going WAY off topic now, but...

i'm a canadian who has also lived in both the u.s. and canada and agree that both health care systems have their inherent flaws, but (and i'm speaking from first hand experience now) God help you if you need timely access to a specialist in canada.

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____________________________________________________________
"I'm happy when life's good,
and when it's bad I cry.
I've got values but I don't know how or why."
- The Who

The Lake Zurich tri in the Chicago area does a time trial swim start. 3 people every 5 seconds. A far better way to go than the "washing machine" approach. You men have fist-a-cuffs; we women have fingernails. Hundreds and hundreds of sharp fingernails.

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Most people don't recognize opportunity because it wears bib overalls and looks like work.
~Teddy Roosevelt

"

going WAY off topic now, but... God help you if you need timely access to a specialist in canada.


That is true as there tends to be a long line up if you're referred to a specialist from your GP. There is no doubt that if you are fortunate enough to have one of the "executive class" health plans in the US, you're getting excellent health coverage. Most people don't have this and seeing a specialist on an HMO can also be slow. And if you're self-employed in the US, then health care coverage can be a whole different thing altogether. Private health care is more expensive both to the consumer and in it's system of delivery than is that provided by government. I'm quite happy to pay a bit more tax in order to have it.

Like you say, this is getting way off topic.

Ah yes. Trust the government to centrally manage vast suns of money and delegate health care. They are great at that. Why don't we just give them all our money and then they can take care of us from cradle to grave because they can do it better than the private sector. After all this has been hugely successful in other parts of the world like USSR, China, and Cuba.

 

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"It is a good feeling for old men who have begun to fear failure, any sort of failure, to set a schedule for exercise and stick to it. If an aging man can run a distance of three miles, for instance, he knows that whatever his other failures may be, he is not completely wasted away." Romain Gary, SI interview

That does it!!! I am going to call Hillary up in New York...I am sure she can come up with a plan to save us all!!!!!!!

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

After the long rant on illegal immigrants and now this, perhaps we need a tri-all-politics message board? Macca for Emperor!

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Most people don't recognize opportunity because it wears bib overalls and looks like work.
~Teddy Roosevelt

There's no dimishing the gravity of losing someone in a race and the serious nature of this tragedy. It is worth remembering that our sport does have risks and each time we line up at the start line, go out the door to train or, for that matter, get out of bed we are making a choice to expose ourselves to those risks.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

"Trust the government to centrally manage vast suns of money"

Government does it with military spending, so why not health care? Stop thinking that national health insurance is some form of "godless communism". Every other democratic country in the world has adopted this system.

BTW, in Canada it's actually a provincial management, not federal. Each of our ten provinces administer their own system.

The reality is that the US has about 30 million residents without health care, about equivalent to the entire population of Canada. The US is the only western democracy without a national health care program. There are certainly challenges in delivering a government sponsored program but if the rest of the free democratic world wanted a US style private health delivery system and thought it was a better solution, they certainly would have voted in it by now.

Every other democratic country in the world has government health care, not just communist nations of China, Russia and Cuba as you are implying. Do a bit of research and you'll find virually every health/economic study has demonstrated that the US private system is more expensive and more difficult to administer than government health plans. When you have a multi-tiered system with many private insurance providers it becomes more difficult and expensive to administer. That's why CNN reported this week that prescription drug costs in Canada are 60% of the cost in the US.

I'll comment on Cuba since I've been there three times as a tourist on scuba diving trips. Canadians don't have travel restrictions placed upon us by our government, so that's why we're going back there to scuba dive again this winter. It's a very poor nation and the US embargo hasn't helped. But each citizen does get free health care and education. Although poor, the citizens IMO seemed to be much better off in this respect than in any of the other third world countries that I've visited. Yes, it's a dictatorship, but so are many other governments in Latin America. It's just that this one wasn't propped up by the CIA and as demonstrated in the last election, votes in southern Florida count.

This has nothing to do with tri, so that's my last $.02. Time to go back to posting about bikes.

Whatever. Next time you get injured in Canada see how long it takes to get the MRI scan you need. One need look no farther than the medicare and medicaid programs to see how our government is able to handle healthcare. And IF they plan on nationalizing healthcare they better do something about the trial lawyers who are already bleeding the system dry.

I was there on Saturday in the race. He was doing the Try-a-Tri distance, not the Sprint distance. Apparently, he was a very good biker and runner in good shape, but this was his first race and he was aprehensive of the swim. I can't say what happened to him, but it happened on the last leg of the race, coming back from the second marker. He was in the second wave and I was in the third wave, which left about a minute and a half later. By the time I got to where he went down, there were many lifeguard boats and kayaks looking for him and they were asking all the swimmers (myself included) if we had seen a body underneath us, as someone had gone down. That was probably the worst feeling I have ever experienced in my life. It was very weedy, all the way up to the surface, so most probably he paniced and got stuck. I don't believe he was wearing a wet suit and the water was so bad that you couldn't see very far in front of your face. As a strong swimmer and ex lifeguard, I know what to do if something were to happen to me and I started to pannic in the water, as it is so easy to happen to anyone, but as a 1st time Try-athlete, they should be made better aware of what to do in case of a problem. I only found out about taking of my cap in case of trouble from a more experienced friend at my first race. I truly think that it is something that everyone should be reminded of at each race.

It is extremely tragic, but hopefully we will learn from this so that it does not happen again.

... gees... health care debate.

perhaps it is best described as - Canada has lines of sick people trying to get medical help...while the US has no lines because everyone is too sick and poor to stand in lines.

Ah, the quandry...

Long live Macca - Omnipotent supressor of mediocrity and founder of subsistant farming defined in metaphysical terms - of course.

FWIW Joe Moya

"Whatever."

Now there's an intelligent response.

Cerveloguy makes some excellent points. The Canadian system is not perfect, but in many ways it beats what we have in the U.S.

And by the way, it does nothing to further one's argument when you try to paint others as communists or socialists. This isn't AM radio.

This isn't the place for a health care debate but as a physician in upstate NY I can tell you that we get a lot of Canadians crossing the border to get MRI's, cardian bypass surgery, and other technical procedures because the wait in Canada is long, ie rationing. Sure you can walk into your docs office with a cold and be taken care of right away but if you need high tech care which is expensive you are facing a long wait. If you need a bypass you may not survive the 6 month wait you will have in Canada.Thats why a lot of Canadians cross the border for advanced medical care. I'm not saying we don't have problems with our health care system here but a centralized government system will inevitably result in rationing to lower costs. You can bet on it. As an example there are more MRI scanners in Buffalo NY than the entire country of Canada. Good luck if you need a scan.

I agree, not the place for this debate, but don't forget, the government pays for whatever treatment those Canucks you are treating get. Usually they are sent there as there aren't enough specialists left here to treat everyone. I guess they felt money is more important, so they left to practice in the US.

I was also at this race last Saturday and was in the 3rd of three swim waves in the Try-a-Tri. Wayde Williams (the athlete in question) was in the second wave. There were just over 400 athletes in total, so the math would say that there were just over 100 people in each wave, which were assigned by age group. I was in the water about half-way through the swim when I heard one of the lifeguards yell "swimmer down" and the motor boat took off to that location. I was swimming with a friend who was doing her first Tri and who was a bit nervous about the swim, so we were towards the back of our wave. By the time we got to the spot where the swimmer had gone down, they were in full search mode with a lifeguard leading about 10-12 participants in open-water search techniques. I am not a lifeguard, but I am a fairly strong swimmer and felt horribly guilty about continuing on with my race knowing that there was someone under the water in distress. I didn't know what to do, so I just kept swimming next to my friend. I also had two friends in the waves ahead of ours, so I was hoping to god it wasn't either of them who went down.

As 'johnsons' said, it's really easy to panic in open water with lots of people around, even if you are an experienced swimmer. Some coaching on what to do if you panic sounds like a really great idea (I don't know that I'd know what to do). Also, being at the back of the pack in this race (I'm usually a mid-pack swimmer) allowed me to see how truly nervous those competitors are. In some ways, I was nervous being around them because if one of them panicked and grabbed me, we'd both go under. For the most part, everyone back there was very supportive of each other and tried to keep their distance and encourage each other on, which was a whole new experience for me.

I commend the lifeguards for their efforts - but I especially commend the participants who gave up their race to search for the missing swimmer.

Question: Does anyone know the reason behind taking off your swim cap if you are in distress? Is this just to let the lifeguard know, or is there some other reason? I can't help but think that if I were in distress that I wouldn't have the wherewithall to remember to take off my cap!

You take off your swim cap and wave it around to let the lifeguard know you are in trouble. As you say though, it requires you to be thinking clearly enough and be capable of doing this.

i'm not sure, but are you saying that the canadian government pays for the treatment patients are given if they go to the u.s. for treatment? if so, this is inaccurate. if you go to the u.s. for treatment (by choice) and you don't have some sort of u.s. health insurance, you are paying out of pocket. not sure what the deal is if you actually are sent to the u.s. (to the mayo clinic for example) by a canadian physician or hospital. you may still have to pay for it yourself. this is where much of the debate (as i see it) really comes in. the service is there and readily accessible in the u.s. IF you have the insurance/ cash to pay for it, while here in canada, the services are covered, but you have to wait a hell of a long time (time which you may or may not have) to get access to them.

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____________________________________________________________
"I'm happy when life's good,
and when it's bad I cry.
I've got values but I don't know how or why."
- The Who