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Comment by racl101 | Hacker News Reader

It's never a really straightforward thing though.

I'm from Canada and we have Universal Health Care which is great.

So when it comes to health care many Canadians like to shit on the US.

On the other hand, Canadians are always complaining about not making enough money, getting taxed high and stuff. And many dream about going to the US where their money making potential is apparently higher.

So to many Canadians, at some point, the potential to make more money outweighs the UHC enough to leave Canada and go to the US to make it big.

So depending on where you are the capitalist nature of the US is a terrible thing and the thing that provides opportunities not afforded by one's own country.

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> On the other hand, Canadians are always complaining about not making enough money, getting taxed high and stuff. And many dream about going to the US where their money making potential is apparently higher.

I bet those Canadians are young and healthy, so they (think they) don't have to worry about healthcare costs. Those who suffer from chronic illnesses or are semi/retired aren't so hyped. In summary, what's good for a certain demography isn't necessarily good for the rest of the citizenry (like friends and family, who don't necessarily factor into the decision on where to work).

> I bet those Canadians are young and healthy

Exactly. I know a Canadian that’s in their late 30’s, has children, and mixed health record. Now that the adventures are over, they’re eager to move back. Similar stories for European friends that married and had families with Americans.

Being in top 20 % of the USA is great and I know several talented people from my acquaintance circle who moved to America and made the cut.

Being in bottom 20 % of the USA seriously sucks.

That is the tradeoff...

It's not even really a trade-off because at the end of the day both live in the same country. The friction and dysfunction that is caused by this division also shrinks the space of the top 20%, who end up in a golden cage at best.

I'm German from a low income family and I went to school with kids of millionaires and everyone walked through the same streets and went to the same bars. First time i went to the US I noticed what living in a bubble actually means. And the kids of the 'winners' seemed as neurotic as the kids of the 'losers'. There's an entire mindset of "if I not go into college X will I be where my parents are", "is such and such street safe", "should we move to X neighbourhood, is it better than Y". Even the "opportunities" that the people in the top 20% is basically are pure stress.

"both live in the same country"

Yes, but that country is fairly huge. Even in densely populated Central Europe, we tend to make fun of sheltered kids from posh neighbourhoods (how many low income kids are there in schools of Nobelviertel, Hamburg? Perhaps a few well-chosen refugees). This effect is ten times stronger in the U.S.

I am not saying that this is right, just a description of the state.

BTW Unsafe streets are definitely a thing in Germany (or Czechia, for that purpose) as well. No one will, for example, move voluntarily to a neighbourhood with a high percentage of Roma population, regardless of how anti-racist was their education. Or to the proximity of a well-known drug dealing space. European hard drug problem is quite acute in some hotspots.

> So to many Canadians, at some point, the potential to make more money outweighs the UHC enough to leave Canada and go to the US to make it big.

It isn't so cut and dried.

At any point these people can return to Canada and receive free healthcare again after only a year of waiting.

What these people are doing is betting that they won't have any crippling healthcare incidents while they're young and banking on the fact that they can always move back to Canada to receive free healthcare for the chronic health conditions that accrue in old age.

Many of these people are effectively leaches on the Canadian health care system as they do not pay taxes into it and then make use of it in old age when they return to Canada.

Can’t they just get on Medicare in the US in old age? Why do they need to return to Canada? Are they ineligible?

You don’t even need to wait in most circumstances. If your family still lives at the same residence, and you remember to keep for health card up to date, you can most likely get service as if you never left.

Funny you should use that example.

I live in Canada, I've also lived and worked in the USA.

I suggest you go and live and work in the USA. Be part of their system. Use their healthcare, send your kids to school, walk through WalMart, live your life.

Sure, when you're in the top 30% or so life is pretty good, as long as you can avoid everyone else in society who are struggling HARD. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why there is so much violent crime, so many people in prisons and so much violent policing in the USA - tens of millions of people are desperate and struggling for the essentials they need just to live.

You simply don't have that in Canada, the social safety net takes that away.

As a Canadian that’s total bullshit. You obviously don’t hang out in the lower income parts of Canada.

Canada has Walmarts that look suspiciously like the ones I’ve visited in the US. Plenty of poor people who get kicked off welfare or get penalized for getting a job.

Poverty is far from solved in Canada.

> Poverty is far from solved in Canada

At no point did I say it was. Please don't jump to strawman arguments, it doesn't help anything.

I simply said there is much less poverty in Canada that in the USA. I think that would be very hard to argue against.

> Plenty of poor people who get kicked off welfare or get penalized for getting a job.

Every single one of them has perfectly acceptable heathcare, which is a HUGE step above the USA's poor.

Yes, Canada has poverty, but it's not nearly as severe as in the USA.

The US has Medicaid, free healthcare for the poor?

The claim was "Canada doesn't have a problem with violent crime, violent policing [ask First Nations folks about that!], or people who are desperate or struggling".

Which I said, is bullshit.

> The US has Medicaid, free healthcare for the poor?

That's not the same, as there are tens of millions of people that don't have access to affordable healthcare in the USA. In Canada (and a host of other developed countries) there are none.

> The claim was "Canada doesn't have a problem with x, y & z, or people who are desperate or struggling".

No it wasn't.

The claim very clearly was: "Canada has much less of a problem with x,y & z and far fewer people who are desperate or struggling than the USA does".

Sure, but my dad in Canada can’t seem to get a slot for his knee replacement and has been waiting for 2 years and can’t walk. But hey, he has “universal care” right?

And you said “You simply don't have that in Canada, the social safety net takes that away.” which is BS. Yes you have it. To a lesser degree than the US, but you have it.

And how many people just died in BC from the heat wave? 150+? How many in the US? The Canadian healthcare system might be universal but it’s poorly funded and easily overwhelmed.

I can find many many many Canadians that complain about the level of care they get from the Canadian system warning Americans never to allow a system like theirs to happen here..

Long Wait times, inability to see specialists, or get surgeries or MRI's etc

US Care is expensive, and we need to solve that, but I still am not convinced turning it over to our inept worthless corrupt government is the best or only solution to the problems with paying for US healthcare

> inept worthless corrupt government

If you seriously believe the government is that bad, then fixing it should be your top priority. Above all else. You can't have a successful country if the government is corrupt. And you can't just patch and hack around its failings. That shit will eventually catch up.

I believe government is inherently corrupt and can not be fixed. As you consolidate power and authority into a central structure it by nature attracts unscrupulous people that wish to dominate others with that power

The only way to resolve the problem of corruption is distribute and limit the power /authority any group of people has, instead we have slowly over the course of time vested more and more power into a ever growing federal government that continues to become more and more corrupt.

Power corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts absolutely.

The US Federal government was designed to be very Limited and subservient to the people and the States. Over the last 230 years we in the US have lost sight of that, and instead many now believe the government is our sovereign, is the ruler, is the source of our rights, etc. We have lost sight that we are suppose to be self governing, and that our rights are natural not granted by government.

In my view the government that governs the least governs the best, and giving control over my health to said government transform the relationship between citizen and government in a ways irreparably harm the principle of self governance, and individual liberty.

There's no reason for the federal government to run healthcare, even in a single-payer world. There are other implementations of universal healthcare where it could be run by states or counties.

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