John McCain said last night:
Sen. Obama wants to set up health care bureaucracies, take over the health care of America through — as he said, his object is a single payer system.
If you like that, you’ll love Canada and England.
What McCain said was untrue, because Obama has never proposed a single payer system.
Hillary Clinton supporters, take note: John McCain just took a pot shot at the Canadian universal healthcare system.
How many of you would like a health care system that is free for low wage earners, free for seniors, $54 a month for the highest wage earners?
How much does the Canadian plan clost?
For those earling less than $20,000, it's completely free. There's a little scale, but basically, it tops out at $28,000, when you pay $54 a month for an individual or $108 for a family.
What do you get?
The plan pays 100% -- that is, no deductible or copayment -- for all doctor visits, hospitalization, surgeries, supplies & services, laboratory tests, radiology, and so forth. So, a doctor's visit, an emergency room visit, or an MRI costs you... right... $0.
For low wage earners, the plan also pays for progressively discounted prescription drugs. The less you make, the cheaper they get; at some point, they're free. Low wage earners also get a portion of stuff like chiropratic, naturopathy, and physiotherapy paid for.
Kids get some special benefits, like free eye exams.
There's special transportation that's free for non-ambulatory disabled persons - vans with liftgates, and that kind of thing, to take gramps from the care home to the shopping center for example.
Oh, did I mention that the care home was free too?
Let's contrast -- in the United States, the most powerful nation on this planet -- health care costs $300 a month for a lousy plan that will leave you bankrupt if anything happens, or $1,000 a month for a comprehensive plan. That's like, 10 times as much.
The plan is not perfect. Some procedures, especially the non-critical ones, require a long wait. Healthcare is a big (huge) item in the budget. Dental isn't covered -- you have to get that separately. We pay a higher sales tax (5%-12% depending on province), and high wage earners pay more income tax.
But hey. It's a lot better than NOTHING. And you can't get excluded.
And by the way -- Senator Clinton's universal health care plan, eventually, would probably look something like that.
Let's talk about those small businesses. It's a lot easier to compete with big businesses, when you don't have to worry about paying 50%+ of someone's thousand-dollar healthcare benefits just to attract talent.
There are plenty of things to dislike about Canada -- but healthcare is not one of them.