Okay, I don't know everything about Canada or how their government works, or how their taxes work, or how their healthcare system works, but there are a few things I think I really like about them.
There are people on both sides of the fence when it comes to Canada's healthcare system. I admit I'm not familiar enough with it to feel strongly one way or another ("Obviously Natasha Richardson died because her skiing accident was in Canada!" ... um, sure?) But I think I personally would prefer a universal healthcare system (a single-payer system) to this behemoth Obamacare we've recently passed. It's full of great ideas, but dang, it's messy and complicated and inefficient and looks like it just sells us all out to the insurance companies who have always been able to do whatever they want with us, and will continue to be able to do so. O_o BUT THAT IS A DISCUSSION FOR ANOTHER DAY.
BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND: WHAT I LIKE ABOUT CANADA.
Parental leave.
It's not maternity leave, which is a special cool luxury American working moms have that makes me jealous. Granted, not all Americans get paid maternity leave, but dang. Sometimes I wish I had waited a bit longer to have kids so I could have a job, take some paid maternity leave, then quit. (Yes, my selfish inner desires are why employers hate pregnant women and are suspicious of them.) But the idea is that in Canada, you get a year off with 55% pay. Then you get to go back to your job. A year, people. Paid. And either parent could take it off. So if both spouses are working, each could take 6 months off, or Mom could take a full year off, or whatever. But if one spouse is working, then the working spouse could take the whole year off. That seems a lot less discriminatory than saying we want to give working moms all these benefits to make their lives easier. Hey, look over here, I've made sacrifices, too! Whatever happened to "all men are created equal" - why do they get special treatment and protection?
Canada's version of the "Child Tax Credit"
In the United States, we get something like a $1000 tax credit for each child. That's great and all, but Canadians get a $100 check every month for each child they have (something like that.) That adds up to $1200, by the way. ;) Anyway, like I said, I don't know how their tax system works, but that seems more straightforward than our "$1000 tax credit plus a bunch of random deductions like the child care tax credit that ONLY WORKS FOR CHILD CARE AND NOT PRESCHOOL." Again, one of those things that discriminates against stay-at-home parents. Why is it that working parents need all this help? If they need all this help, isn't that a sign that there's something wrong with what they're doing? If *parents* need help, help *all* *parents* and not just a certain subset of them that exhibit certain behaviors the government wants. It seems they want to pressure everybody into working and only having a few children. Isn't Europe kind of having a problem with its aging population...? How are MY kids supposed to support the Social Security needs of all the aging people if you're trying to stop middle-class people from having kids?
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/301108/empty-playground-and-welfare-state-ramesh-ponnuru << a great blog entry
Universal healthcare.
I could never write enough about this in a single entry. I don't think I could get it out in a bunch of entries. But here's the quick version: we already practically have "free" universal health care. Hospitals and doctors are required to treat their patients regardless of their ability to pay. A friend of a friend said, "Health care is totally free, as long as you don't need a good credit score and don't mind dodging a few phone calls!" Seriously, it's awful! My aunt works (worked?) for a hospital's billing department! It sounds like a nightmare job!
We have the ability to treat people and morally we should (something to do with the Hippocratic oath? or something?) and we DO and we bill people for it even if they can't afford it. It makes no sense. I got my hospital bill from having Mace and the bill made no sense. They charged the insurance company some amount, the insurance company paid them some other amount (like, 1/5 of what the hospital billed them), I paid my teensy hospital copay (I love my health insurance ... they cover 100% and I have no deductible!), and somehow we all called it good? Someone explain to me how this has ANYTHING to do with the free market. And when I came in, they asked me if I was insured or if I was paying out of pocket. Do they bill us differently? I bet they do. This makes NO SENSE.
The fact is, we don't understand anything about what healthcare costs. And there are emergencies. That's why we all have insurance, I think. And we all have copays because the insurance companies don't want us going to the doctor for FREE because then we'd go to the doctor for every little thing and A) the doctors would be overwhelmed and B) it would be freaking expensive. But it makes sense for preventative visits to be free (because insurance companies would probably rather catch something earlier than later because it would be cheaper to treat) and blah blah blah I don't think you find this interesting.
I think healthcare should be a common good because education is a common good. We want our society to be educated because that makes them more productive. We ALSO want our society to be HEALTHY because that will ALSO make us more productive. I have a friend who was "disabled" because she has bipolar and epilepsy - and without medication she is unable to function. But if she got a job, Medicaid would no longer be able to help her with her medical costs, but her job wouldn't be good enough to either A) provide medical benefits or B) pay her enough that she can care for her own health issues. THAT IS JUST WRONG.
I could go more in-depth about this, but that would probably best be left to someone who is actually an expert in the field and knows about healthcare and knows about insurance. Me? I just read stuff.
PS. I'm in love with this woman and her blog. Apparently she wrote about most of my issues years ago.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/category/women/
And gosh dang I wish I kept links to all of the blog entries that made me think about everything I wrote about in this entry. Oh, well. I will find more later, but the point is I need to get my thoughts out, y'know?
Coming up some day: if I ruled the world, what would it be like?
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