For decades now “progressives” have been regaling us with tales of Europe. It used to be that pointing to “Europe” was the default position whenever Canadian socialist utopians got backed into a corner. “In England you know, they … ,” was the response whenever unions, over-taxation, and above all, healthcare, were debated. Sometimes you’d think Swedes or Dutch were little blond angels sent down from NDP heaven just to show the rest of us in Canuckland how it’s supposed to be done. Ah, the good’ol days.
So it is, that “progressive” Shangri-La now uses ambulances as waiting rooms outside emergency units and in some countries wait-times rival Saskatchewan’s. When it comes to short wait times and socialized medicine, “progressives” in Canada are running out of examples to point to.
And just what should anyone expect when they allow politicians to put bureaucrats in charge of their lives?
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“cjunk says… Shangri-La now uses ambulances as waiting
rooms outside emergency units”
old news, my friend.
years ago, the metro toronto ambulance service was using
a cube van at hospitals that could hold half a dozen
stretchers… to enable paramedics to dump patients and
get back on the road.
they called it “motel 6”.
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Sweden solved their problem! They now euthanize those over 40.
Simple servants in “charge” of anything is asking for grief. Usually they work for the government because that’s the only place that will accept them. Once there they create a dependcy to protect their jobs. Take the welfare, when was the last time you heard that they were laying off case workers because they had done their job and no one left to look after. Not ever, new “customers/clients are actively sought, the more below me in the pecking order helps secure my job.
I guess the rest of the world can look at us one day, point and say, look at those idiots, they are still doing everything the way we used to.
We are allowed to spend as much money as we wish on the health care of our pets.
Is there any thing strange about that.
This is how the inimitable Fjordman explains the decline in the once glorified Swedish model:
Perhaps one element in this is ironically the absence of war. Wars are brutal and painful, but they can also be a reality check. Western Europe has been living under American military protection for so long that we have forgotten how it is to protect ourselves, and have even indulged in fantasies that wars can be banned by international law. Is it just a coincidence that the one country that has avoided war for the longest period of time, Sweden, is also arguably the one Western nation where Political Correctness has reached the worst heights? The prolonged period of peace has created an environment where layers of ideological nonsense have been allowed to pile up for generations without stop.
I don’t know how Sweden will look like a generation from now, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be viewed as a model society. And if the absence of war is one of the causes of its current weakness, I fear that is a problem that will soon be cured.
Note too how not many progressives get misty-eyed or effusive about the Cuban model these days.
You can see here
http://tinyurl.com/33ymzc
where, Quebec, the greatest socialist Province in Canada is going to dump the Cuban/North Korean models
It is ironic that this would be happening in Quebec. Why?
I would hazard a guess that it has to do with the fact that Quebec actually has an identity now, whereas Ontario does not.
Ontario used to think of itself as the honest broker that held Canada together. That myth has died.
Now all Ontario has left for identity is that it is not like the US. Of course Toronto is almost identical to Chicago or Boston but won’t admit it.
Therefore Quebec does not wrap its identity up in silly things like Health Care. But Ontario does because its CBC mentality says it must not have US-style Health Care.
Therefore the solution for Ontario should be to say it has Swedish-style health Care. I don’t care if we end up calling it Quebec-style Health Care as long as we can put an end to the government run monopolies and their unions running my life and depriving me of choice.
I am from Canada and now live in Germany. I pay for my healthcare about 7% from my gross salary, my employer about another 6%. For that I get a long list of services, specialists including psychiatrists should I need them are only one referral away from the family doctor at no extra charge, I can get emergency treatment in any country in the EU no questions asked… und, und, und, as the Germans say. The Brits and Swedes have to clean up their act, but as far as I’ve seen in 10 years in Germany, our family has been very well taken care of.
Well, if we won’t take charge of our own lives we can hardly whine about those we give the job to…
I you’re sick of being treated like an abused dog, don’t re-hire the abusers…
everything that can be said has been said about the stupidity that is socislism. you can include most isms in this.
You should check out the comments in the CBC News “Your Voice” section about the Castro “retirement”. Fawning praise about the glorious utopia that is Cuba.
Gag.
The best that can be said is…as far as oppressive, communist dictatorships go, Castro’s Cuba was one of the nicer ones.
Listening to Radio 2 this afternoon while installing my new washer/dryer and caught a choice comment on how Castro’s Cuba had made great gains in Fidel(ity)’s time and was an idyllic place that only needed some minor tuning up on the Democracy scale;but really quite passable as is.
This by some head-up-their-ass-t’ill-they’re-looking-at-the-dark-side-of-their-brain progresive thinking moonbat.
These nutty non-thinkers are in permenant disconnect mode where everything is some sort of ‘work in progress’.
Its like living in Mr Rodger’s neighbourhood where you never see them digging up the sewer ’cause well…nobody there sh*ts.
Tasha Kheiriddin, the director of the Fraser Institute in Quebec, said today on CFCF-12 Montreal that waiting times ( between when you see a doctor to when you get treatment) have tripled in Quebec,
they used to be on average
7.3 weeks
and are now at
19.4 weeks
…
You could be dead by then or your condition much worse in an irreversible way
but Hey!
it’s “free”!