The average Canadian saves around a quarter million dollars over the average American in health care costs over their lifetime
Their web site makes it crystal clear. Canada's health care system helps business owners attract the best talent and make more money. Its called..
PROFIT® and Canada's competitive advantage..
Here is the 'teaser text'..
"There's something about Canada's health care system that business leaders aren't telling you. In fact, it's Canada's best kept secret.
While we often hear about how taxation levels affect a corporation's ability to compete in the global marketplace, we rarely hear about a major advantage that Canadian businesses have over their U.S. counterparts: universal health care."
We here in the US are struggling with ever diminishing expectations for the long hyped health insurance reform, which we are told will improve access for the uninsured. But the future is murky, nobody knows how much it will cost. Nobody knows how the reform will effect everyday Americans. Nobody knows how much healthcare will cost Americans and business. Nobody even knows if we will ever be able to reverse the commitment to privatization.
Global trade agreements are being used to increase access to emergent markets for US firms. In exchange, they must trade profitable access to American customers, unencumbered by public healthcare. If the government were to GIVE Americans healthcare, like the government does in Canada, if multinationals have entered the US market, investing money, they would want to be compensated.
But, who will compensate Americans for what we have lost? The rights to us that they use, like money? Who compensates us for all the stress. Stress kills neurons, makes it hard to learn, to remember things that happen while we are stressed. Stress makes people store fat, it causes countless illnesses, it shortens lives. Kids can't learn, adults end up with PTSD, heartburn, cardiovascular problems. Eventually, stress leads to dementia.
Who in our government calculates that cost? Nobody, after people lose jobs, they fall off the map. Who even cares that those years of stress kill thousands? Millions? Nobody. As long as the system remains punitive and Americans pay and pay and pay more. No global trade agreement protects us.
The WTO doesn't recognize human rights, only business rights.
Healthcare, education, water, transportation, military support services, security, nothing is sacred.
The business rights to us have already been sold.
Contrast that to how Canada protects Canadians from exploitation by domestic businesses intent on foreign trade. They put people and health care first. Does that hurt Canadian businesses? Evidently, NO. It helps them. A lot.
No sane person blames Canada for standing up for their people's rights.
"Canadian businesses clearly have a major advantage, because most of their employees' medical costs are covered by our universal public health care system. And though many pay for extended coverage for services like dental care and pharmaceuticals, the costs aren't anywhere close to what U.S. companies must absorb."
And their lives, and costs are far more predictable, which is very, very important for business just as it is for families. How can a family plan for the future, when they don't even know what healthcare will cost, or whether an insurance company will try to weasel out of their commitments.
Curative Care Procedures are all free in Canada. That's simplicity itself.
Americans in the US, however, can't even find out how much medical procedures cost, thanks to "confidentiality agreements". We pay more for drugs, because US drug companies want to charge others high prices, without objections.
People in the Third World might not have many protections, but they pay much much less and prices are always posted. It seems as if we in the US have the worst of all worlds, we have to pay the highest prices in the world, but we can't even find out what they are -to compare prices!
Still, thanks, evidently, to our leadership position in the global privatization movement, we were never even allowed to discuss single payer. Our media has decided to avoid even discussing it, they stopped publishing stories on single payer in 1993, decided to do this, among themselves. Single payer attracted a lot of letters to the editor. Too many. It was too popular.
Wouldn't you prefer the simplicity, honesty and predictability they have in Canada?