you say...not that I was questioning you.

The fact that we don't have a system like yours is truly criminal.

[Juche]

24. The right wing in America tend to be misinformed, I wouldn't take them seriously

The people who believe the US has the greatest health care system on earth and that Canadians have a terrible system and want our health care system are by and large the same people who believe creationism is a science and evolution is a hoax. They also believe that climate change is a hoax designed to make money for Al Gore. They also believe that Obama is a muslim marxist from Kenya who faked his birth certificate. They believe lots of wrong things.

I'd kill to have a Canadian system over our US system. Most informed people would. I think (from what I know of it) the Taiwanese and French have the best systems on earth, but the Canadians are still vastly superior to ours.

[Juche]

25. Also, the socialized health care programs in the US are the most popular

The VA system (for veterans) has undergone rapid improvements over the last decade, it is now rated the most satisfactory health care system in the US beating medicare, medicaid and private insurance.

Medicare costs less than private insurance and has higher satisfactory ratings. In fact when 'Obamacare' was passed in 2010 one of the biggest clubs the GOP used against Obama was that it would cut $500 billion from medicare over a decade (most of those cuts were for subsidized private programs added to medicare, not to medicare itself). They see no irony in running on 'protecting medicare' while trying to destroy socialized medicine.

If you don't know, the VA is a heavily socialized health care system (both payments and providers are done by the government), and medicare is a single payer system like what you have in Canada. And both are consistently cheaper and better liked than private insurance.

[vssmith]

26. I know all about Canadian health care

Because I have a second cousin who has a brother who has a wife who has a friend that talked to someone From Canada....

[Enthusiast]

27. A majority of Americans want to adopt a system like yours.

We want it right now.

You say we are a democracy. I'm sorry to say that you are wrong. We are no longer a democracy. If you lived here you would see that our democracy has been captured by corporate money. We can't have national health care because the insurance industry doesn't want it, the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want it and the for-profit health care service industry doesn't want it. The interests of these corporations comes far before the interests of the American people.

[Bigmack]

29. Our Canadian neighbor (winter)...

...has been treated for - and beaten - both colon cancer and liver cancer.

Cancer-free for 5 years.

All the best treatments available from the Canadian system. Lots of scans and surgeries.

This country will let people die of preventable and curable conditions.

This country has no soul.