Sunday, May 29, 2005

U.S.Consensus for Non-Covered Medical

The United States seems to be making progress to provide health care coverage for low-income individuals. As a Canadian, this is good news.

Reported in the New York Times: "At a time when Congress has been torn by partisan battles, 24 ideologically disparate leaders representing the health care industry, corporations and unions, and conservative and liberal groups have been meeting secretly for months to seek a consensus on proposals to provide coverage for the growing number of people with no health insurance."

I always thought that if America had health care coverage for all people it truly would be one of the greatest countries in the world. It would also give states supporting health care insurance for low-income earners an advantage for industry locating in those areas as the work force would be healthier. A healthy workforce means individuals are able to work and produce adding to the public revenue to support other programs. This is Canada's advantage to attract business and industry here, because the company doesn't have the added costs of providing health insurance to their employees unless it's extended on top of O.H.I.P.

Now, if Canada can just provide better access to lawyers and civil lawsuits that pay out larger awards, that may boost our economy by providing more income to individuals who will then put it back into the economy by spending or investing. The lawsuits themselves will increase making companies more accountable which will effect our governments as they will be more accountable for the legislation they write and the public they serve.

2 Comments:

Blogger bob said...

H.R.,
Much of the to-do about 40 million Americans without health insurance is scaremongering. Not to downplay the significance of the issue, but many of those who could be covered under the Federal Medicaid program have never applied for it (but would be able to get treatment through it, with the help of the hospital/physician).
What scares me about a government-run health care system is this: Where do you go if your government screws you over? And how many John D'Amicos are out there in Canada today? (If you didn't see that story in the Red Star a couple of weeks back, I'll send it to you.) There is no way that D'Amico situation would have been allowed to happen in the States.
(Also, if you're interested, I'll e-mail you my take on the failed Clinton health care plans and why they failed. Just give a shout - don't want to waste any more of your bandwidth).
Pax.

30/5/05 12:06 a.m.  
Blogger bob said...

The story is now in their (paid) archive. It was published 14 May.
John D'Amico died Sunday night. I just blogged the story, with a lot of the Star's content duly credited.
As for US, a number of them, especially "working poor," don't know they can. Most welfare recipients are automatically enrolled. And I suspect many of the uninsured are among the 10 million illegals we now have in the US of A. Imagine... a number equal to about one-third of the population of Canada in the US illegally. Insane.

30/5/05 8:52 p.m.  

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