We are able to afford the best machinery and medicines. Canada ranks No. 13 out of 24 in access to MRIs, No. 18 in CT scans and No. 7 out of 17 in access to mammograms.

Canadian citizens who can afford to pay for their health care come to the U. S. for treatment, due to the widely reported 4 to 6 month delays minimum to be treated by the Canadian system. British citizens consider treatment in 4 months a success, and many surgeries have waiting lists of a year. French hospitals leave their windows open in the winter because the building heating system cannot be regulated. Canadian mothers come to the U.S. to give birth because of a shortage of neonatal units in Canadian hospitals. Some British pull their own teeth because they can’t find a dentist.

Infant mortality is a meaningless statistic, as every country reports it differently. The U.S. tries to save premature babies, some of which die, which makes our infant mortality appear bad. Other countries simply record these as stillbirths, which are not reported as infant mortality. Also, most countries report the majority of 1st day deaths as stillbirths. We count it as infant mortality.

However, whenever i hear people make the veiled threat of “yeah i could make so much more money in the private sector, blah blah blah” I say, go ahead.
Its the same thing just about every employer in Michigan has been saying for the past 8 yrs.
If you think you can do better somewhere else, and thats what you want or need, go.

If you dont go, then either you’re wrong and the market conditions dont support your threat, or you do your job because you like it.

End of story. Stop using it as an excuse to try to keep costly abundant benefits when the state is going bankrupt and has already Laid off thousands of people and cut millions in budgets statewide year after year for the past 7 yrs.

The first people that should have their pay slashed is our state legislature. Especially the Leadership.
cut their Staff, Cut their budgets, cut their pay, their benefits and make them feel the pain of the state’s private sector for the first time during this downturn.

They dont feel constituent pain when they are making 2 or 3 times what the average michigan citizen is making and has a large well paid staff and plenty of perks.
Its all nice to send a kind letter or receive a courtesy call from a staffer if you’ve lost your job and retirment and about to lose your car or home… but they have no idea unless they are in the trenches with the 9% Michigan citizens who are currently unemployed, and the 35% making near poverty wages with children. And the 80% that havent gotten a raise or anything that comes close to keeping up with inflation over the past 7 yrs.

The root cause is the world’s worst health care system, by any measure, the health care system in the Unitied States. Trying to control costs at the state level is an exercise in futility, since the more efficient the customer gets the higher the cost of basic services will go.

Of GDP the US pays approximately 15% for health care; the rest of the developed world with single payer systems pays from 8% to 10% of GDP – and they cover all citizens.

Wait times in the US for cardiac/cancer care average seventy days; the next worst is Canada which ranges between seven and fourteen days.

If you’re over 65 in this country you will pay 88% more, out of pocket, for your prescriptions than medicare does; an expensive doughnut hole brought to you by the drug companies.

Our general health is poorer and lifespans shorter than those in countries with universal health care.

We rank 47th in infant mortality in the world.

So rather than casting your gaze on local issues and costs in the state health care arena, go after the real cost culprit, a health care system designed to support the private enterprise (free market) health care system that is dysfunctional and bloated with waste to its’ core.

Then you will be improving everyone’s health, the level of service received and cutting cost in huge amounts.