4 ms·

Honest question. Did Canada have the same situation with a mandated pay-raise freeze and the end-run around that by companies in the form of company provided, t

Honest question. Did Canada have the same situation with a mandated pay-raise freeze and the end-run around that by companies in the form of company provided, tax-free, health care benefits? It seems, according to the article, that this is the base situation that entrenched company paid health plans in the first place and prevented Truman from getting traction with a national health plan.

api_or_ipa 9y ago
Like I mentioned, Canada implemented many of the same wartime rations on goods and controls on wages-- with the distinction that Canada was under wartime restrictions for twice as long as the US. All said, over 10% of the population served in the military with very little conscription due to internal conflicts with French-Canadians. The pressure to keep wages was certainly there, although I can't find resources on if and how companies sweetened the deal for employees with other benefits. Before the war, many provinces had attempted to pass healthcare legislation but were halted by financial limitations or from opposition from doctors. Shortly after the war Saskatchewan managed to pass legislation to subsidize doctor visits by entrenching a common practice for communities to pool resources to attract doctors to service rural and remote parts of the province. Perhaps this is the distinction: local and provincial governments across the country were involved right from the beginning in providing healthcare. Canada's relatively homogenous citizenry may have also helped: most Anglophone Canadians saw themselves as a body of British subjects and this likely helped themselves band together to provide a common good. I suspect that segregation in many places in the US acted to form healthcare in a less communal nature around private businesses where discrimination was easy to enforce.

4 ms·

Honest question. Did Canada have the same situation with a mandated pay-raise freeze and the end-run around that by companies in the form of company provided, t

by lsaferite 9y ago

api_or_ipa 9y ago
Like I mentioned, Canada implemented many of the same wartime rations on goods and controls on wages-- with the distinction that Canada was under wartime restrictions for twice as long as the US. All said, over 10% of the population served in the military with very little conscription due to internal conflicts with French-Canadians. The pressure to keep wages was certainly there, although I can't find resources on if and how companies sweetened the deal for employees with other benefits. Before the war, many provinces had attempted to pass healthcare legislation but were halted by financial limitations or from opposition from doctors. Shortly after the war Saskatchewan managed to pass legislation to subsidize doctor visits by entrenching a common practice for communities to pool resources to attract doctors to service rural and remote parts of the province. Perhaps this is the distinction: local and provincial governments across the country were involved right from the beginning in providing healthcare. Canada's relatively homogenous citizenry may have also helped: most Anglophone Canadians saw themselves as a body of British subjects and this likely helped themselves band together to provide a common good. I suspect that segregation in many places in the US acted to form healthcare in a less communal nature around private businesses where discrimination was easy to enforce.