Here in America You can not be refused care at ANY hospital, regardless of weather You can pay or not. They will just hound You for the rest of forever to try and get You to pay even a few dollars a month towards the bill. If You are paying even a small portion of what You owe on a regular basis, You can not be prosecuted for lack of payment.
I have health insurance [that I pay for Myself], but there are always errors in the billing and payment for services, it is an ongoing PITA to try and get things sorted out.
The concern is that when the proposed Govt. system runs short of funds as Govt. programs tend to do, that care will become less available and of lesser quality than it is now.
The issue is weather or not You trust the Govt. to look after Your best interests.
I don't have that much trust in the US Govt., either party.
I DO BELIEVE that We need health care reform, but I don't think that the 1,100 page bill, HR 3200 that was proposed by the Democrats is the solution.
First of all, I don't know of any American that thinks of Canada as communist.
I don't know anybody personally that dislikes Canada (leaving hockey out of the discussion).
Most Americans got nuthin but love for our northern neighbors.
So you got socialized health care, we have socialist programs too.
A few things to consider on our current health care.. um health insurance reform. They renamed it to demonize insurance companies.
They tried to pass it before the summer break. 1100 pages that no congressperson had read. A bill that would affect us all and pass it before we have a chance to read it and debate it.
47 million (if you believe the numbers) more patients and zero more doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, etc. and we are told that we will have better quality health care and more affordable too. That's not possible.
They say that abortion and illegal immigrants will not be covered in the bill(there are several bills that have different stuff in it) but it keeps showing up. Many Americans don't support their taxes being spent on abortion and illegals.
In at least one bill, if you do not buy the gov. plan you will be fined, I have heard jailed also but I can't confirm that. But the fine is legit. Um, if you can't afford the gov. plan how can you afford the fine?
Small businesses will be fined 8% to 15% if they do not buy health insurance for the employees. Many companies will be forced out of business if this passes. Then the employees without company provided health insurance will be unemployed and still without insurance.
I'm not sure how efficient your health care works in Canada but we have great concerns with our governments ability to run the system. A visit to the DMV (Dept. of Motor Vehicles) will confirm the concern.
It will cost MUCH more than they say and they know it and so do we. Medicare and Medicaid either are or will be bankrupt soon.
Then comes the good ole' "gov. wants to have control" argument. Many conservatives, like myself, think that the gov. should decrease not increase.
Lots of Americans think this plan is unconstitutional.
This year, so far, they have nationalized banks, car industry, educational loans, currently working on health care and energy.
When they run out of money the health care WILL be rationed.
We can't pay for it without raising taxes, a promise that the president will have to break if it does pass.
If they pass the public option, it will eventually become the single payer plan and our options will gone, You will have the gov. plan like it or not. Yes we could possibly buy a private plan as you mentioned but only those that could afford it.
I think everybody agrees that changes need to be made as insurance is very expensive, pre-existing conditions, denial of benefits, etc but the question is how to fix it not completely overhaul it.
Man, I could go on and on but you are probably already asleep :)
Oh and by the by: Thomas Jefferson isn't for it either.
No. What path do you see????
Mike! Mike! 
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