Is Canada a good model for health care here in the United States? You be the judge. Even in Canada Health care costs have reached the tipping point". Recent research indicates the cold , hard economic reality that even in Canada with its informal subsidizes of defense costs by the good old USA is having trouble to fund its sc called all inclusive health care system that many liberal Americans beg to copy without full and thorough investigation. Up in our Neighbor to the North" Canadians are reaching the limit of both what taxpayers can afford to pay as well as reduced access to health care and ever longer waiting times. Of course there is only so much money in the pot and other essential social services are seeing funding cuts. It is generally not appreciated that Canadians have almost had an emergency escape valve of the option of Going South if things get rough or too slow in their medical treatments. The humorous part according to Las Vegas based health care analyst M. Labovitch is that the people with the power and influence in Canada don't publicize or push for changes when things are hard as they have automatically used this southern option which what they consider is both higher quality and speedier medical treatment. Indeed Labovitch notes from Vegas that the situation is so apparent and flagrant that when high profile Canadian leaders and politicians and their families have serious illnesses that need treatment the news reports always seem to be from prominent American hospitals. Canadians it seems don't notice this two state solution or are immune and shell shocked already. To support this data a prominent Canadian think tank The Fraser Institute" corroborated this information with a recent study. Using actual Canadian government Statistics Canada data in its current report The Fraser Institute report notes that data on the most recent five year trends that public health care spending in every one of the ten Canadian provinces continues to grow faster on average, than total revenues from all sources including the large Canadian federal government transfers of funds from the wealthy provinces of Ontario in the industrial heartland , British Columbia (B.C.) with its mineral and forestry industries and Alberta with its oil wealth . These Canadian Federal Government fund transfers serve to transfer funds from the wealthier Have" provinces to the less fortunate Have Not" provinces in the hope of standardizing living standards and health care service levels across the country. Health care in Canada is taking an ever increasing share of all revenues over time, leaving proportionately less money for everything else. Public health care spending in six of the ten provinces is on pace to consume more than half of total revenues by the year 2020 , two thirds by the year 2035 and all of the provincial revenues by 2050. And even this analysis's the Institute notes is being generous with assumptions. Projections of future revenue growth are actually overestimated because in many of the provinces recent growth revenue is a result of increasing tax burdens. Canadians pay to start with a national federal tax (G.S.T.) of 7 % in addition of provincial sales taxes which range from zero provincial sales taxes in oil rich Alberta of which the US are the main consumers to almost 11 % in Prince Edward Island. And in addition there are a myriad of hidden and incidental taxes. This is in addition as has been noted to the defense costs of Canada being subsidized by us here in the states. There is only so much money in Canadian's pockets and they will have to make choices for a lower standard of their living personally or higher taxes. In addition Canada is currently booming with oil, mineral and lumber sales. What happens if this slows down? Is the Canadian health care system sustainable? Should it be the model for us here in the United States? You be the judge.
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