The US healthcare system is extremely inefficient. When I went to a clinic in Montreal there was only one person handling the phone and records for 6 or more doctors. While in Montreal I got a letter from the government asking if I saw my doctor for such and such, to keep the system honest.

Here in the US I went to an office with two doctors in private practice. They had 5 people handling the telephone and records. About a year later in 1987 or so I got a letter from my doctor saying that he was getting out of private practice as he was spending too many Saturdays at work (doing insurance paper work.

Most American’s probably don’t know that US insurance companies do not provide speech therapy for children. They classify the ‘problem’ as developmental and due to that don’t cover it. In Canada speech therapy is covered by their healthcare system. The best time for speech therapy for children is when they they are of preschool age as their speech is developing and speech patterns are not set. At a conference for stutterers in the late 1980’s, I heard Dr Woody Starkweather, who was a professor at Temple University and a world expert in stuttering in children, say that if he could work with a preschool age child and their parents that the child would develop into a regular speaker. Woody did work with many pre-school age children. That does cost the parents money as it is not covered by insurance. Some parents do take their preschool age child to university speech therapy clinics in the US and pay for the therapy out of pocket.

The US does provide speech therapy in the public school system, which is good but is not the optimal time to provide speech therapy to children. Speech behaviors are normally much more difficult to modify at that point.

If you are an adult stutter in the US you will have to search to find an effective speech therapy program and pay out of pocket. On the other hand an adult stutter living in Canada in a major city can probably find an effective speech therapy program locally and a support group there to practice the ‘tools’ learned after therapy.

Political Action Commities (PAC) seem to be the invisible hand that sway the political system in the US. In mid-july polls indicated that 80% of the US voters want a reduction of the federal deficit by a combination of cuts, and higher taxes by closing loop holes or increased taxes on the top income earners. But 100% of the Republicans, publicly, are against any tax increases. PACs are apparently controlled by the wealthest Americans. Canada does not have any PACs and I would assume that is true for most of the G7 nations, except the US.

Now take America on the the other hand, I’ve had one run in with your health service, and I hope never to have to again. After finally working out where I had to go just to see a doctor for a non-emergency.. Some place in the back of a drug store.. Strange, considering I’m used to going to a doctors surgery.. Then having to muck about with insurance since I’m British, then having to wait, then getting a really slow service.. Just for her to charge me $200 for her to look into my ears and prescribe me ear drops. $200 for that?! I almost collapsed. The ear drops didn’t even work that well.. I then had to come home and use my own health service. And they sorted it. Instantly. For a healthcare system which drained my pocket I expected far better. I know which system I would prefer.

Insurance companies in canada still make billions on selling extra insurance to cover pharmaceuticals, something I dont need or want because I’ve never paid more then $20.00 for medicine.

If I get a cold, I dont have to think about my wallet.

There is a mentality with some americans that say “Why do I have to pay for someone else”. Well, Your taxes are paying for other peoples kids to go to school, for the police officer to arrest that bad guy down the house from your street, the fireman who put out that burning house…come on guys…grow up. The USA is the only industrialized country without healthcare…greed is bad, and will be your downfall.

What is up for debate is how is it broken, what can be done, and by whom.

But talking about a problem is the first step in finding solutions. Thanks for contributing to the conversation.

I agree one hundred fifty percent. We live in the best damn country in the whole damn world. We lead! We don’t follow! We don’t need to do something because the “dog” (society) tells us to. So what if the rest of the world does it? We blaze our own trail and if people get hurt along the way, so be it.

This isn’t some hodge podge start up country. This is AMERICA and we love the red, white, and blue. Since when do we do what Canada does? We don’t! THEY do what we tell them to do. When we come up with a better plan than what Canada has, I can guarantee that they will follow us. Why? Cause we’re AMERICA damnit.

“society needs to use it’s creativity to try and come up with real solutions to this problem and not look for the easy way out. “

Very well said.

1- Our health care system has some major issues that need to be fixed.

2-Universal Health Care is the sexy, easy, incorrect solution to the problem.

So what is the solution? I’m not sure, but I can tell you this I work for a small company and they have provided me with the option for a health savings account. I’m not going to go into all of the details explaining how an HSA works, but it has been a pretty cool way to approach my personal health care needs. Now I realize that a HSA is not the solution to the entire health care problem. My point is our society needs to use it’s creativity to try and come up with real solutions to this problem and not look for the easy way out. Who knows there could be someone sitting in the Provo Labs incubator right now with the solution we are all looking for. If not, maybe a hybrid is a good place to start.

On a side note, Blake I will always laugh when I think of you cracking your skull in Brazil. Man I wish I would have had that on camera, YouTubers would eat that ish up

I was recently in Taiwan and they have a successful universal health care system. I asked one of our hosts how they have made it work. He, having spent some time in the US, said, “You don’t understand how different our cultures are. I do not personally know anyone that has ever had a surgery. We pay for preventative methods ourselves and hopefully never have to go to the hospital.” That is a huge difference and the argument could be made that our society is much too focused on band-aid fixes, but you can’t implement a system because you think everyone needs to fix the way they think. They won’t vote for that.