Arrogant Americans Views On Canada

[toasty]

Re: Arrogant Americans Views On Canada

ths is humerous from a Canadian perspective but it hits on most of the stereotypes that Americans have on Canada. It's especially funny to hear these comments coming from what are considered the politically "intellectual minds" of the most powerful country in the world. Truely sad for those who know anything about the American / Canadian economy... hope you enjoy

http://mediamatters.org/static/video/cc-200412010011.wmv

Thanks for the link. On behalf of Americans everywhere, let me note that, for many, many people here, Ann Coulter is not considered an intellectual mind of any sort.

:wink:

[Yao]

Phew, you got me scared there...Was already afraid about the intellectual level in the US of A

[runningman]

here you go guys..

American patient dies before paying $642,000 N.S. health bill

Wed Dec 15, 2:30 PM ET

STEVE MACLEOD

HALIFAX (CP) - Nova Scotia taxpayers are on the hook for $642,000 charged to an American patient who spent 183 days in a Halifax hospital before dying without paying.



The revelation was outlined in the annual report of Nova Scotia Auditor General Roy Salmon, who is critical of how Canadian hospitals keep track of patient expenses. "They have no costing systems," Salmon said after releasing his report Wednesday. "They don't know what it costs to maintain a patient in the hospital, either for a short stay or a long stay.


"The rates they set are arbitrary."


The Capital District Health Authority said the patient, whose name, gender or illness were not disclosed, was gravely ill on admission to the Queen Elizabeth II (news - web sites) Health Sciences Centre in Halifax in 2003. The patient died this fall.


Salmon said patient stays at U.S. hospitals are "costed down to the last Band-Aid." But Canadian hospitals use a per diem rate that doesn't accurately reflect the actual cost of treatment.


An examination of hospital records by the attorney general revealed that the patient was undercharged by at least $451,000 for the stay, including a 94-day stint of which only 62 days were actually billed.


The health authority, in a response printed within Salmon's report, said it initially charged the U.S. patient an out-of-country per diem of $3,200 a day, but decided "that would lead to an overstatement of revenues."


It adjusted the per diem to the $1,173 charged to patients from other provinces, but Salmon said there is no record of the actual final cost of treating the unnamed American.


He said his staff came up with the $642,000 figure based solely on the per diem.


Capital District said hospital officials initially believed the patient's insurance would cover the cost of treatment, but the insurer, after paying just $53,000, has refused to cover the rest.


"Under both Canadian and U.S. laws, a hospital cannot refuse emergency services to a patient when required, even if they do not have the ability to pay for those services," the authority said in Salmon's report.


Salmon recommended that the health authority's monitoring of accounts and each patient's ability to pay must be significantly improved.


"They were caught between a rock and a hard place once that patient was admitted," he said.


Angus MacIsaac, Nova Scotia's health minister, didn't know if the province would pursue payment of the dead patient's bill.


"Obviously what I want to do is learn from his report and ensure that we improve our system so we don't face such a situation again," he said.


Diane Whalen, the Liberal's finance critic, called the case "a red flag" that exposes weaknesses in the way non-residents are billed.


"You can't just allow patients to be there with no effort at collection," she told reporters.





The annual report also called for improvements to the province's costly prescription drug program.

Salmon called for the Health Department to develop a long-term strategy for the program, which have seen costs increase 21 per cent over the last three years to $108 million in 2002-2003.

He said the province's contract with Atlantic Blue Cross Care to administer the program is inadequate.

The Health Department should bring in a performance-based, third-party provider that would have clearly defined roles and expectations, the report said.

"We noted the contract is not current and lacks appropriate accountability requirements . . . and performance standards," Salmon said in his 167-page report.

Salmon also urged the Health Department to find ways to reduce drug prices.

"Although we acknowledge that pharmaceutical companies ultimately control the price of drugs . . . the potential savings to the program of even modest price reductions could be significant and warrants further study."

The annual report was Salmon's 13th since becoming auditor general in 1992. He told reporters he will table one more report before retiring and praised the province for improving the way it accounts for its spending.

"There has been an amazing amount of improvement in government management, in financial reporting in terms of completeness, accuracy and timeliness," Salmon said.

"Comparing '92 to 2004 is like comparing night to day."

[White_Hindu]

Fuck the conservatives, man. Canada owns. Do you know why socialism is better in theory than capitalism? Because EVERYONE IS EQUAL! In a pure capitalist state, the fatcats in the tall buildings would put crack into our food, making us addicted. GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION stops everyone from becoming mindless zombies, addicted to the money in their pocket. Oh yeah, not to mention the entire Arab world doesn't want to bomb Canada.

I can't believe that shallow bitch was even allowed on TV. If I had my way with her, I'd shoot her in the face with a silenced bereta, which is now LEGAL TO OWN thanks to the gun-toting republicans.

New question: How can America be a free country when everything is for sale?

[runningman]

if i were to meet eith er of those freak shows i would beat the fucking piss out of them both.. i don't care if she is a woman.. i would deck her in a second.. you have to be held responsible for the things that you say if you are on tv.. she is in an influential position and the sad thing is that a lot of brain dead americans share her views.. "canadaians are just the shitty american".. how can we need them?? if we turn the electricity off in BC like we did to california a couple of years ago how can you operate.. yes we do need them.. but without electricity have a good time.. I don't remember wishing death on someone but those two need to die to shut there mouths.. they have no idea what they are talking about.. i bet they have never been to canada..

[thesightless]

the only thing i disagree with about socialism is that no one should be equal(outsdie of oppurtunites and legal freedom) b/c if i work harder and study more than the guy next to me, why shouldnt i make more money than him? if you worked 50 hours and timmy over here worked 30, wouldnt you be pissed if he made the same>

[cosmo]

Canada is heading down the slippery slope of multi-culturalism. But someone in Europe has finally woken up:

Politicians are not renowned for saying, "Sorry! I got it wrong." The last one to do so was the habitual drunkard Winston Churchill. After the war's end, in a rare moment of lucidity he remarked, "we have killed the wrong pig." This was an impudence coming from someone so porcine in appearance and habit; an oaf that had so recently traded in the British Empire as the price for digging his nation out of the foxhole he had dug for it.

Now, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt says that Germany had been wrong to import foreign workers. He says: "The concept of multiculturalism is actually incompatible with a democratic society. ... If one asks, where in the world are multicultural societies functioning, he quickly comes to the conclusion, that multiculturalism can only exist peacefully within strong authoritarian states. In that respect it was a mistake that we, in the early 1960s, brought in guestworkers from alien cultures." (Hamburger Abendblatt, Nov. 26, 2004)

He was referring to the three million Turks [there are really nearly 10 million Turks in Germany] who now live in what is left of the dismembered Germany. Surveys reveal that 57% of native Germans fear a culture clash with the Turkish "guests".

Helmut Schmidt: "Some idealists call it multicultural society, the blending of European and non-European cultures, but that kind of society has not succeded anywhere in the world." (Hamburger Abendblatt, Nov. 26, 2004)

He added that whilst he was not averse to Turkey joining the economic (sic) union he was against granting all its 70 million citizens unlimited access to Germany.

Schmidt is sorry? So are tens of millions of Germans who in a state that owes as little to the concept of democracy as its former eastern neighbours, had little say in where their hard-earned taxes go to or who occupies their neighbourhood. - Michael Walsh

[cosmo]

Hey smart ass we aren't part of the UK anymore.. as for for your stupid comment about "your government basically controls everything"..

I didn't intentionally tie the two together. Just showing you that they are heading in the same direction.

like what our health care?? ya sorry we believe in "the right Life" program.. everybody gets the same treatment.. you think your healthcare is better??

I KNOW our health care system is better. Like C Zen says, people keep having to cross over into the US to get taken care of.

Universal care doesn't work.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001977834_cihak13.html

[runningman]

no it would work but for some reason our government likes keeping billions of dollars of our money and putting into the surplus.. instead of our $18 billion surplus we shold have taken taht money and used all of it on our health care.. but no we have the liberals in charge who take way to much of our money and have completly dismantled our army over the years.. OUT with the Liberals .. your health care system is all about $$.. the only reason your is better at the moment is because our doctors are becoming greedy fucks and heading over the border to seek financial gain.. i don't blame them but it will be hard for us to keep our docs and nurses as long as you guys keep paying them way to much.. but i don't know how you guys can say your is better set up then ours when yours will give people wrong information and pressure people into the cheapest direction..

[cosmo]

your health care system is all about $$..

All about the money? Who cares? That process has led us to have the highest standard of health care in the world.

The greedy accusation is a lame argument if you ask me.

[Platinum]

your health care system may be the best but ours is free... and when I get sick or think i dont feel well Ill go and see any doctor so that in 40 years I dont have to pay out of my ass because I didnt want to pay an arm and a leg from what i thought was a flu at 20 years old but may be something more severe... and if by some chance in 40 years when im really sick and something really bad is happening to me I'll go down to the US and get whatever I need and I'll pay for it if I cant get it done on time in Canada, seems like a pretty good deal to me... Ill take my universal health care and you pay out of your ass all the time with your penny pinching system

[djkennedy]

Re: Arrogant Americans Views On Canada

I like Canadaians....never been to Canada but I'd like to go sometime...but society from every country is arrogant in one way or another...

[White_Hindu]

Well, I don't think Canada is great because of the medicine deely, I mean most people have health insurance when they get a full-time job. I think Canada is great because Iraq doesn't hate Canadians nearly as much as they hate Americans.

I've been to Canada, it is a beatiful country(I was staying right next to Niagara Falls). Ontario is a nice city, the people were nice and they spoke english, and Niagara Falls is just unreal. We paid a pretty penny to take a tour on a helicopter to see it in all its glory.

[Yao]

I agree with platinum: health care can be the best in the world, but what good is it when you can't pay for it?
I remember reading that the percentage of insured people in the US is by far not as high as in the Netherlands or any other country with free health care or low insurance costs. That is one of the things I WILL miss when I'm leaving this shithole...

[cosmo]

There is no free lunch. Any economist will tell you that. Especially regarding health-care.