From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Death of Canada (Was: Death of America)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 22:43:00 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.213039.11050@news.columbia.edu> gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare) writes:
>they explained why ... a show of force to the Rae government not to
>screw with OHIP, and be nice when the doctors present their new fee
>schedule requests (I don't know if it's happened yet, it's usually a
>protracted process).

in other words, they wanted to make sure the government didn't make
things even worse for the doctors than it is now. 

>
>>you also believe that the GST is a replacement for an older, much 
>>smaller tax, and that it is being used to write down the deficit...
>
>The former hidden wholesale tax was in the area of 13% ...

and as i explained a number of times, it was on a very small number
of items and has NOTHING to do with taxing services, a fresh new
tax that was put in to ride on the old so people would be fooled.
apparently it worked on some canadians.

>
>>since you are conveniently dropping all the tax and policy questions
>>from our debate and concentrating on the medical side, ...
>
>It's all a matter of time ... I'll try to get to them later (I've
>bundled the previous two replies in case the leave my news buffer;
>I'm on lunch but gotta get back soon).

fine. i look forward to seeing them.
especially the ones about taxes and the deficit.

>
>>>>you've avoided the point though. the government still decides.
>>>>and there is NOTHING to prevent them from drastically reducing
>>>>coverage in the future. 
>>>
>>>You mean like private insurance is now weaselling people all over
>>>the United States?  I've read in the Times recently that 100,000
>>>Americans a month are getting booted for using the insurance that
>>>they paid for when they were healthy ...
>>
>>more poor reasoning. so you would rather have the government do it?
>
>In the end, what's the difference?  And so far, it's not being done ...
>
>I realize the angle that you're coming from, and I'm loathe to defend
>any government, but in the case of our insurance it's been hands off
>(screw with it, you'll get burned like Harcourt) and it doesn't look
>to change ... everybody watches that issue like a hawk, you know that.
>If people did that on every issue, anywhere, it'd be grand ...

give it time, just give it time. my faith in the government's ability
to screw with *anything* is well-developed and well-justified.

>
>>again, just because it is bad down here, that doesn't mean going to
>>something worse is the solution.
>
>So far, you've not demonstrated that things are worse up north.

i don't have to. 
as i said already, my only point
is to make people think twice before replacing the US system with the
canadian one. replacing it with a system that is "just as good" is
pointless. it should be replaced with one that is better, or why
bother?

>
>>>Annually, there is a
>>>Canadian EE/CS type who was traditionally apolitical and usually very
>>>healthy as to have not ever dealt with medical care up north, and
>>
>>and your implicit comments again show your bias: why should someone
>>who has been very healthy and not had to deal with medical care NOT
>>be annoyed at being forced to pay for others' medical care?
>
>If they're careless and shortsighted enough to think that there are
>identifiable correlations for every know illness and they are free
>from it.  Let me tell you about a friend who recently found out that
>she has pituitary cancer: vegetarian w/some dairy since age 16 (she
>is now 29), part-time aerobics teacher, semi-body builder, former
>marathon runner.  Free-lance architect with an M.A.  What'd she do
>wrong?  If you can figure out an algorithm to explain why, found a
>start-up company and market it ...

what does anyone do wrong? she could also have been run over by a bus.
seriously, i don't mean to trivialize your story; it is a tragedy.
but i am tired of people expecting the government to come running to
their side to solve their problems. 

>
>>>getting a job in Silicon Valley is exposed to Libertarianism by his
>>>(so far, no hers (-;) colleagues ... in a vacuum, there isn't a lot to
>>>go on so they get caught repeating things that they should know better
>>>is not true.  Obviously, from articles that I've read since that one,
>>
>>or maybe they had never stopped to think about them before because
>>they spent their whole lives being told "well, we pay a lot more to
>>live in canada but it's worth it because everything is rotten in the 
>>US", and then they moved to the US and found out that it's a load of 
>>bull?
>
>I for one, have come to realize that any kind of chauvinism is bull.
>Since I've not participated in any kind of anti-American paranoia, nor
>do I ever intend to, I'll just add that most of those Canadian newbie
>libertarians back off in a hurry to figure out what they said and what
>went wrong ...

so you have refuted some people who didn't argue very well or know their
stuff. congratulations. so what? you don't think a skilled libertarian
could rip to shreds plenty of unsophisticated socialists?

how about the canadian government's official propaganda, which i
mentioned here and you deleted? is that reasonable?

>
>>>(then again, those are things that ordinary Canadians don't pay
>>>much mind to --- I certainly didn't 'til I got bombarded by
>>>questions from people here at Columbia and had to remember, fast).
>>
>>the fact that "ordinary canadians don't pay much mind" to these issues
>>is one of the reasons i don't want to go back. i believe i stated that
>>in my first post. if people don't even want to think about problems,
>>there is no hope. and it is still a bit better here, although as i said
>>in my first post which started all this, it is disappointing to see
>>what is going on even here.
>
>I can think of very few places where the entire citizenry takes an
>active posture constantly.  Switzerland with their heirarchical
>democracy (had another referendum last week; rejected the EC ...)
>comes close to it.  Everywhere else, people just live their lives.

then let them. not much of an excuse for a democracy.

>
>>want to tell me how it is not socialistic to spend over 22% of the
>>national budget (excluding interest on the debt, which was *28%* of
>>the budget in 1990, for those who care), on transferring wealth from
>>the provider provinces to the consumer ones?
>
>As a western Canadian, here's my angle: not socialism, but a keep-em-
>poor strategy by (again) the running dogs of the Canadian Establishment.
>The next time you're up north, take a look at some history books about
>Nova Scotia -- it used to be a very wealthy place until manufacturing
>got consolidated in central Canada with Establishment maneuvering and
>subsequent buyouts and dismantling of its industrial and finacial base.
>The novel "Barometer Rising", which takes place around WW I, gives a
>very different view of the welfare-dependant Maritimes we see now ...
>my eyes popped while reading the first chapters (the story takes place
>around an massive ammunition ship explosion in Halifax Harbour).

i don't blame the maritimes. by definition, someone has to get
the money -- that is what equalization means. there may very well
be reasons why things have not been fair for atlantic canada.
transfer payments are like a drug though: insidious, addicting,
destructive. i blame the pusher (the federal governement) not the addicts.

--
charles