Canada spends about 10% of it's GDP on healthcare (which, interestingly, is less than the USA's 16%).....so I don't think the percentage of each tax dollar going toward healthcare could be near 50%....?

My advice for you in sifting through this information would be: stay away from American news media. In my limited exposure it appears to me to be terribly biased, and loudmouths like Glenn Beck and his ilk are drowning out the voices of reason.

http://www.fin.gc.ca/taxdollar06/text/html/taxdollar06_-eng.asp

There's a breakdown of where Canadian federal tax dollars go....8.5 cents on every dollar goes to healthcare, according to this.

I dont know, it comes out of national insurance, I earnt £339.52 last month gross pay and they took £37.80 I dont know if that means anything to you.

Just read the blog, your friend has their facts serriously wrong, its no where near 50%.

I also dont really understand what the problem with paying for care is? If people want to pay for extra care (that may or may not be better) thats up to them.

And as for paying for the people in front of you? well I guess that happens in a round about sort of way but thats a really twisted way of explaining how the system works.

I mean its pretty simple, we pay money into a big collective pot that covers the entire country when we can afford to pay into that pot (and we pay what we can afford), when we need help wether its healthcare or assitance finding work we take money out of that pot until were back on our feet.

So yes we probably have paid for the people in front of us but its not direct.

Also better care is a really vague statment, its not like the doctors do a bad job because their not being paid to do the job.

You will probably be seen faster and the facilities might be a bit nicer but thats all.

I cant comment on the breast cancer issue because I dont really have experience with the waiting system.

Waiting 2 years to be seen for breast cancer sounds ridiculous....one of those highly sensationalized "horror stories" that the 24 hour news networks and their froth-mouthed anchors are loving right now.

The fact remains....life expectancies are higher in countries with universal healthcare, and lower in the USA. If cancer patients had trouble being seen for treatment there is no way this would be true.

If you want a good explanation of how national insurance works I recomend reading the ascent of money by niall ferguson, its pretty un biased mainly because he's writing a history of finance not a history of the NHS.

thanks for your comments!

I've had abit of time to think about it and the breast cancer thing seems a little rediculous, usually if we need to see a doctor we can make an appointment for the next day some times even the same day.

We do have to go through a triage nurse who decides if its worth seeing a doctor over (which is anoying because its done over the phone) but apart from that we get seen pretty quickly.

Anything that cant be dealt with at a GPs office (general practioner) goes to the hospitals from their they do prioritise on the serriousness of the injury/illness but that must happen everywhere, its the only practical way of running the system.

When people are forced to wait a long time with serrious illnesses theres usually uproar to the point where politicians have to appologise.

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Ok onto the negative side

The National insurance is a pyramid scheme, the National insurance (national insurance includes alot more stuff that health care) works on the prinicpal that there are always more people paying into the scheme than those that are taking out of it.

Thats not exactly a bad thing, its how insurance works.

At the moment the pyramid is supported by a strong base of baby boomers who have worked hard, been healthy and paid alot of money into the scheme but the baby boomers are rapidly reaching retirement.

Once they reach retirement they wont be paying into the system all they'll be doing is taking out as their health decreases because of age.

But heres the problem, the generations that come after the baby boomers are significantly smaller than them.

That means the tax base is a whole lot smaller, so we either have to pay alot more money towards national insurance (and we probably wont see the benifits) or we have to cut back on what we spend national insurance money on.

Both are undesirable, there is a third option but its one thats un likely to gain much political support... increase the population.

Which basically means a relaxation of the imigration policy and encouraging young people to imigrate from countries that have higher fertility rates such as middle eastern countries.

Were rapidly heading towards a crisis.

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Basically what you should take from this is on the whole national insurance is a good thing, it means we always get help when we need it but its not perfect and we've got to make alot of hard decisions in the future.

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p.s I really appricate that your making a real effort to sort fact from fiction as much as we complain about the NHS it is a good thing.

I shall try to speak to my mother about this.
I shall report back on with "I forgot.", "I don't understand what she said." or "Here is her run down.".

Stubby, that was interesting what you shared, thanks. I think that may be our same problem over here with social security and the baby boomers. Nothing is ever perfect...we have to work on things but we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water!

I am hoping for universal healthcare over here...but so many oppose it very strongly. It's pretty nasty, the political climate over here. It's sad.