OUR DEAR FRIEND HAS CANCER FCS

**Doug Lockhart** · 01-28-2013, 09:52 PM

Originally Posted by Moonrunner

'Evening Bret and everyone.... Had a bit of an "is it safe?" moment at the dentist's office.. Taking out a stubborn wisdom tooth.. When you see the doc and the assistant sweating bullets, while the mask spattered with your blood is moving as the doc is saying stuff like "I've never had one this difficult" and "I'll need to cut into the bone some more" in a country without free health care, you get a bit concerned.. Fortunately, it went well and I expect to make the wedding on Saturday more or less ok. No drinking though as they have me on amoxi.

WTF are you doing.......getting dental work done in Mexico???

**Moonrunner** · 01-28-2013, 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by timebuilder

We will never see his like under Obamacare, unfortunately.

Wouldn't expect it under a scheme where tax dollars are blown on private insurers. Even in Soviet Russia and Communist Cuba they developed some TOP NOTCH medical professionals. Russian clinics are now where you wanna go to fix anything vision related and they pioneered a good chunk of modern medicine. The Cubans have a top-notch medical establishment, too. The main issues with the US health care involve having your insurer's accountants start telling doctors what to do and malpractice insurance taking up a huge chunk of the operating budget. Then there's the gouging from the pharmaceutical industry. We have that in Canada as well, but it's not as bad.

**Moonrunner** · 01-28-2013, 09:59 PM

Originally Posted by Doug Lockhart

WTF are you doing.......getting dental work done in Mexico???

In Chile.. They have a decent private health care system and the M.I.L. insisted and pulled some strings to get me in with this guy (close to retirement so he only takes care of friends and long-time patients).. That needed to be done anyway and I don't expect that they could have done better in Canada other than putting me under for the procedure and giving me at least T3's for the pain. It's not that bad that I can't get around without a bit of codeine in me and I've had surgery done while on local before.

**Doug Lockhart** · 01-28-2013, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by Moonrunner

In Chile.. They have a decent private health care system and the M.I.L. insisted and pulled some strings to get me in with this guy (close to retirement so he only takes care of friends and long-time patients).. That needed to be done anyway and I don't expect that they could have done better in Canada other than putting me under for the procedure and giving me at least T3's for the pain. It's not that bad that I can't get around without a bit of codeine in me and I've had surgery done while on local before.

Glad to see you're not abdicating your imminent position of head of your family and succumbing to the demands of the Mother in Law.........
How's the skirt fitting there MR...??

**timebuilder** · 01-29-2013, 07:56 AM

Originally Posted by Moonrunner

Wouldn't expect it under a scheme where tax dollars are blown on private insurers. Even in Soviet Russia and Communist Cuba they developed some TOP NOTCH medical professionals. Russian clinics are now where you wanna go to fix anything vision related and they pioneered a good chunk of modern medicine. The Cubans have a top-notch medical establishment, too. The main issues with the US health care involve having your insurer's accountants start telling doctors what to do and malpractice insurance taking up a huge chunk of the operating budget. Then there's the gouging from the pharmaceutical industry. We have that in Canada as well, but it's not as bad.

There is a difference between an insurer and a provider.

An insurer is spreading the risk out over a large number of people, most of whom will not need the benefit.

A provider is a structure or entity that delivers benefits to everyone, and the premium payments cannot hope to cover those costs.

The scheme of Obamacare is to eventually force people into single payer, or government as provider, not insurer. This is what makes it unaffordable.

**timebuilder** · 01-29-2013, 07:58 AM

Good morning, Bret and everyone!

**Moonrunner** · 01-29-2013, 08:33 AM

Originally Posted by Doug Lockhart

Glad to see you're not abdicating your imminent position of head of your family and succumbing to the demands of the Mother in Law.........
How's the skirt fitting there MR...??

Quite nicely, this morning, thanks for asking

The antiinflamatory did the trick. Actually I've been meaning to get rid of that wisdom tooth at some point as it was bothering me, but you know how it goes.. Something always comes up either time-wise or money-wise, so this was a great opportunity in both cases.. Leaves me enough time to recover for the wedding and it's free dental work, win-win. In general, my MIL means well, has brains and uses them, so saying no to one of her schemes is generally impractical, not that I haven't done it when needed

Art, we have a pretty decent socialized health care system in Canada. The government is the provider (on the provincial level, not fed). It works pretty well for most. You won't get the same level of care as in a more expensive clinic for rich folk on your side of the border but in general Canadians are healthier, have less down time for work and live longer. It's one of the reasons our taxes are pretty high, but I've seen the alternative and didn't like what I saw.

'Mornin' Bret and the rest of the gang

**Moonrunner** · 01-30-2013, 07:38 AM

'Mornin Bret and everyone.

**timebuilder** · 01-30-2013, 07:46 AM

Originally Posted by Moonrunner

Art, we have a pretty decent socialized health care system in Canada. The government is the provider (on the provincial level, not fed). It works pretty well for most. You won't get the same level of care as in a more expensive clinic for rich folk on your side of the border but in general Canadians are healthier, have less down time for work and live longer. It's one of the reasons our taxes are pretty high, but I've seen the alternative and didn't like what I saw.

'Mornin' Bret and the rest of the gang

Unlike many Americans (because I am 50% Canuck) I know that busses regularly leave T'ranna for the states so that Canadians do not have to bear the LONG waits for medical treatment.

I'm not sure what they will do when the American safety valve on their health care system gets closed off by Obama, by his ruining of our system of care. By the way, in the US, no one is denied care....