Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne Maybury
A couple of comments about Canada's healthcare system, drugs, etc.
Firstly most Canadians have a relatively positive opinion about our healthcare system. The problems lie in the over crowding primarily because people go to the ER's, that do not really need professional care. I firmly believe that there should be a minimal charge for visiting a doctor or hospital. This would put dollars into the system and more importantly, it would reduce the number of unnecessary visits. We also have a problem with non-citizens coming into the country to obtain free health care that they cannot get in their own country. Our Medicare cards are being updated in an attempt to cut down on fraud.
Secondly, the drug manufacturers have nothing to do with our socialized healthcare system. These pharmaceutical companies are usually Canadian subsidiaries of US or other major drug companies. Our laws protecting name brand drugs are not exactly the same as the US laws however. Many US citizens, especially the elderly, living close to the Canadian border routinely come up here to get their perscriptions as our prices tend to be lower. This was especially true before the US dollar went in the toilet but that is another story.
Each country has it's own drug approval process. The US has the FDA and Canada has Health Canada. Our two countries work in a very similar way but there is no guarantee that a drug approved in the US will also be approved in Canada, and vice versa. That does not mean to say that drugs authorized for sale in Canada are dangerous or unsafe, they are just not (yet) authorized for sale in the US. Most dangerous drugs tend to be produced somewhere in the world and then sold over the internet by who-knows-who. These internet drug sites can indeed be selling dangerous products as they are totally uncontrolled.
Wayne
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Funny Wayne, I worked in health care just south of you for years, in northern New England, and many of the Canadians that could afford it would come to the states for their healthcare... I saw it over and over again. And they weren't shy about expressing their distaste for your socialist system
!
Alternatively, we had a family friend who lost a spouse due to delayed care in the UK's wonderful system
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This isn't going to be pretty...