A health care system designed to make a profit from pain and sickness is a health care system designed by psychopaths. You know the propaganda has taken hold when FOX viewers, who would be bankrupted by a medical catastrophe, parrot the FOX mouthpieces and decry the evils of a single-payer health care system.

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Two years ago today, August 22nd, we moved to Beautiful British Columbia. I'm only going to say this one more time as I can imagine everyone is getting awfully tired of hearing it:

Every Single Day I read at least one news item, oftentimes more, from The States that makes me very happy and relieved we don't live in the U.S. anymore.

And ...

Every Single Day I have a moment, some days a couple of moments, when I am grateful we now live in Canada.

I know a guy in Seattle who feels compelled to remind me that Canada isn't perfect. It's his way of countering whatever positive thing I've told him about living up here.

Canada is not perfect. I know. I live here. But guess what? Relatively speaking, after a lifetime of living in the U.S. -- Yes It Is!

The primary difference between the two countries is The United States is Politically Insane. This insanity has been imposed upon the people since the Reagan administration by psychopaths who are now in control of the country.

Now it's at this point where someone might say, "Sounds a bit paranoid there Bob."

And like all paranoids I say, "I'm not paranoid ... I've got proof!"

Where I now live sickness is not viewed as a money-making opportunity. In Seattle it cost us over $13,000 a year for access to health care. Then came the co-pays, deductibles, and all the rest. Now our cost per year is ... nothing.

From May through July I had to undergo a series of medical tests and procedures that would have put a strain on our finances back in Seattle. Our cost up here? Nothing. Eighty percent of our prescription costs are covered and I did have to pay $14 for my glasses so everything isn't "free." Just almost everything.

A health care system designed to make a profit from pain and sickness is a health care system designed by psychopaths. You know the propaganda has taken hold when FOX viewers, who would be bankrupted by a medical catastrophe, parrot the FOX mouthpieces and decry the evils of a single-payer health care system.

If you've got the stomach for it, Google around and see the differences between the U.S. and Canada when it comes to banks, bankers, the banking industry, and how they're regulated in each country. If you live up here, you can laugh. If you live down there, I don't know how you could stop screaming.

But forget about The Big Issues for a moment. What's it like to live up here on a day-to-day basis?

Great.

Public transportation works. A 45-minute drive by car into downtown Vancouver is a smooth 22-minute ride on the Sky Train. If you're waiting for a bus and need to know when the next bus will arrive, by the time you get out your phone to check the bus "app" ... here comes the bus.

I like to go to the library. In Seattle my nearest branch started cutting hours and then days because of budget shortfalls. Up here the library closest to me is open seven days a week.

In order to stave off geezerhood as long as I can we've been swimming at community pools two or three times a week. There are three community recreational centers near us with huge indoor pools, yoga rooms, exercise rooms filled with machines I Will Never Use, and basketball, handball, and racquetball courts. And there are dozens of municipal recreational centers all over the greater Vancouver area. The city has built ritzy health spas that everyone can afford to go to.

That's the real difference I've noticed about living in Canada. This place is designed for people. Not rich people. People.

It doesn't cost your entire future to get a college degree up here. The graduate degree my wife received from Simon Fraser University would have cost twice as much if she had gone to the University of Washington.

Authors Website: http://www.superbeans.com

Authors Bio:
Some 45 years ago I became aware of the fact that the government of The United States was trying to kill me. I wasn't paranoid or anything. I mean I knew the government wasn't out to kill me personally. They just wanted to kill as many Vietnamese people as they could. And if it took killing tens of thousands of Americans to do it ... well, that's policy, not paranoia.



Since then I've been leery of, and tried to keep track of, my government's "policies." The truly horrendous ones, like the Vietnam War, were based on lies.



When I was a five years old, in my neighborhood in the yard of the house at the end of the block, lived a big mean ol' German Shepherd named Rex. Every time I walked by, Rex would be at the end of his rope, furiously barking and snarling, straining to murder. One day I walked by and noticed Rex's rope had broken, and there he was ... right in front of me ... free ... and growling.



The government's rope was seriously frayed when Ronald Reagan occupied the Oval Office, and completely snapped when The Supreme Court installed George W. Bush as president.



In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., " the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government" -- today roams the globe free and unfettered.



Boo.



Trouble sleeping? Me too.