this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
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Uninsured patient faces major hospital bills in Ontario after having legs amputated (toronto.citynews.ca)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (3 children)

personally, i am happy to have my taxes pay for undocumented, non-tax-paying humans who need healthcare... mostly because i care about humans regardless of their tax paying status and that i dont think any humans should have to pay directly for healthcare.

'fair'? whatever.

this guys experience is actually a step backward not forward. stop thinking backwards.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Same here and I felt the same way when I saw the story in the news.

I'd rather see tens of thousands of dollars spent on taking care of the medical needs of a human being than in paying tens of thousands of dollars on another bureaucrat or politician flying around the country attending conferences or expensive meetings.

We have more than enough money and resources to pay for the medical needs of everyone in the country regardless of their status or situation ... it's the creeping privatization of our medical system and institutions that makes it so unaffordable and needlessly complicated and difficult to maintain.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Just south of us are 26million uninsured people who desperately need healthcare and 100million in medical debt. We can't afford to support them, nor do i really want to more directly support america. So how do we, from a legal point of view, differentiate between the small sustainable group of people above vs the potential huge group of people, niether would have paperwork, both need help.

This isn't just concern trolling, if you have a genuine answer to that question I'm all ears, but I have 0 doubt in my mind that if there's a backdoor way for Americans to get canadian healthcare they will take that option en mass.

I think the best way to solve the program of the undocumented workers above is to make the path to legal immigration easier to transfer into and to grant medical coverage earlier in the immigration process.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

On a case by case basis for the moment

if the person needing help needs a non urgent medical care ... then you can spend the time and energy defending the merits of legality and funding

if the person is losing, has lost their limbs for whatever reason and treatment will further affect their long term well being ... then treat them due to compassion and don't send them into a bureaucratic hell hole

[–] sailingbythelee 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

While I understand the sentiment, it is unrealistic and naive. Doctors and nurses get paid. Someone has to pay them, and while you may be personally happy to see the system cover the costs for one illegal undocumented immigrant, the supply of money and health care resources is not endless. Indeed, we already have a massive shortage of doctors in large parts of Canada. Obviously, our model of health care doesn't work if we allow non-taxpaying, non-citizens to have free treatment. Imagine, if you will, the millions of Americans that would flood our country if they could get free health care here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

discussing the resource management is a strawman. we can already afford to provide healthcare for the planet (including paying all those involved), assuming we prioritize it.

would we need to spend more? yep. we would need to increase medical schooling, medical spending. so?

this is a species-level problem. think bigger than your borders.

how much healthcare would canada be able to provide if they didnt spend a stupid amount on the exact opposite... human killing devices. the same goes for every 1st world country.

[–] sailingbythelee 2 points 6 months ago

I'm not sure I understand you. Who is this "we" that can already afford to provide healthcare for the planet?

If you mean all the taxpayers in the world can afford to pay for all the health care of all the people in the world to a high standard, that just isn't true. Canada is a highly developed country with lots of resources to devote to modern health care, but much of the world is not like that. The need for health care FAR outstrips the supply. Even in Canada.

Second, we in Canada don't have any control over the health care policies of the rest of the world. If you are just musing about how the whole world should come together and prioritize medicine instead of bombs, well, sure, I guess most everyone would agree with that. But that's like wishing for world peace. It's not a realistic health care policy for Canada. As I said, and which you pointedly did not respond to, we can't freely open our health care system to the victims of America's dysfunctional health care system, not to mention the rest of the world. Sure, it would be great if Canada could heal the world, but we can't. It isn't about "fairness", it is about our ability to maintain a functioning system in a world we don't control.

Thirdly, the argument that ending military spending would significantly improve health care is a nice idea, but it is a red herring. Canada, and most Western nations, spend less than 2% of GDP on military. Ending military spending would help a little bit, but it wouldn't "solve" the problem of funding health care.

[–] anonymous69 -3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the downvotes. Good to see that Lemmy doesn’t care about having reasonable conversations.

I’ll show myself out.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

if you let voting affect your discourse then youre correct; youre far too sensitive to take part.