1124 replies to this topic

[Jason-L]

I suspect we pay more because the income is based on usage, but the expense is not.  There's a cost to operating the water system that doesn't fluctuate based on how much water we use, and has to be covered some how.  If they didn't charge more for the water, then in theory we would see the water infrastructure rapidly deteriorate and we'd shift to a Mad Max-ian system of fighting over wells and gathering with our pots and pans to accept the offerings from a local Immortan Joe.

[Mike K.]

Government has no motivation to be efficient. We dump who knows how much water every winter that could be bottled and sold or sold in large quantities to farms or other heavy water users. Then we charge consumers more for water as a result of conservation efforts.

 

Trust the government to control a resource, limit access to it when it suits them, and charge consumers more for it every year. And it's this same group that are now embarking on a who knows how expensive sewage treatment plant that will be making some people very, very rich, some government jobs very, very plush, and all tax payers just that little bit more financially stretched.

[VicHockeyFan]

Prescription drugs are also regulated to some extent as well as medical services. We as a society have decided that there is an overriding public interest in the management of these and other "products".

 

Boy, those are two terrible examples.  We ration medical care.  if my dog needs a new hip today, he gets one.  Grandma?  She waits 18 months, even if she is willing to pay $10 million for it.

 

Our prescription drug prices vary from the 3rd to 7th highest in the world.

 

Pretty terrible "management".

[G-Man]

^ Not true. Grandma can go to Seattle today and get one for far less than 10 million.

[VicHockeyFan]

Can you imagine if Terasen told us every winter that we're at some specific gas reserve capacity and must restict our use? Or if the gas station rationed gas every Tuesday to control supply? Or if the grocery store decided what you can and can't buy? Because that's essentially what our CRD water works does every year. Then we pay more for that same water while excess capacity is dumped every winter.

 

Exactly.  I'd be 100% behind this if we did not dump millions of gallons of water every year. 

[VicHockeyFan]

 If they didn't charge more for the water, then in theory we would see the water infrastructure rapidly deteriorate and we'd shift to a Mad Max-ian system of fighting over wells and gathering with our pots and pans to accept the offerings from a local Immortan Joe.

 

 

Except that nowhere in the history of the modern first world has this ever happened.  Nor will it ever.

[VicHockeyFan]

^ Not true. Grandma can go to Seattle today and get one for far less than 10 million.

 

That's a great system eh?  Grandma is willing to donate $9,970,000 more than the the surgery costs right into the system, but she is told instead to go to another country.  Canada loses that $9.9M.

 

Let's be very clear, we are not short surgeons/doctors, nurses or operating rooms or equipment.  The government chooses to ration care.

[nagel]

That's a great system eh?  Grandma is willing to donate $9,970,000 more than the the surgery costs right into the system, but she is told instead to go to another country.  Canada loses that $9.9M.

 

Let's be very clear, we are not short surgeons/doctors, nurses or operating rooms or equipment.  The government chooses to ration care.

Theoretical gramma is not "donating" this money, she's using it to jump the line.  In Canada, that is wrong.

[VicHockeyFan]

Theoretical gramma is not "donating" this money, she's using it to jump the line.  In Canada, that is wrong.

 

So we have a good/right system here, that allows my dog to get surgery 500 days sooner than Grandma?

 

Our medical system is the absolute worst in the western world.  WHO puts us at #30.

[nagel]

I don't equate inadequate funding that leads to longer wait times for surgery to being a reason for moving to privatization.

[Mike K.]

Add dentistry to that.

 

Theoretical gramma is not "donating" this money, she's using it to jump the line.  In Canada, that is wrong.

 

I know people who have had to wait for surgeries while living with excruciating pain. It's laughable how backwards Canada is in this regard.

 

It's not inadequate funding, we're already spending a massive chunk of our country's wealth on healthcare and have the taxes to show for it. Where our system is breaking down is by not properly anticipating and preparing for an aging population that has a heavily restricted financial input into the system while requiring access to the system on a very regular basis. And things are only going to get worse.

 

Honestly, privatization is the only solution. We bungled socialist health care in this country a long time ago.

[VicHockeyFan]

I don't equate inadequate funding that leads to longer wait times for surgery to being a reason for moving to privatization.

 

We are #10 in medical spending per capita, out of 190 countries.  22 of the 29 countries ahead of us in quality ranking spend less.  It's not funding that's an issue.

[nagel]

Add dentistry to that.

 

 

I know people who have had to wait for surgeries while living with excruciating pain. It's laughable how backwards Canada is in this regard.

It is certainly frustrating.  Everyone has family members who have to wait too long.  Personally I don't think it's right for the rich to be able to buy priority.  But even if you do, you can't consider this a donation to the health care system.

 

Anyways this is massively off-topic.

[VicHockeyFan]

I need a drink.  Back OT.

[rjag]

Theoretical gramma is not "donating" this money, she's using it to jump the line.  In Canada, that is wrong.

 

Nothing wrong with that, if she can go privately then she should as it frees up a space for someone else....and before you disagree, consider Federal politicians do it, inmates, wcb etc....they all jump the line

 

http://thehealthcare...ance-in-the-uk/

 

 

Yet while they differ at the margins, both parties seem content to allow private practice to exist, and sometimes thrive. I wondered why: doesn’t the private sector siphon off resources – both money and providers’ time – from the NHS? I finally had my aha moment when one NHS manager likened the situation to that of US private schools operating alongside our underfunded tax-based public school system. “All the people using the private system have already paid their taxes, so they are siphoning volume out of the NHS that the system otherwise would have to manage,” he said. “The NHS would come to a grinding halt if private practice went away.”

 

Edited by rjag, 18 June 2015 - 10:18 AM.

[Jason-L]

Except that nowhere in the history of the modern first world has this ever happened.  Nor will it ever.

 

Well, yeah.  Because if the infrastructure collapsed to the point where it could happen, we'd no longer be part of the first world.

 

I'm also not sure where in the first world we have a 100% free-market based source of municipal water to use as an example.

 

I'm also sure that we'd complain about how they had to charge us more for water to afford the additional infrastructure to support this bottling, storing and selling over the winter that would be sitting idle in the summer while supply was short.

 

Of course, while we're in a water shortage situation, it's ironic to me that the city is no longer selling bottled water at RAP... instead, we get to save bottles by filling up from the city infrastructure...

 

Life is funny.

[lanforod]

Water charges should only be for what is needed for infrastructure and maintenance of that infrastructure. It shouldn't be a revenue generator.

[Mike K.]

It's raining like the dickens in the downtown area. But that won't matter, even if we were at 99% capacity (we're at 92%) hysteria would still ensue.

Every year we do this song and dance...

[Bingo]

Just drove into Victoria from the Malahat and there was a white soapy like substance on the road all the way to Cloverdale Avenue.

Not sure if the milk truck had a leak, or it was something that came to the surface of the road in the first rain in many weeks.

[todd]

I observed some rain today

 

Edited by todd, 18 June 2015 - 07:11 PM.