Quote Originally Posted by fishman3811
medicinal im in Canada and as you know we have free health care.But we are taxed for it big time.you pay 250.00 a month thats nothing how would you like to pay a dollar a litre for gas it goes into general revenues.How would you like to pay ten dollars for a pack of smokes.twenty dollars for a 12 pack beer.14% tax everytime you buy something at wally world.plus income tax and high property tax.Its said 55% of our income goes to some form of taxes here.But hey i love Canada and thats the price we have to pay to live here,so im not bitching just letting you guys know its not cheap having universal health care.Also our health care is not great you have waiting lists for any kinda of medical operation excample hip replacement you can wait 18 months,knee surgery 1-2 years.People have died in emergency waiting rooms waiting to see a doctor.You guys have the best health care bare none,but only if you have the money.At least here both rich and poor can die in waiting rooms.
I've heard the rich in Canada come here for medical care. I have VA (Veterans Administration) coverage along with my medical plan. I keep the medical plan mostly for my wife as where she works they don't offer any coverage.. I don't smoke and I don't drink so those two Items would not affect me, the 1.00 a liter translates into about 0.75 cents American , right. approximately 4 liters to a gallon and you have 3.00 American a gallon, we're already there, and there is no end in sight. Our biggest rip off on gasoline is the oil companies themselves. We pay about 1/2 of the 0.14 cents tax per dollar and that is a state tax. With the HMO that I have, any optional surgery, like knee or hip surgery, you also have to wait, having never scheduled one, I don't know how long but from what I can gather it's from 3 months to over a year, and you first have to be approved and you could be turned down if found that it wasn't absolutely necessary for your survival. The emergency care is sufficient, but just barely. The HMOs are constantly raising premiums and co-pays while denigrating services. When I retired 4 years ago I was informed that my free retirement medical was now going to cost me 450.00 a month, a decision made by The union medical plan. Up untill that time it had been free to retirees, that just lowered my retirement pay by 450.00, you can imagine how happy I was about that. When I hit 65, they lowered it to 250.00 because I went on Medicare. It would be free, but my wife is not old enough to go on medicare yet. When she is, I will only have to pay 85.00 a month for dental and optical, so you can see that it is a pretty good plan, (Teamsters). If every family could have this plan here, I believe it would be acceptable. Our reserve fund goes up every year, it was going down for a few years, but they raised the premiums. I believe that working members (Teamsters) pay like 120.00 a month, and the company pays like 450.00, so the medical fund recieves 570.00 per person. If you were to purchase this plan, it would be about 900.00 a month.