It’s fascinating to see how media on either side of the Atlantic claim him as their own in their headlines. Does his own identity shift when he travels?

Thanks for the suggestion! That doesn’t seem to be the issue here, but I’ll keep trying.

Thanks. I find a lot of the content I want to listen to is not available for replay, but I will take another look.

Dislocated shoulder. Ouch, on so many levels.

There have been some great glimmers today, and this is so unfortunate.

I mean… it doesn’t look like he’s okay, but I can’t handle more bad news right now.

I think this is great!

I can’t credit Monopoly with inspiring my doctoral work in language and housing policy… but the Star Wars extended universe novels I read as a kid gave me so much insight into how the world works! Each fictional conflict the Jedi peacekeepers were sent to help with was inspired by a real example.

I’m not knocking the merits of our system, but so many basic healthcare needs are not met by it that it’s frankly insulting to any chronic patient to call it “universal.” I don’t feel the need to debate this further.

You’re making my point for me with that definition. Our system simply does not ensure that people face no financial hardship when seeking treatment, so our system is not universal. Ask anyone with a chronic condition (which is incidentally nearly 45% of the population, according to StatsCan).

That’s great, and certainly something we need to protect, as you say. But one can’t equate a lack of money changing hands with care being universal. Most healthcare does not involve hospitalization, and many, many elements thereof are simply not covered.

We’re on the same page about that. Thanks for engaging positively!

Completely agree!

Apparently, there are several quite active groups on Facebook. But, in my experience, the Welsh learner/speaker community is mostly offline, although I’m in a couple of WhatsApp groups that coordinate those events.

We can be grateful for what we’ve got, and still seek to improve an imperfect system. Ask anyone with a chronic illness, and you’ll find that it’s incredibly financially precarious. It’s also a myth that you can just walk up to a hospital and get treatment—that only works for acute conditions.

As a patient with a background in policy, I actually know what I’m talking about. I’m not saying the American system is better (it’s awful), but I think we need to stop congratulating ourselves for having universal healthcare when we factually do not.

It’s frustrating to be constantly told to be grateful it isn’t worse (I don’t mean by you in particular, just generally), when it’s actually really bad. Other people suffering even more doesn’t mean we should accept the current conditions here. It’s public healthcare, not universal healthcare.

That’s fair. I appreciate that attention least our system is meant to take care of everyone. But I’m tired of it being held up as a great example. The financial burden of chronic illness in Canada is not discussed enough—we can be grateful we’re not in the USA, and still advocate for better here!

I am 100% an advocate of universal healthcare, but I wouldn’t give Canada as an example of it. We have a lot of work to do!