Originally posted by Aristotle
And that would be a terrible guess, since a significant portion of those who do not have health insurance choose not to. Either because they are young, healthy, and choose to spend their money differently, or because they are between jobs and decide to roll the dice until they get new insurance.
I'll concede this. Therefore, the useful statistic would be to find how many people lack health insurance specifically due to a financial barrier.

Originally posted by Aristotle
I did not have health insurance for at least 3-5 years when I got out of school because I decided to invest that money into Threshold. That worked out pretty well for me.
This is a good point. It leads me to believe, however, that a prive healthcare system discourages people from starting their own business compared to a public system for precisely the reason you stated. Or, put another way, buying one's own health insurance represents an additional capital cost to running a business rather than being an employee and having insurance provided to you by the employer.

Originally posted by Aristotle
Also, it is important to note that people are not denied treatment due to a lack of ability to pay. Medicare and Medicaid pay for the elderly and the poor, and emergency rooms do not turn people away regardless of ability to pay.
Not everyone is denied all forms of treatment due to an inability to pay. Countless health services are denied for that reason, though.

Originally posted by Aristotle
Why would you neglect this? Without the ability for Canadians to come to the US for private treatment, and for superior treatment for which Canada simply lacks sufficiently skilled doctors, the Canadian system would be in even worse shape. You can't simply ignore these elements.
Italics mine.

I was neglecting it for the purposes of comparing an entirely public system to an entirely private system. If I were considering measurable indicators of population health, then I would had to take them into account. Instead, I was simply stating the logical consequences of public vs. private system.

As for the italics, I do not believe this is the case. In order to make any kind of judgement regarding the relative competences of the doctors in each nation, we'll need to see some factual evidence, such as the mortality rates for a number of routine procedures performed in each country, and each country's professional licensing standards, for example.

Originally posted by Aristotle
Furthermore, the biggest provider of health care in the USA is the government - by far. Through Medicare, Medicare, VA, and government employment heath care, they are the dominant provider of health care even in the USA. That's part of the problem, actually.
I need some clarification. As I understand it, your initial argument went something like,

1) USA healthcare is better than in Canada.

2) Canadian healthcare is a public system

3) Therefore Canada is an example of why public systems are inferior to private systems.

If now you're saying that the US system is in fact primarily a public system in disguise, it would seem to contradict your initial argument that the socialized element is the reason that Canada's heathcare is worse.

Note that I'm not agreeing that the Canadian healthcare system is worse, I was just trying to restate your own argument.

Originally posted by Aristotle
I believe it is inherently worse in a socialized system, because denial of health care happens due to something completely out of my control.
You're using the term 'worse' here in the context of being in conflict with your principles. I was using the term 'worse' in the context of the efficacy of the healthacre system.

Originally posted by Aristotle
In a socialized system you are at the whim of politicians and bureaucrats deciding how many people they have budgeted treatment for your type of ailment.
Millions of Americans are at the whim of their insurance companies, and have no control over which insurance company is their provider. They are subject to the policy that is provided by their employer, and for low wage earners, supplemental insurance is unaffordable.

Originally posted by Aristotle
At least in a private system I can decide how much it is worth to me to pay for the care.
Canadians can make this decision as well, by seeking treatment in other nations. Clearly this would not be the case if every nation had a public system, however. This is why private and public systems operating in parallel is what I believe is the best solution.

Originally posted by Aristotle
Socialized medicine operates on a budget, and that budget is decided upon in advance of the actual need. If needs exceed the budget allotment (which it almost always does), then people are simply turned away.
Italics mine.

When the healthcare system is faced with a lack of operating money, it is supplemented immediately by the Provincial government in question. People are not turned away because the healthcare system is short on operating cash.

Originally posted by Aristotle
So in truth, people in a socialized system are denied health care for two major reasons:

1) Wait times
2) The government's inability to pay (not enough money allocated via the budget).
#1: Yes
#2: This does not take place, see above.


Originally posted by Aristotle
By that logic, inability to pay is simply a terrible inconvenience, rather than an impenetrable barrier to care - unless someone dies before they earn enough money to pay for it.
But the average wait for Canadians is on the order of weeks, and the wait for poor Americans (to, say, increase their income so that healthcare is affordable) is on the order of years, or decades, I'd wager. In any case, the likelyhood of the wait time being longer than the time before death is much higher in a private system due to an inability to pay than in a public system where the wait time is a function of medical urgency.

Originally posted by Aristotle
you have no options under the system. You can't save up money, you can't borrow money, you can't raise money, nothing. Either the politicians decide you get the health care or not.
I disagree with the level of implied intimacy that politicians have with the individual treatments of individual patients. It's analagous to saying that politicians decided to lose a particular skirmish in a war because they didn't allocate more resources to the entire war effort. Did Bush decide to kill individual soldiers in the Iraq war, for example? Clearly not. While strategic decisions at the top obviously have a great affect, individual cases are not decided by politicians, or beurocrats of any kind.

However, in the American systems, cases that require approval by insurance companies can be denied. I recall one story in which an insuree with a medical emergency had to pay out-of-pocket for an ambulance ride because it wasn't pre-approved by the insurance company. I guess it was lucky for her that in her particular case coverage was denied after the service was rendered.

Originally posted by Aristotle
I would much prefer being the one who makes my decisions about my health care. Having politicians (who are almost always corrupt) decide a year or more in advance how much money will be budgeted towards my type of ailment does not sit well with me at all.
Again, this relates to principles rather than efficacy, which is what I was addressing.