[Atheist]

My partner and I are researching possible immigration to Canada. He's checking out housing prices and I thought I'd check out auto prices. I was looking at the Benz E350 4MATIC and was shocked to see that the MSRP is CDN$74,500 but in the States it's only US$53,525. How the hell do they justify such a huge discrepancy? I started googling around and see that it's an issue in virtually every retail market in Canada. Is there a major consumer rebellion afoot? Is there any chance this will change any time soon?

[Tiresias]

I watched Sicko last night, and beg to differ au contraire.

[Atheist]

I guess I was referring to the consumer retail market... not healthcare.... but by all means, derail if you feel the need.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

I watched Sicko last night, and beg to differ au contraire.

And you believed you were watching something factual rather than a piece of socialist propaganda, I'm sure. Did you know that disgusting piece of shat thinks Canadians don't spend enough on their socialized medicine?

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

And you believed you were watching something factual rather than a piece of socialist propaganda, I'm sure. Did you know that disgusting piece of shat thinks Canadians don't spend enough on their socialized medicine?

"In 2005, per-capita spending for health care in the U.S. was US$6,401; in Canada, US$3,3326.[5] The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 9.8%."

Canadian and American health care systems compared - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Disgusting, this socialism...

[gradient]

ON topic, yes many things definitely tend to cost more here in Canada then they do in the US and no there isn't a consumer rebellion likely at any point in the near future.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

[I]"In 2005, per-capita spending for health care in the U.S. was US$6,401; in Canada, US$3,3326.[5] The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in that year; Canada spent 9.8%."

Considering how long some people have to wait, I'm surprised they spend even that much.

[Eug]

Interestingly, much of that difference in price spent on health care is administrative costs. A bazillion health plans, etc. makes for a very complicated billing and tracking system in the US.

As for cars, yes there has been a lot of complaints. Some manufacturers have dropped pricing somewhat. Others haven't at all.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

And you believed you were watching something factual rather than a piece of socialist propaganda, I'm sure. Did you know that disgusting piece of shat thinks Canadians don't spend enough on their socialized medicine?

Stupid Comment of the Day.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Out of mild curiosity, do we make up the difference in housing prices or no?

It's definitely a piss-off for me; AFAIK we essentially have a free trade with the US on autos, is that correct? Certainly nothing to justify 20-50% price increases across the border like we've been seeing, anyway.

There was some mild uproar about this when the dollar first started to change, but like all other news the gloss wore off quickly and now nobody really thinks about it anymore. Kinda sad, really. I do think that our media has let us down a little on this one.

greg

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Out of mild curiosity, do we make up the difference in housing prices or no?

Not really. Nice houses in half-decent areas in Toronto are often over a million bucks.

[ghporter]

Until very recently, the Canadian Dollar was historically below the value of the U.S. Dollar-generally between .75¢ and .85¢ US if I recall correctly. Benz seems to be behind the curve, or the sources Athiest found were out of date. Either way, we're talking about ONE brand of car, right? Just recently, Apple re-did their pricing and released a Major Software Title with the same price for U.S. and Canadian dollars.

And Big Mac is giving Socialists a bad name by painting them with the Michael Moore brush. He's not a socialist, he's an idiot who thinks that he can get people to think a certain way in droves by presenting his agenda with equal parts (purported) humor and outrage. Unfortunately, a lot of the public are also idiots, and they go along with him.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Not really. Nice houses in half-decent areas in Toronto are often over a million bucks.

...and? Have you tried comparing that to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or any of the "comparable" cities in the US lately? Are they the same price?

greg

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Until very recently, the Canadian Dollar was historically below the value of the U.S. Dollar-generally between .75¢ and .85¢ US if I recall correctly. Benz seems to be behind the curve, or the sources Athiest found were out of date. Either way, we're talking about ONE brand of car, right? Just recently, Apple re-did their pricing and released a Major Software Title with the same price for U.S. and Canadian dollars.

You need more research.

Our dollar was in the 60s for years. AFAIK every brand of car manufacturer is similarly priced. (I just checked, and the Toyota Sequoia starts at 34k in the States and almost 45k in Canada.) Some manufacturers like Porsche "adjusted" their prices but there's still a huge difference for a border crossing.

Our dollar only reached parity a relatively short time ago, so I'm sure at some point the prices will start to adjust.

greg

[ghporter]

Yeah, I'm drawing from (flawed) memory. I grew up in the Detroit area, so I was sort of exposed to Canadian economics by way of CBC and the newspapers. I did say that it was only recently that the CAD got close to (and finally actually exceeded) the U.S. Dollar. I was hoping that it was just Benz that was doing this, but my research on that started when I read the thread and is incomplete. Geez! That IS stupidly wrong! When some oil speculator in New York gets indigestion MY gas pump prices spike (in a matter of minutes it seems), so why shouldn't manufacturers use basic economics to encourage people with a valuable currency to buy their products by dropping prices (and still making their obscene profits)? Maybe because they're predatory animals? I'd buy that.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

...and? Have you tried comparing that to New York or Boston or Los Angeles or any of the "comparable" cities in the US lately? Are they the same price?

greg

Well, I'm not sure I would necessarily compare New York or Los Angeles in that way. Maybe Boston I suppose.

Also, there are a LOT of very inexpensive cities in the US of A.

The point is housing prices in Canada aren't necessarily cheap either. Live in Vancouver or Toronto, and you may be paying through the nose for housing as well.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Well yeah, but you've just chosen the two largest cities with some of the best economies in the country (i.e. the most desirable big-city places to live). (If you look at Vancouver you've also got a rather "specialized location" city where physical space constraints, as in Manhattan, mean absurdly high prices.) If you want to compare to the US then you also have to choose comparably "desirable locations." New York or Los Angeles may be bad comparisons given that they're on another scale entirely, but I do think you've got to do this sort of "top-of-each-country" distinction.

I mean, you can look at average housing prices in Calgary and Edmonton (two million-strong cities with some of the hottest economies in the world right now) and I imagine it's probably in the $400-500k range. That's probably not too bad given the state of their respective economies.

I guess to add to that, Canada hasn't seemed to (yet) see the housing bubble burst that's plagued some areas of the States (although from what I hear there's been some slowdowns in areas like Toronto for example). That might make a difference.

greg

[Wiskedjak]

Housing prices are a bit out of wack right now in certain parts of Canada (Calgary/Edmonton in particular). The difference between US housing prices is probably more emphasized given what's going on with the US realestate market right now. I'm actually quite happy with the housing situation. The house I purchased for $220,000 2 years ago is now worth over $400,000. I do feel sorry, however, for anyone purchasing a first home or coming into this market from a lower value market.

Cars, however, is another matter entirely. We are certainly getting screwed in that market. Even when the Canadian dollar was lower than the US dollar, automakers were taking advantage. And, it's not just the automakers. Canadian company Bombardier charges Canadians more for jetskies and snowmobiles than they charge Americans. To make matters worse, most of these companies won't honor warranties for vehicles purchased in the US and imported to Canada. Honda dealers in northern States aren't even allowed to sell to Canadians.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

And Big Mac is giving Socialists a bad name by painting them with the Michael Moore brush.

I didn't know that name could be made any worse.

It's funny that most of the people on MacNN advocating socialized medicine for America are not Americans.

[gradient]

Let's keep this on topic and leave the political mudslinging for the Political/War Lounge, guys.

[Oisín]

Cars, however, is another matter entirely. We are certainly getting screwed in that market.

Perhaps in comparison to the US, but if what Atheist is talking about there is a new Mercedes Benz E 350 for CA$ 74,500, then you’re definitely not getting screwed in comparison to Europe. I can’t find any prices for new E 350s in Denmark (doesn’t look like it’s sold here, at least not under that name), but a 2003 Mercedes E 320, which seems to be the closest match I can find, will set you back just over CA$ 130,000.

[TETENAL]

According to Mercedes-Benz.com that car is 52,419.50 € (50 cents? why not 99?) in Germany which would be 78,716.99 C$ (ah, there are the 99 cents!)

[Eug]

Doesn't that include VAT?

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Perhaps in comparison to the US, but if what Atheist is talking about there is a new Mercedes Benz E 350 for CA$ 74,500, then you’re definitely not getting screwed in comparison to Europe. I can’t find any prices for new E 350s in Denmark (doesn’t look like it’s sold here, at least not under that name), but a 2003 Mercedes E 320, which seems to be the closest match I can find, will set you back just over CA$ 130,000.

Finally managed to trudge through Mercedes Benz’ site and find the price of a new E 350T 4MATIC: 1,134,000 DKK, which is about CA$ 228,500.

Please tell me Atheist’s prices in the OP were not for new cars, but old, used ones.

Please.

(Danish prices are all including VAT, which is 25 per cent.)

[nredman]

i don't know how you justify 53k for car anywhere but thats me - to quote Nick Cage from gone in 60 seconds

This is the one, yes... yes, yes. I saw three of these parked outside the local Starbuck this morning, which tells me only one thing. There's too many self indulgent Wieners in this city with too much bloody money!

[f1000]

GDP per capita (PPP), 2007

U.S. $46,000
Can $38,200

[ShortcutToMoncton]

I'm unsure how that relates to cross-border differences in product pricing, but I don't know a considerable amount about economics. Care to explain?

greg

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I didn't know that name could be made any worse.

It's funny that most of the people on MacNN advocating socialized medicine for America are not Americans.

There are actually Socialists who think they would be helping people. Michael Moore is only after the bucks.

He is right on ONE issue-health care provision in the U.S. is broken. But socializing it is the last thing that we need because we can see how it's done so badly for people in the UK and Canada. (Ambulance stacking of patients at EDs JUST TO MEET A 4 HOUR MAX WAIT IS OBSCENE.)

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

we can see how it's done so badly for people in the UK and Canada.

Last week we had a medial emergency in the family. We drove to the nearest hospital, walked in and were seen to immediately. Nobody asked for payment, nobody asked for insurance, nobody asked for a credit card. The staff could not have been more helpful and professional, we received first class care. All ended well, with no worries about bills to arrive.

I lived with 'socialized' (whatever that is supposed to mean) healthcare all of my life, both in Europe and in Canada, and I take it over the private insurance model any day. Public health, like public education, is in the interest of all.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

There are actually Socialists who think they would be helping people. Michael Moore is only after the bucks.

He is right on ONE issue-health care provision in the U.S. is broken. But socializing it is the last thing that we need because we can see how it's done so badly for people in the UK and Canada. (Ambulance stacking of patients at EDs JUST TO MEET A 4 HOUR MAX WAIT IS OBSCENE.)

Ambulance stacking? I guess you mean in the UK?

[KeriVit]

This thread is confusing. Oooop. An the Oscars just got messed by an infomercial here...

[James L]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

He is right on ONE issue-health care provision in the U.S. is broken. But socializing it is the last thing that we need because we can see how it's done so badly for people in the UK and Canada. (Ambulance stacking of patients at EDs JUST TO MEET A 4 HOUR MAX WAIT IS OBSCENE.)

Please don't take this post as antagonistic, as I respect your posts, but ambulance waits are in no way the sole domain of socialized health care systems.

An example a friend sent me recently:

California ER Waits Tying up Ambulances — (EMSResponder.com)

Remember that it is the exceptional situations that make the media, not the routine day to day ones. Just like happy Mac users don't post on Apple's support forums, satisfactory health care provision is not commented on often. I have worked in the Canadian health care system as a paramedic for over 10 years, and on the whole millions of people each year get appropriate care.

It is when the system falters that it makes the news / internet... which can easily mislead people into thinking the problems are more prevalent than they really are.

Of interesting note is that the World Health Organization routinely ranks Canada's health care system as superior to the US one.

Who knows. I think they are both flawed.

p.s. I am writing this response from my iPod Touch while on a hospital wait with my patient (who is sleeping right now).

[gradient]

WTF.... this thread could actually have led (and may still lead) to an interesting discussion on cross-border economics but is being systematically derailed. Anyone who wants to argue about health care should go do it somewhere else. What happened to not feeding the troll?

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by James L 

Please don't take this post as antagonistic, as I respect your posts, but ambulance waits are in no way the sole domain of socialized health care systems.

p.s. I am writing this response from my iPod Touch while on a hospital wait with my patient (who is sleeping right now).

No those ambulance waits aren't only in socialized health care locales, but having people wait in the ambulance in California is because there's no room in the ER. Having them wait in the ambulance in the UK is because someone doesn't want to bust his numbers and get scolded. That's bureaucracy for you!

I've spent many, MANY hours waiting to be seen in ERs. In military ERs, where there was no issue about payment at all. It was about saturating the capabilities of the facility, NOT about messing with the system to look like you're doing well when you're still making people wait too long to see a provider.

And I'm sorry I helped derail this thread. Back to the money issue! How long will Canadians put up with international vendors treating them like their money is worth less than U.S. money? Will Canadians as a group say "enough!" and boycot Benz, Porche, etc., or will they say "oh well" and put up with it? Speak up, Canadians! (both on this board and in the world forum)

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

No those ambulance waits aren't only in socialized health care locales, but having people wait in the ambulance in California is because there's no room in the ER. Having them wait in the ambulance in the UK is because someone doesn't want to bust his numbers and get scolded. That's bureaucracy for you!

James might know a little more about this, but (coming from having 3 family nurses) I've never heard of the concept of "bust numbers." In Canada, when there is an ER wait, it's because there's too many people in the ER and not enough doctors to plow through them – just like California, from your example. It's the same when you talk about those people with certain illnesses (e.g. cancer) who need specialized care doing down to the States and getting it quicker; generally it's because the care they need (e.g. specialized machines or doctors) is available in Canada, but there's already too many people waiting.

So yeah. There's no question that Canada's health care system could use more doctors/nurses/new machines in some places, but on that note, which one doesn't?

On that note, I am in favour of charging small fees for ER services; say, like $5 or something. That's mostly to discourage the many, many people who visit the ER when they get an upset stomach and diarrhea, only to waste everyone's time and be told to go home, take Gravol, drink fluids and rest, and see your damn family doctor. I'm told (solely from personal accounts) that a shocking number of ER patients are precisely those kind of non-emergency situations. A small fee probably wouldn't make a difference to ER patients, but it might serve as some deterrent, let along helping the hospital recoup a small portion of its "losses" anyway.

But yeah, okay, back to Can/US pricing differentials. Anyone want to explain f1000's statement of GDP disparity? Does that have some affect on commodity pricing?

greg

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

There are actually Socialists who think they would be helping people.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Anyways, back on topic. I was once surprised to see that a new Jaguar XJ actually costs less to buy in the US than it does from the nearest dealer to the factory where they're made. So, freight charges added yet it's cheaper. How's that work then?

Never mind. The US makes up for it by getting screwed on property and income taxes. I'm ready for my next move, so been hitting the research quite heavily. So you have a top rate of 35% federal, 10.3% state and 15.3% FICA? That's 60.6%. No thanks!
And then there's the property tax. Looked at a $10m house in NH. $147k per year property tax? That's ridiculous. That'd be about $8k tops here.

...if only they weren't so arsey about fast cars in Bermuda...

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

James might know a little more about this, but (coming from having 3 family nurses) I've never heard of the concept of "bust numbers." In Canada, when there is an ER wait, it's because there's too many people in the ER and not enough doctors to plow through them

Over here, the government has created a target of "everyone must be seen within four hours". If the wait time is likely to be longer than four hours, the ER simply doesn't allow the ambulance to drop their patient - since the four hour frame doesn't start until the patient is signed into the ER. Keeps the ER within targets and thus not liable for funding decreases.

They do it with ambulance stacking here. Down south I believe they've taken to using something like triage tents on the car parks.

[Atheist]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Finally managed to trudge through Mercedes Benz’ site and find the price of a new E 350T 4MATIC: 1,134,000 DKK, which is about CA$ 228,500.

Please tell me Atheist’s prices in the OP were not for new cars, but old, used ones.

Please.

(Danish prices are all including VAT, which is 25 per cent.)

Those are new car prices... for 2008 models. And holy crap.... how can the same car cost four times more in Denmark? I'll guess I'll quit whining now. It seems they sell the cars in the US considerably cheaper than anywhere else. Yet another example of how Americans have no idea how good they have it.

[Atheist]

Originally Posted by gradient 

WTF.... this thread could actually have led (and may still lead) to an interesting discussion on cross-border economics but is being systematically derailed. Anyone who wants to argue about health care should go do it somewhere else. What happened to not feeding the troll?

The derail started in the second post... it's an inevitability we must all get used too.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

On that note, I am in favour of charging small fees for ER services; say, like $5 or something. That's mostly to discourage the many, many people who visit the ER when they get an upset stomach and diarrhea, only to waste everyone's time and be told to go home, take Gravol, drink fluids and rest, and see your damn family doctor. I'm told (solely from personal accounts) that a shocking number of ER patients are precisely those kind of non-emergency situations. A small fee probably wouldn't make a difference to ER patients, but it might serve as some deterrent, let along helping the hospital recoup a small portion of its "losses" anyway.

This has already been studied. A small token fee was deemed useless, and potentially damaging. Small surveys done a while back suggest those who abuse the system generally don't care about a token fee, but those are really sick but poor will be deterred even though the fee is small. A token fee punishes the poor, but doesn't solve issue of too many ER visits.

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by gradient 

WTF.... this thread could actually have led (and may still lead) to an interesting discussion on cross-border economics but is being systematically derailed. Anyone who wants to argue about health care should go do it somewhere else. What happened to not feeding the troll?

Of course, strictly speaking, you are derailing the thread by discussing the derailment.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I didn't know that name could be made any worse.

It's funny that most of the people on MacNN advocating socialized medicine for America are not Americans.

It's because the only ones who don't immediately panic at the thought of anything not cut-throat capitalist are the ones who actually get to *experience* the things that work better when you're not concerned with being NUMBER ****ING ONE in everything, all the time.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Eug 

This has already been studied. A small token fee was deemed useless, and potentially damaging. Small surveys done a while back suggest those who abuse the system generally don't care about a token fee, but those are really sick but poor will be deterred even though the fee is small. A token fee punishes the poor, but doesn't solve issue of too many ER visits.

In a system where everyone gets basically good general coverage, the only way to manage how people use the ER is to make them use their primary care provider unless it's an actual emergency-otherwise they get to sit in the waiting area for many hours until (and IF) the providers there get caught up with the real emergencies. This works pretty well in U.S. Air Force health care, especially since it frankly sucks to sit in an ER's waiting area for any reason. If that's not a motivator to wait until the next day to see an acute care provider on a walk in basis (and wait usually less than 2 hours), I don't know what is!

Here in the States, many, many people use ERs for their primary health needs because they can't afford a primary care provider or don't know how to get one assigned through county services. They also wait until they're desperately ill to go, so they usually really need acute care. How this really differs financially from a socialized program baffles me-I pay taxes that support the county hospital that HAS TO treat anyone who shows up, whether or not they can pay anything.

[peeb]

Yep - the US already has socialized emergency care - the logical step is to socialize family practice and preventive care, much cheaper and more effective.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Here in the States, many, many people use ERs for their primary health needs because they can't afford a primary care provider or don't know how to get one assigned through county services. They also wait until they're desperately ill to go, so they usually really need acute care. How this really differs financially from a socialized program baffles me-I pay taxes that support the county hospital that HAS TO treat anyone who shows up, whether or not they can pay anything.

Wow. That (not you) is really, really stupid.

How to effectively combine the worst of two different approaches and create something patently absurd by multiplication, in a nutshell.

[ghporter]

Poor public education, and poor people who can't afford to miss their minimum wage jobs even for a bit, add up to people doing what they can to survive. It would be different if it were easy to educate the target population that they can get reasonable healthcare by registering with the state and county, but there's no budget for advertising, so if there is any outreach at all, it's through public service announcements or free ads in the paper or the like-none of which are terribly effective. At the risk of sounding elitist, if they put info about this on cases of cheap beer and the like, they'd reach much of their target audience pretty well. (Cheap beer is beer, even if it's not "real" beer in the German sense, and if you have a very low income and a lot of troubles, you're not buying the fancy stuff anyway...)

[Kerrigan]

It may be dumping.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

At the risk of sounding elitist, if they put info about this on cases of cheap beer and the like, they'd reach much of their target audience pretty well. (Cheap beer is beer, even if it's not "real" beer in the German sense, and if you have a very low income and a lot of troubles, you're not buying the fancy stuff anyway...)

I love the pre-emptive anti-slag beer comment.

But that idea isn't bad at all - why not milk cartons? I'd think it'd be a LOT more effective than the quasi-daily-morning-soap drama of missing children...

[glideslope]

"Health Care is not a right, but a privilege." William F. Buckley.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by glideslope 

"Health Care is not a right, but a privilege." William F. Buckley.

I heard that on Rush today. Largely, I agree. It's tiring to see people with cell phones, nice cars, LCD TVs, a PS3, and $100 sneakers... but they complain that they can't afford health insurance.