Free_at_49
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- May 7, 2005
- Messages
- 132
No doubt. And I think once we have a way to have all our citizens provided with health care, we need to look at the Canadians and Australians for tips on how to exclude folks who aren't citizens and for fully sharing the cost of development of medical technology and drugs.
For example, I have a very close friend whose daughter met an Australian who was here to attend university. They married and moved back to Australia. With her technical vocational skills, she was welcomed, except for health care. To become part of the Australian health care system, she needed to provide extensive background information concerning some spinal surgery she had as a child. They just didn't rubber stamp her into the system. I also know that fleeing across the border into Canada won't get uninsured Americans ongoing free medical care up there. I do believe we won't be able to afford to act differently than either Australia or Canada in this regard. They, and other countries, have been at this for a while and we need to learn from their experience.
Ditto with medical research and drug development. We absolutely must find ways to fully share the cost with everyone benefitting, within and without the USA.
Have you ever lived outside the US?
There are poor Americans crossing the Canadian border for free health care. Uninsured Americans even use their Irish ancestry to get free health care in poor little Ireland! Can you blame the Aussies?
But in EU they already have reciprocal agreements where they treat each other’s citizens just as if they were at home.
BTW, Canada’s universal healthcare system has its roots in western Canada during the great depression of the 1930s, soon that system will be 100 years old! So to Americans waiting for healthcare reform to kick-in, I say welcome to the 20th century.