[beansgunsghandi]

I lived for almost ten years in the USA. Loved it, had a great time, learned a lot. I was young and had a catastrophic health insurance policy for my high-risk sports, that was it, then excellent insurance through my job that I co-payed 100/month for or something, reasonable. When I quit my job to start a new business I had to pay the full cost of the insurance, which was something like $300/month for a healthy young buck, still tolerable. But then my insurance wouldn't cover me for some of the sports I do, and wouldn't cover a knee injury because it was "pre-existing." I paid for MRIs etc out of pocket, several thousand dollars despite already paying 3k/year +. Eventually I moved back home to Canada, and got a whole bunch of stuff taken care that I had just put off in the US. My brother still lives down there, and pays over $1800/month for family insurance that's not as good as my insurance here. We buy asthma drugs here in Canada for his son and bring them down to him because they cost way less here, and my brother's insurance won't cover the drugs because, yep, his son's asthma is a pre-existing condition... My brother is one bad asthma attack and hospital stay from being broke, that's US health care for you.

When my American friends, especially those with families, hear about what I pay and what my family gets they are almost always envious, we have it good here. If you're working at a really high-end job with great benefits and no pre-existing conditions for you or your family then the US healthcare system rocks. Otherwise it pretty much sucks.

And yet so many Canadians and Americans blast the Canadian system. They have bought into the for-profit propaganda... Our system isn't perfect, but it is truly one of the great things about Canada. So I'm fully for universal health care, and that's even ignoring the economic arguments for it! I simply can't see why anyone would be for a US system, it's a waste of money compared to what we have here, and it sucks if you're an active person like many of us on here are--if you've ever had any sort of injury or health issue forget about getting covered in the US. Although it looks like Obama has made some progress there, despite the idiocy of many.