cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/42020156
Can Canada create a food labeling system similar to this?
It’s confusing trying to buy Canadian with all the variations of made in, assembled in, grown in, packaged in, etc. Can we copy the Australian food labeling system, perhaps replacing the kangeroo with a maple leaf? I find this much clearer.
Do you guys get free or close to free healthcare too? That rating and palm oil label is interesting. In the US, they seriously don’t tell you if your chicken is chlorinated, even the organic.
We pay for it with taxes so it’s not really free but yeah, the Medicare system means you don’t pay for hospital visits. Plenty of people still chose to get private health insurance but it’s more of a luxury than anything I think.
I broke my collarbone in two places just yesterday, currently in a hospital bed and will potentially get surgery this afternoon and don’t expect to pay much at all, it’s a good system.
(Shout out to St Vincents in Melbourne!)
I keep seeing other countries say this. I don’t think you guys realize that we pay for healthcare with our taxes too, but it’s to pay back the Emergency Room visits by the poor because the hospital can’t turn you away. Of course, the hospitals then raise the rates for those to astronomical prices. It would be way cheaper to have universal healthcare.
I’m so glad there are places that have it and I hope you recover quickly.
A lot of the deficiencies with Australian health care are due to tight budget control. Insufficient staffing etc. Health care is expensive but I believe our government health care spending is less per person than the US despite having a more equitable system.
Some of the cost pressures on our system are likely due to increasing use of private services. You can feel the dream of universal health and education slipping away here as bits are carved off for the private sector.
That’s how they get you to switch to what the US has, slowly carve it away. I hope you hold onto it.
Universal healthcare is cheaper, but still not really free healthcare.
Free (at point of use) is what people are meaning when they say that.
You’re right, it would be cheaper healthcare and we wouldn’t have bills come in on top of that. To the simple people who are voting against this, I will call it free healthcare.
we call cultural events put on by the government free events, so i think it’s fair to say that if you go to hospital, get surgery, and leave without paying anything that’s considered free… it costs no more to you to use the healthcare system than not, thus free in many more senses of the word than the narrow definition of paid for in taxes
I don’t want to disagree but we also pay for public television, like a mandatory netflix subscription. You could say it doesn’t cost anything to watch a show, just like it doesn’t cost anything to go to the doctor but it doesn’t feel fair to me to call them free services because they are not gifts or something like that. We also don’t have free highways, free pensions or free education. If everyone would consider them free things you have the right to use because you are a citizen people will probably complain a lot more about taxes than when this people consider themselves taxpayers who organised themselves to get things done for a fair price.
idk about elsewhere but at least a portion of roads here (australia) are paid through vehicle registration which is why they wouldn’t be considered free, we don’t have pensions like elsewhere; we have super funds which i guess are more like 401ks - it’s your money, and most people would consider the public school system free education
we also have free public transport in some places, and that’s explicitly labelled as free
everyone is well aware taxes pay for it; there’s no need to label it as a paid service
If they say free public transport while it’s payed for by taxes than I’d say you’re right about healthcare being free as well. Glad we have different words to describe things that are freely available vs available at no extra cost vs actually free (like that discarded chair by the side of the road). Still feels disrespectful to me to call healthcare and education free tbh.
free doesn’t mean no or low value though… just like expensive doesn’t mean high value. services are valued by utility; not cost. i’m not sure i see the disrespectful angle
similar thing with airport lounges: you pay in some way for lounge access, but get practically unlimited food and drink at no cost… id say that constitutes free: you pay no more or less based on your use or non-use
Hopefully a speedy recovery, that sounds like a sore one!
Public hospital care is free and very good in my experience but we have a mixed public/private system and there is usually a gap between private fees and public compensation. So for most people going to a doctor or specialist isn’t free (it can be but generally isn’t) but it is subsidised.
Prescriptions are the biggest win. Trump wants to take those away. It will be over my dead body.