Current Events > Why is Canada and UK national healthcare crumbling?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Is it just overblown rhetoric or is it actually true that the national healthcare system in Canada and UK crumbling, with waiting for months before an MRI and people choosing to go to private clinics at US-like overcharged prices because of lack of access to healthcare?

Idk probably because of conservatives

Also in Canada Healthcare is provincial

UK here. Happy to answer any questions.

I can only speak for Ontario but the conservative leadership is taking a lot of funding away from health care which is leading to less doctors and nurses which is leading to longer and longer wait times, this is making more and more people wanting health care here to become privatized which is exactly why the conservative government is removing the funding in the 1st place.

Conservatives get elected in Ontario

Healthcare goes to shit

Gosh... what a shocker

MarthGoomba posted...

Conservatives get elected in Ontario

Healthcare goes to shit

Gosh... what a shocker

I can see you from Mt. Kilimanjaro

Supersex420 posted...

I can see you from Mt. Kilimanjaro

I don't know what that's supposed to mean

Once a public service is seen as being for "the poors", everyone else abandons it and doesn't see the point of continuing to pay for it.

This is basically a founding principle of the US, and it's creeping over to the commonwealth nations as well.

MarthGoomba posted...

I don't know what that's supposed to mean

I was thinking about you like 7 minutes ago

proof or evidence that they're crumbling?

a little crumble from canada just rolled across my yard in michigan

Saskatchewan'a is shit, because we have a Conservative government.

Dunno about Canada but the reason in the UK is 13 years of far right conservatives in power actively ripping it apart aggressively

And it's not just healthcare. Every sector of the UK is falling apart.

Railways, busses, driving tests, barristars, schools, fishermen, farmers have gone from "Hard times" 5 years ago to the brink of total collapse. No exaggeration.

Brexit is a huge part of it but ultimately it's apprpx 600,000 people, the 1% actively screwing over everyone and everything else for their own interests

And through it all people still support the Tories, it's mind boggling

Supersex420 posted...

because of conservatives

Sums it up largely, for the UK at least.

Coupled with poor spending by the higher ups, all the mates of Tories being given commissions to fulfil/supply the NHS, or just getting private providers to supply numerous services.

Then refusing to pay any health professional a decent wage and putting people off from training as a medical professional meaning we are all overworked, underpaid and demonised by the government for wanting to be treated fairly.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Nah. It's a Cloward/Piven, in reverse.

The UK spends less per person than the USA government does on healthcare (even though the US doesn't even have a nationalised Health Care System), that's probably one of the main reasons.

Timmyjinkle posted...

(even though the US doesn't even have a nationalised Health Care System)

It does, you just have to be old, poor, or military to use it. Sometimes all of the above.

Tories are actively trying to fuck us in the UK

Questionmarktarius posted...

It does, you just have to be old, poor, or military to use it. Sometimes all of the above.

Or a veteran.

The conservative plan:

-Slash budgets for public services.
-Denounce public services for being terrible (omitting the fact that it's their fault).
-Distract average citizens from the above step and find scapegoats as to why things are terrible.
-Promote privatization.
-Profit (for themselves and their fellow rich buddies).

Tom_Joad posted...

Or a veteran.

"military"

...also congress, I guess.

Questionmarktarius posted...

"military"

...also congress, I guess.

Military go to military hospitals. Veterans (who are sufficiently disabled) have Veteran's Affairs (VA) hospitals.

If the veteran is retired military, then they can use military hospitals or, if they are sufficiently disabled, VA hospitals. (or if they live in certain areas of the country, can use certain civilian medical providers if they forego military hospitals.)

In the northern Virginia, DC, Maryland, Delaware, and southern Pennsylvania region... that would be the John Hopkins system of medical providers.

Tom_Joad posted...

Military go to military hospitals. Veterans (who are sufficiently disabled) have Veteran's Affairs (VA) hospitals.

Fair.

If anything, the VA is the model of how ungodly terrible a public US healthcare system is going to be.

b_nolan posted...

I can only speak for Ontario but the conservative leadership is taking a lot of funding away from health care which is leading to less doctors and nurses which is leading to longer and longer wait times, this is making more and more people wanting health care here to become privatized which is exactly why the conservative government is removing the funding in the 1st place.

This

Funkydog posted...

Sums it up largely, for the UK at least.

Coupled with poor spending by the higher ups, all the mates of Tories being given commissions to fulfil/supply the NHS, or just getting private providers to supply numerous services.

Then refusing to pay any health professional a decent wage and putting people off from training as a medical professional meaning we are all overworked, underpaid and demonised by the government for wanting to be treated fairly.

This.

Over a decade of Tory influence has seen chronic underinvestment in sectors such as healthcare, education, social care, etc.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Fair.

If anything, the VA is the model of how ungodly terrible a public US healthcare system is going to be.

The dirty little secret about the VA hospital system is that it was never designed to be strictly funded by the federal government. It was always supposed to be funded by both the federal and state governments.

So in some states that do chip in (like Maryland)... the VA hospitals and clinics are pretty good. I could make an appointment and usually be seen in the week I made the appointment.

But it states that don't chip in (like Virginia)... the VA hospitals are overburdened and understaffed. To the point where they have to refuse service to veterans because there are just too few doctors/nurses to meet the number of veterans seeking service.

---

So if the VA becomes the model of a hypothetical US public health care system... you'll see blue states have a pretty decent health care system. And red states will have a dystopian hell-hole of a system.

Tom_Joad posted...

It was always supposed to be funded by both the federal and state governments.

That never works.
Not even for roads.

What is considered the "conservative" party in Canada?

Is it similar to the UK?
I have heard political parties are a bit different compared to the US, despite using some of the same identifying terms.

Right wing governments hate free health care.

Cheater87 posted...

Right wing governments hate free health care.

"Fuck you I got mine" is not a condemnation, but an explanation.

I don't live there but the classic attack pattern by right-wing governments is to cut funding, then use the subsequent worse results to attack the services for being "inefficient" and build support for further privatization.

Been going on for many decades now in many countries.

kawalimus posted...

I don't live there but the classic attack pattern by right-wing governments is to cut funding, then use the subsequent worse results to attack the services for being "inefficient" and build support for further privatization.

Again, this is an inverse Cloward/Piven.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy

OpenlyGator posted...

What is considered the "conservative" party in Canada?

Is it similar to the UK?
I have heard political parties are a bit different compared to the US, despite using some of the same identifying terms.

In the past, they've had to be more subdued and a little closer to center than the Republicans, but American far-right propaganda has been seeping into our country. Our version of the American MAGA hat crowd is the convoy clowns with their charming "Fuck Trudeau" and "We The Fringe" flags all over their pickup trucks.

synth_real posted...

Our version of the American MAGA hat crowd is the convoy clowns with their charming "Fuck Trudeau" and "We The Fringe" flags all over their pickup trucks.

I'd argue that Canada's "MAGA" aka "trucks in Ottawa" is still pretty left of America.

'Merica, simplified:
Democrats: far right, compared to everywhere else
Republicans: holyshit what the fuck? - since 2016, maybe before

Questionmarktarius posted...

far right, compared to everywhere else

True compared to Canada, certainly not "everywhere else" though. Right wing parties in Europe are straight insanity. Right wingers in Central Europe (Former Yugoslavia) constantly accuse Trudeau of being a communist dictator, while in the US only morons like Tucker say that.

That said, the CPC (Our version of Republicans), is creeping further right than before (Thanks Alberta), but not as much as the media likes to pretend.

synth_real posted...

Our version of the American MAGA hat crowd is the convoy clowns with their charming "Fuck Trudeau" and "We The Fringe" flags all over their pickup trucks.

they kept going for days blocking the road. honking horns all night so people couldn't sleep.

electricbugs2 posted...

(Thanks Alberta)

Alberta is Canada's Texas

Prove me wrong.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Alberta is Canada's Texas

Prove me wrong.

Do you hear me arguing?

BC=California
Alberta=Texas
Saskatchewan=Nebraska
Manitoba=Ohio
Ontario=New York
Quebec=Florida
Maritimes=Maine
Territories=Alaska

It all checks out.

electricbugs2 posted...

It all checks out.

Who's Missouri?

Nunavut?