Disqus - Latest Comments for montrealeragain

Re: Jan Wong dishes on depression in the workplace - Arts - Macleans.ca

montrealeragain — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:59:20 -0000

"Under tight deadline, Wong observed that the Dawson shooter, and the shooters at the École Polytechnique and Concordia, were children of immigrants.]
I believe this is a Macleans error.
As for this:
“had been marginalized in a society that valued pure laine,” argot for “pure” francophones: “Elsewhere, to talk of racial ‘purity’ is repugnant. Not in Quebec.”

She is totally right. That fact that no one in Quebec will admit this, including anglos and ethnics who have been here for 4 generations is part of the reason it will never change. It's so ingrained no one bothers to notice and continues to make excuses for it. Montreal will never elect a Naheed Nenshi, Sammy Forcillo or Michael Applebaum as Mayor. Truth hurts.

The G&M and Greenspan were wimps. They should have stood up for JW. And people wonder why journalism in our society now sucks?

Re: News // Jan Wong wronged?

montrealeragain — Mon, 07 May 2012 02:30:07 -0000

What Jan Wong wrote in that G&M article was totally true. Her paper left her to hang. She deserved better. So many of us have been there. I too believe everything that comes out of Jan Wong's pen. And FYI -- so did the G&M for years until someone came along and decided she wasn't playing by the new bullshit rules of journalism that has nothing to do with journalism and everything to do with commerce.

Re: Off-Axis

montrealeragain — Mon, 07 May 2012 01:49:00 -0000

David Frum a Democrat? Never. But can someone in the US give him a real job already? Please. Whatever you do. Just keep him busy enough to stop writing his propaganda-filled warped logic op-eds in The National/Fascist Post. The guy is a douche-bag and an embarrassment to his mother's memory. But who cares as long as you keep him -- far away from us!

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:43:10 -0000

The thing about posts like these, is that I never believe them. Are you telling me there was no one you could pay off in whatever province you live in?
This happens all the time in Montreal.
Not to mention, there are private clinics all over Quebec -- the backwater province of this country.

If you have the money to take yourselves out of the country and pay exorbitant American fees, then surely you have the 4grand it takes to have your surgery here at a private Montreal clinic done by the regular doctors who moonlight.

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:23:12 -0000

K, so now we must assume Dr. MacKenzie lied about his personal property being seized and he worked in the ERs of New York on weekends ( like many Canadian Doctors) and he left Canada to go to the US to escape racism.

YES. Either he is lying, or you misunderstood what he said. NO ONE SEIZED ANY PERSONAL PROPERTY. EVER! Believe what you want. In addition to every physician I could possibly find who think I'm friggin IDIOT for even asking the question, today I nearly got tossed off my neighbour's sailboat. He's a former Deputy Minister of Health here and was so angry at these made-up allegations he had no words.

Medicare started in Sask in 1962. By the time it went to the other provinces the doctors all saw that it worked. The Church or the community groups had no problems giving up their operating budgets and transferring their hospital assets. The groups then concentrated on funding research or capital programs that ran alongside the hospitals.

HOSPITALS IN CANADA ARE ALL RUN AS PRIVATE NON-PROFIT CORPORATIONS.

Even when the province would de-commision hospitals, they would not sell-off the building. Instead they ceded them to local local not-for-profit groups who continue to operate it.

THIS IS NOT THE SOVIET UNION. People are free to come and go from this province as they please. No one takes any of my assets if I'm an engineer, or stock broker or farmer. Why would they seize assets if you are doctor.

Did he work ER shifts in NY. SO? Who cares? He wanted to make more money. Probably in Malone. A brand new hospital opened there in the 80s. Montreal being the closest city they went out of their way to bring in Montreal doctors. "Stay close to family but get the F*&K out of Quebec" was their message.

And, if u knew/understood anything about Quebec, you'd know that this province lost every good everybody and every major corporation between the late 70s and mid-90s. Until the mid or late 90s this city was a third-world run-down decrepid Flint Michigan.

Racism was/is only a small part of this place. And given today's festivities in Quebec city, not much has changed.

Here's from today's Gazette
http://tinyurl.com/p46f5x

No anglo who wanted a real job stayed in this province between the late 70s and mid-90s. Eventually it was rebuilt by the Swiss pharmaceutical world who were given a tax-free haven and didn't care about the politics, language issue, separation referendums and the fact that they had to speak French. They built themselves huge plants in the West Island english speaking world and hired people at highly reduced salaries. You'd be amazed at how many major drugs were developed here: Vioxx, Singualar etc..

We also BTW specialize in tele-marketing fraud.

The Cdn medical system is not on the verge of collapse, but the last 2 directors and the current CMA head are part of an American insurance-backed initiative to promote private health care. And by the way, even the most right-wing of all these guys were never promote an american version of health care. They know they were be tarred and feathered in a public square.

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I wonder what the medicare fraud in the US is compared to the insurance fraud?

And just cuz there is fraud, so dismiss the entire program? You can't get away with an $850 cane in Canada. So why can you in the US? That has nothing to do with the system. Rather than the way it is being run.

Funny, I've never heard a Medicare recipient complain about the care they were getting.

Ditto for any vets. My 83 year old uncle in Vermont LOVES all his Vet benefits. Gee.. that's socialized medicine isn't it?

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Allowing the illegal immigrants to work cheap but get get free healthcare supports slavery. They should be documented legally and paid a fair wage.

Oh please. Americans would never do that. If they had to pay real wages you guys wouldn't have such cheap stuff. and that would never fly. EVER! Everything about your system goes hand in hand. That's why it is so difficult to change anything. From your election system that means you are up for re-election basically every 2 years to the idea that regulation is bad. It's an ideology that identifies Americans to the core. Nothing is ever going to change in your country because people who call Obama Hitler for wanting to give them free health care -- are celebrated!

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Whether they give more than they take is a discussion for another blog.

No. It's not. It's a statistical fact put out by one of your libertarian organizations that opposes health care.

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I am tired of the students losing ground in learning because the classes are taught in two or more languages. Put a price on that.

OMG --- ONLY IN AMERICA! From the time I started school I was taught in 4 languages. I learned a 5th in university and a 6th when I left school and moved to Eastern Europe. The ONLY unilingual people in the western world are Americans and separatist Quebecois.

The problem is the US system of education. My brother has been spending $15 000 a year for my 9-year nephew in Rochester NY. After 15 years in the US he has just moved back to Montreal. Kid is in Grade 4. It's one thing that he is behind in three of the 4 languages, he now has to learn. It's pathetic that he is behind in English and math as well.

And they also moved back because in the next couple of years the kid is going to need open heart surgery. They would not have been able to afford it. NO MORE NEED SAID.

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And why is there no real plan for healthcare?
Because everytime something substantial is discussed it gets re-created into "death squads" and lies about the government making the decisions about your health. (I know if I was a school teacher in Alabama I would want a high school educated pencil pusher at Blue Cross deciding if I could have my medication or not.)

You can't have an honest conversation about policy or health care because people like Glen Beck, Bill OReilley and Rush Limbaugh make more money than you, and the American public is too stupid not to listen to them.

That's the Matter with Kansas! (to misquote Thomas Frank's book.)

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:15:24 -0000

Hey Murphy

FYI:

The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition (published by Houghton Mifflin Co.) defines socialized medicine as:

"a system for providing medical and hospital care for all at a nominal cost by means of government regulation of health services and subsidies derived from taxation."

That sounds like us to me.... although I'm way more intrigued by your definitioin. Where did you get it from?

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:55:38 -0000

I'd venture to say my physician friends spend a very small proportion of their day on paperwork.

And that's the point.

They chart. The secretaries go click click with the medicare cards. They sign the visa-like forms and then they ship them to the gov't. One giant envelope for everyone.

As for 20 years ago, it was pretty good, It was during the 90s that huge cuts, older docs were given early retirement and the system was bleeding all over the place.

We need more money. We need more doctors, and quite frankly, we need medical schools to remind students that being a doctor means you have to interact with real live human beings.

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:42:54 -0000

Am I the only one who is going to weigh in on this "seized assests?" Or is it just too ridiculous for anyone else out there to even bother. OKAY.. We CONFESS.. Yes, in the late 60s... the Stalinist State, helped by Beria seized all the land and assests of every physician in the country! Then, we sent them all to the gulags of the Yukon and the North West Territories.

WTF?

Every doctor then, like now is given a choice. Opt in or opt out. If you opt in you get paid by the govt. If you opt out, every patient you have has to pay you independently. There is NO double dipping. PLUS, no supplemental insurance company covers procedures. ONLY diagnostics.

However, in the 1960s, I believe that medicare initially agreed to pay at rates determined by the provincial medical associations (i.e. the doctor's unions). Then, in the 1980s (I believe), the governments reneged on this, and began unilaterally determining doctor's rates (with some input from medical associations). At various points in my lifetime, including a year or two ago, doctors have gone on strike. In the last version of this, the key negotiated clause was that there were no ceilings on the amount of money specialists could make per year.

But I guess this is what Frank Luntz calls "seizing assests." Just like intelligent living wills have become "death squads." Yes, you are right. The whole truth is not being told. That's because Americans are calling a man who wants to give everyone FREE and EQUAL health care "Hitler."

That's why I'm defensive. Because you yourself are bringing Fox's massaged synonyms and wanting to use them as part of an intelligent debate about what is wrong up here.

There is plenty wrong up here that needs fixing, but I've never heard a single American talk intelligently about how they could take a great system and make it better.

No one "seized" anyone's assests if they left in the late 60s and certainly no one "seized" any of Allan Mackenzie's assests. He left in the mid to late 80s when I was somewhere in my teens. Given the fact that he was a big black anglophone man in xenophobic, parochial, nationalist and downright racist Quebec, I'd venture to guess there were a whole slew of other reasons why he (and a couple of million other folk) left this city. But he's not going to explain Quebec politics to Americans. And, he thought highly enough of the system itself to send this city a couple of California orthpaedic residents every year. (They were easy to spot at Sports Med Clinics or when being wheeled in for knee surgery.)

As for $350 for a cataract removal. Considering it's about 10 minutes of work. I think it's pretty darn good.

As for Canada turning away foreigners. Yes, Quebec has taken steps to eliminate fraud in one sense, but we don't turn away anyone. In fact, in Toronto, there are very specific clinics that are set up where they mostly treat patients without proper documentation or their OHIP cards. Most of these people are really hard-working refugee types from war zones. My friend says they were the best patients she ever had, and it was the best clinic she ever worked in.

As for the US attitude towards "illegals," Immigrants keep both our countries going. They are giving back a whole lot more in cheap labour than they are getting in free health care. Even the libertarian anti-health care reform group whose name I've blocked at this moment admitted this in a huge paper a month or so ago.

Next: The average Canadian pays about $5,000 in health care taxes. Apprently, that is pretty much what Americans pay for in coverage. HOWEVER, we have no premiums, we have no "co-pays" (What is that anyway? ), it is not tied to any work place or business, and you can never be denied care because of a previous illness. PLUS, no insurance company paper-pusher over rides any doctors in this country. (Like WTF?)

I honestly don't know what the term "managed care" means, but I'm guessing it's a time before insurance companies were beholden to stock holders, and health care became a corporate for profit stock-optioned business.

But I think your point is that this system sucks. So stand up and yell. Stop denouncing other systems until you actually look at the facts -- but not the ones you hear about on Fox News.

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:07:52 -0000

http://mediamattersaction.o...

important for all to read to have amunition to counter lies.

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:57:44 -0000

Nobody said our system is perfect. People are free in democratic societies to live anywhere they want to pursue any goals they want. People leave for all sorts of reasons. I spent my 20s living in Eastern Europe... Some of my friends spent that time in Japan.
My cousin is a surgical resident and married another resident last wkend. Half of his year's McGill med class was at the wedding. None of them are leaving the country. Sure they will do fellowships or whatever they are called in the States... but I didn't speak to anyone who wanted to live and practice medicine the US.

Guess what michael.. the entire world does NOT want to be American or live in your country. Get over it.

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:34:13 -0000

Wow.. I didn't know that. I had no idea what the actual definition of socialized medicine is.

Re: Real Canadians Talking Real Health Care

montrealeragain — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:28:52 -0000

Wow... You know this wkend I met an American doc who thinks there is nothing wrong with the system. He says if the malpractice issues and the wastes associated with it were taken care of, there would be enough money to pay for all the uninsured in the USA. He's a cardiologist in Florida. Do you have any opinion on this?