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I read a good post over at Celestial Junk

This morning on John Gormley Live, the leader of the Saskatchewan oppositon revealed that the Socialist Utopian government of Saskatchewan will spend 3.2 billion dollars on healthcare this year; or 47% of the entire government annual budget. At the same time, it was revealed that many basic health services will still not be paid for, such as at home oxygen therapy for those dying of respiratory diseases. And, there is absolutely no indication that the longest waiting lists in Canada will be effectively dealt with.

Here’s the rub: The $3,200,000,000 tax payers dollars is being spent and paid for by a population numbering just under one million people. Now, just pause a moment to think about it. One million people… $3.2 billion bucks… that makes about $3,200.00 spent for every man, woman, and child every year.

Then, take the math a little further, and imagine that every man, woman, and child were to be given that $3,200.00 to purchase their own private healthcare insurance to be spent, when needed, on an efficiently run private for profit system. A family of four, for instance, would have nearly $13,000.00 per year to spend on insurance… that’s a thousand bucks a month on health insurance
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Let's examine animal health care. Believe it or not our pets get better health care than we do! Sure you pay an arm and a leg for it, but think about all the tax you pay! Now think about how much you pay and how much service you receive in return. But Muffin's looking kind of heavy. Now if Muffin were on a "public" animal health care system, there would be a public outcry of her obesity, and how she is a burden on the system etc...

When we have a public health care system I think we do have a right to criticize other people's lifestyles. If we're all paying into, we want to be able to have service when we need it for legitimate, unpreventable sickness and disease. With a private health care system, I think we would be less judgemental of people's lifestyles, actions and only interfere if they affect others instead of when they affect/drain our systems. So until we have a private system, I believe we have a right to bitch all we want about smokers and how obesity will be such an epidemic. Now, are they the ones draining our health care system? Most likely not. Our system isn't a drain because of people's lifestyles, but rather wasted resources.

I really wish Trent didn't get rid of the course entitled "Health Care Economics" I really would like to learn about the finances of our health care system and where the money goes. From what I've learned in other courses is that the US system isn't the most economic either. Believe it or not, the US government actually shell out more money in health care! The US spends more per GDP and per capita than Canada.

This fall I will be taking a 400 level course that will compare Canada and the United States. For my term paper I would love to research the health care systems, even though that will be a huge task! If I get in to a Masters program in the fall of 2007 I desire to do my thesis on some aspect of the health care system in Canada. I despise the rhetoric of lefties at Trent anti-private anything, so perhaps a Masters at Carleton will give me a fresh perspective!