From everybody’s favourite novelty newspaper (my emphasis):
As resistance to U.S. health reform rages on – with its inane, vicious, even racist overtones – the fiasco should remind Canadians of the dangers of allowing our public health-care system to deteriorate.
What makes health reform so elusive in the U.S. is the way its opponents – led by wealthy corporate interests – are able to play Americans off against each other.
It gets better:
The only real solution is public health care for all. A Canadian-style plan could save Americans $400 billion a year, Harvard’s Dr. David Himmelstein wrote recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But Americans are so uninformed about the rest of the world that few even seem aware any Canadian can spend weeks in hospital getting state-of-the-art medical treatment and then walk out the front door without owing a penny. Such is the menace of public health care.
Universal care is extremely popular once it’s in place …
But Americans are so uninformed about the rest of the world that few even seem aware any Canadian can spend weeks waiting to get into hospital and then die before they get access to treatment
“…the snarling fury of America’s current crop of right-wing extremists almost makes one nostalgic for last year’s gentler, childlike lunacy of Sarah Palin.”
The ever tolerant left in action.
Universal care is extremely popular once it’s in place …
Yeah.
It’s popular with extreme Leftists who are too young and healthy to need it.
With the average Canadian who has had to need it, not so popular.
Oh it’s Linda “The Marxist Harpee w/ detachable Fright Wig” McQuaig. No need to read any further.
A columnist in The Star’s competitor in the bum-wipe sweepstakes, NOW Magazine, described the U.S. as having “rampant individualism.”
I suppose that’s the bane of a socialist’s existence. And Obama’s.
I like the ‘not owing a penny’ statement by the empty head of Ms Linda McQuaig. Has this emptyhead never heard of taxes? Who does she think pays for this so-called ‘care’? Santa Claus?
And as usual, with the left, they assert that those who are opposed to government-run programs are not the average taxpayer, but, always, Corporations and Big Business…those amorphous, unseen, ambiguous Evil Spirits lurking ‘out there’.
And no, Ms McQuaig, there isn’t any racism to the arguments against socialist health care in the US. Certainly, Obama and his people always resort to accusations of bias (political partisanship, racism, etc) when people don’t immediately accept their policies. That’s a basic tactic of the left.
Obama and his team have already clearly implied racism as a reason for the rejection of the plan, and as well, he’s told Americans that they oppose His Plan because they are unable to ‘accept change’. Or, they are just people ‘who can’t handle government doing things’. That is..the problem isn’t in Obama’s policies. Heck no. The problem is in YOU, the person who objects to Obama’s policies.
So, if socialist health care is so great, then why did the Quebec supreme court rule that private care must be allowed? Why are there private clinics in Ontario? Why do people go to the US for treatment? Why is the best and most advanced care only available in the US and not in Canada?
Would Dr. Himmelstein be a doctor of finance, or a run-of-the-mill GP? After all $400 billion a year isn’t chump change, even in Obamaland. I’d be interested in seeing the math.
If the US MSM had an credibility—-that Phoenix—assault rifle protestor—-would be shown in full–a black guy.
“Beat me in St Louis Louis” was a 90 lb–5’2″ black guy—–the 300 lb SEIU OBOZO supporter that beat the crap out of him was white…
The main reason OBOZO’s obabots don’t carry firearms is that they can’t pass the creening test……
> I like the ‘not owing a penny’ statement
> by the empty head of Ms Linda McQuaig.
> Has this emptyhead never heard of taxes?
It’s what children do: close their eyes with hands and say ‘you can’t see me’
I was shooting from the hip there…
It should read……..
The main reason OBOZO’s obabots don’t carry firearms is that they can’t pass the background/screening test……
….sorry about that….
I read the article and the comments, and frankly it’s all a bit surreal. First of all, if we eliminate illegal aliens, the number of uninsured shrinks dramatically. And of course most of the remaining uninsured are young people who do not avail themselves of health care even when they can afford it.
Also it’s worth mentioning that the health care plan that Obama is stumping for simply does not exist. The provisions he calls for cannot be found in either the House or Senate bills, currently the only ones under discussion.
Yes, currently the Black Avenger is out stumping for a non-existent bill. Maybe it exists in the Phantom Zone, but nowhere else.
Inasmuch as I read SDA and other Canadian web sites, I tend to forget just how leftist many Canadian journalists are. There is always the charge that Canada knows about the US, but the US does not know Canada. There is some truth to this, but I find that Canadian journalists have a kind if “half-half” knowledge — kind of journalism by non-sequiturs.
And of course I will not conceal the fact that I’m a gun-totin’, truck-drivin- polygamist who has married his sister, and the hound dog sittin’ next to me in the truck is toothless — which seems to be the current caricature as imagined in the Canadian press.
The really hilarious thing about opposition to government health care being “racist” is that there isn’t anything to be “racist” about.
Obama doesn’t HAVE a health care plan. His only plan is the long-range one to sneak the US into a single-payer plan over time (which he has said himself), and doesn’t care about the details.
The only “plan” we’ve even seen is the atrocity from the House of Representatives, HR3200. This thing has probably been sitting in Henry Waxman’s bottom drawer for 20 or more years (note the use of the now politically incorrect term, “mentally retarded”). Since Obama probably has absolutely nothing to do with HR3200– and obviously hasn’t even READ the thing– how can it be “racist” to oppose it? Last time I looked, Waxman and the House Democratic leadership were all white.
Shove the racist crap where the sun don’t shine, Greg.
Good question, mamapajamas. And if we’re very lucky maybe Greg can give us an answer wherein he refers to Obama as the Black Avenger again.
You’re right bleet Greg said ‘black’. How offensive. Someone call the cops.
Dear leftists: The mere mention of race isn’t racism. The more you say it is the more everyone ignores you.
I’ve had babies on both sides of the border and received various types of care on both sides. Which side was I on when my kid’s pediatrician phoned to squeeze us in same day for a hearing test, or a pediatric cardiologist waited in his office overtime to meet with my 3-day-old baby? Where was I when I often could get a same day appointment with a doctor to see an ill kiddo?
I’ve returned to Canada now and I can only hope to find a family doctor that will take us all.
Canadians have all seen enough inept blundering by the medical system here to read this article as pure hogwash.
In Greg in Dallas’ defence, Obama has been quoted saying that he supports “reparations” to Black Americans for being the descendants of slaves.
That’s revenge for the ancestors of black people.
That makes Obama a Black Avenger in my book.
Hamblin, who styled himself “the Black Avenger”, was a photographer for the Detroit Free Press before starting his radio career in the 1970s.
In his book, he states that he was sympathetic to the radical left, including groups such as the Black Panthers, and gave them favorable coverage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hamblin
I’v got one question for the lefties who believe that racism is a part of the rejection of health care reform – Why were you not saying it was racism when Hillary tried to bring in basically the same thing in the early 1990’s?
Same old cause – same old reaction. Why is it racism this time?
I think we know who the racists really are.
I’m not informed enough to know if public health care is good for the US, but I do know one thing that the model in Canada is not good to copy. Health care in Canada costs more and more is not improving but declining in quality. We need to look at our own system and improve it before crowing about the plenty we are supposed to have. (real conservative)
Here’s what I find funny. In the US, a public option is seen as a threat to private industry. In Canada, a private option is seen as a threat to public health care. They can’t both be right.
Here’s an idea… just ask those who’ve lived under both Canadian and American systems. Twice I’ve met people who’ve used US health care (one in Oregon, the other Alabama). They both said they preferred US health care.
But why do we have to compare ourselves to the American system anyway? I’d be happy if we had a push for French-style health care.
I believe it is Canadians who have no idea how much they are getting ripped off by the system. How many elderly people are swept aside? How many people are kept waiting for essential services? We could go on and on with stories of people kept waiting, ect. The fact that this report is even printed just shows how desperate some people are in supporting a system that doesn’t work.
Well, now I’m convinced! I didn’t know a “fringe” can comprise the majority of Americans oppose Obamacare. I suppose the real evidence are all of those Americans who drive across the border to Canada to avail themselves of that fabulous, popular Canadian health care system. And yes, since we all must have “equal” health care, all Americans must, like Canadians, be made to wait a year for a hip transplant even if you can pay for it. Oh, but let’s not bother about those 6000 people in British Colombia who won’t be getting their surgeries next year due to budget cuts. Just limp for another year…you can do it!
I agree, Norman. Before we toot our horn too loudly about medicare we must turn the system on its head and make it a “bottoms up” service driven system that pays hospitals for actual patient care. The more patients treated – the more money comes down the pipe.
Eighteen months and longer wait times for hip replacements is not the kind of system you want the world to emulate.
The way things are now the hospital boards look at their budgets and the first things decided is who is going to get paid what. Then, what is going to cost to operate the hospital facility – followed by – “how much is left for patient care?”
The Americans can judge the Canadian system first hand, by watching them walk into U.S. private clinics to have the medical treatment performed asap rather than 18-36 months down the road at home.
Where are all those doctors and nurses in Canada going to emigrate to? One estimate heard on radio is that since 9/11 Canada has lost 3000 medical practitioners. I must bee a poor listener as that figure must be far too conservative.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/healthcare/familydoctors.html
“Canada loses 200 to 250 physicians to the U.S. each year, mainly specialists. Within 10 years, 10 per cent of a group of doctors completing post-graduate training will have emigrated. ”
re: Real Conservative ‘Health care in Canada costs more and more is not improving but declining in quality. ‘
The plural of anecdotes is not data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_systems#Cross-country_comparisons
“Its 2007 study found that, although the U.S. system is the most expensive, it consistently underperforms compared to the other countries. Two differences between the U.S. and the other countries in the study is that the U.S. is the only country without universal health insurance coverage, and the highest cost of malpractice insurance of any nation in the study.”
It looks like something is wrong with this private run health care system. Can anyone tell me what it is?
It looks like something is wrong with this private run health care system. Can anyone tell me what it is?
~herb
It’s in need of tort reform, reducing the award payout claims, also reducing the incentive to sue, so the malpractice insurance doesn’t cost as much.
The savings might be passed on to the system as a whole.
Additionally, there seems to be a problem with permitting insurance carriers to offer insurance across state lines, which would allow the carriers to be larger and permit more competition in the industry as the area of coverage would grow to become a larger pool/market.
As said by French political-economist and free-market disciple Frederic Bastiat in The Law “If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good. Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
It is fairly obvious that McQuaig hasn’t been on a wait list nor had any close friends or family die while on said lists.
btw, how does being “a gun-totin’, truck-drivin- polygamist who has married his sister” make Greg a racist?
Who let bleep out?
Well of course Obama is black. He is also a direct inheritor of radical leftist ideology, who would like to punish and change America’s economic and political system.
There were a lot of communists in the United States until Kruschev finally admitted the Stalinist purges to the world.
This deflated the old left, and upon its ashes grew the New Left. Throughout the 1960s they operated in various communist front groups, fellow travellers, and useful idiots.
Marx explained that eventually capitalism would run its course, and we would move into a cashless workers’ paradise.
However, he said that if people weren’t willing to wait for this blessing it could be pushed through by violent revolution.
So, you’ve got your Weathermen Underground, your Black Panther Party, your Bernadette Dorhn and Bill Ayers, your Stokely Carmichael, the East Bay Dragons, Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, Ramparts Magazine, the Black Muslims… on and on through hundreds of groups, including the Symbionese Liberation Army that kidnapped Patricia Hearst.
Obama is a direct inheritor of the ideological positions formulated in the social unrest of the 1960s.
He is trying to cause a government takeover and control of health care, the auto industry, he wants to put unions in charge of American business with ‘cap and trade’; the other day I saw on Drudge that he is considering bailing out the newspaper industry in the US. He doesn’t want to own these entities like socialists. He wants to control them like fascists.
That sounds like an Avenger me, eh?
(bleet, I can’t help you, because I am a heterosexual.)
*
i have a friend whose father had a stroke. after being released from hospital,
he tried to set up a follow-up appointment with a neurologist and was given
a date… 11 months down the road.
where was this, you ask… the wilds of north butthole, manitoba?
try ottawa, ontario… the nation’s capitol.
p.s. — ask belinda stronach where she went for her breast cancer treatment.
i’ll give you a hint… it wasn’t toronto.
*
McQuaig is either grossly misinformed, ignorant and/or her lib thong is cutting off the blood flow to her brain.
I am a Canadian, who has been living in the US for years now, and I can state with all honesty the level of service and care I have received in the US is equal-to or superior to Canada’s.
Reasons it is better than Canada’s
-insurance is cheap.
-choose any doctor or specialist I want (choices are unlimited).
-decide my type of coverage and deductable (similar to car insurance).
-wait times for tests or treatment are non-existent.
-flexible spending accounts for extra coverage if necessary (a solid tax break).
-not have my paycheck gouged by the government.
The US healthcare system is fine. It needs a few tweaks like: tort-reform, better ‘pre-existing condition rules’ and a clean up of Medicaid. Why president Obama would start this single-payer nonsense, especially in the middle of a recession. Defies all logic
Universal care is extremely popular once it’s in place …
and you have no alternative but to wait for months to get into hospital and hope the lazy SEIU slobs bothered to clean the surgical instruments before they cut into you.
Think Post Office.
herb,
Wikipedia is not a paragon of truth. I suggest reading the OECD Report and start with the list of all the factors considered, you see the ranking based on Life Expectancy is not an apples to apples number because demographic makeup and additional factors affect the rates.
http://www.oecd.org/document/9/0,3343,en_2649_34631_2085193_1_1_1_1,00.html
Read it then come back with a conclusion based on the entire range of factors that are looked at instead of “selective comparisons” like the Wikipedia authors do.
With apologies to the Simpsons:
“Oh, I remember, it’s Linda McQuaig,
With a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg!”
“Why president Obama would start this single-payer nonsense, especially in the middle of a recession. Defies all logic”
This fits perfectly with Obama’s Alinsky type behavior and Rahm Emmanual’s declaration that you don’t want to waste a crisis. It is a Marxist method of taking control of the economy and getting the goods on individuals by accessing their medical records.
Government czars would want to know the medical history of their political opponents, supporters, family, etc.
Would Kieth Oberman get better health care than say, Glenn Beck?
But Americans are so uninformed about the rest of the world that few even seem aware any Canadian can spend weeks in hospital getting state-of-the-art medical treatment and then walk out the front door without owing a penny.
UM….No even the most isolated hicks know that Canada has had universal care for years. THATS WHY WE USE YOUR SYSTEM TO ARGUE AGAINST IT! Try again jerk.
Universal care is extremely popular once it’s in place …
With the people who support it before it is in place maybe. Pardon us for having the obscene opinion that the government should not have, now or ever, jurisdiction over our bodies. But then again we always have been a ‘freedom first’ kind of culture. Hard for the socialist ‘security first’ attitude to understand I am sure. And we also aren’t a ‘everybody else is doing it’ kind of ‘go along’ culture when it comes to governance either. Otherwise we would have founded a Monarchy in the 1700s, when the rest of the developed world saw the populous as “subjects”. People are not cattle, and need not be confined and herded as such, nor do they need their fate determined by shepherds. Keep your “free” health care I’ll keep my freedom.
Universal care is extremely popular once it’s in place …
Yes, well so is the only reststop on a 5,000 mile stretch of road. That doesn’t mean it’s desireable, enjoyable, or particularly clean however.
“While the U.S. media gave prime time to gun-toting health reform opponents”
– and the dead tree dinos want us to Pay to access the sludge clapped out Trudeaupian groupies like McQuaig spew on the internet editions?
Pound sand to that dino scribes!
“Universal care is popular once it is in Place”
And impossible to get rid of.
Of course it’s popular…with the head of the nurse’s unions, CUPE and the like. The people who are so concerned about the health of their fellow citizens that the only way to insure it is to demand huge raises every year or they threaten to shut the system down.
I’ll counter the moron at the Star with this, the average leftist in this beknighted Dominion is so myopic, they think that there is only one other health care system in the world and that is the US. What about France, Sweden, Japan etc… that all have medical systems deemed superior to ours but allow private components? “BUT NO” scream the big union bosses and their fellow leaches, any deviation from our beloved Soviet System will mean a US system.
Talk about profiting from the misery of others!
BTW she had to wait many many months for the procedure, and after it was botched she wasn’t allowed to sue…
The only real solution is public food care for all. A Eurasia-style plan could save Oceanians $400 trillion a year, Harvard’s Dr. David Himmelstein wrote recently in the New Speak Journal of Medicine.
But Oceanians are so uninformed about the rest of the world that few even seem aware any Eurasia can spend weeks in restaurants getting state-of-the-art gourmet food and then walk out the front door without owing a penny. Such is the menace of public food care.
Universal food care is extremely popular once it’s in place …
While living in the US, it was common to see TV ads run by lawyers who specialized in malpractice lawsuits. They usually targeted parents whose child was born with a disability they deemed caused by the hospital staff.
It is this system if sticking it to the doctors that causes a lot of the problems. Many OBS/GYN doctors in Ohio left the practice when their insurance rates were higher than the rent on their office. Their specialty is always hit hardest by lawyers looking to line their pockets…no one from the left complains about their form of capitalism for some deranged reason. It’s always those bad gouging doctors who are to blame according to lefties.
Let us see now…..
Linda McQuaig :
“I’m inclined to believe the fierce resistance to health-care reform in the United States is the work of a small fringe. “
Rasmussen Reports:
“Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide now oppose the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats.”
What is wrong with people today? A lie is portrayed as the truth and truth is dismissed as a kind of garbage.
Simply by inclination she comes to an altogether wrong conclusion in spite of available evidence.
Perhaps if someone wants to project certain set of data and data does not agree with the someone, then better ignore the data and simply write an opinion based on wishful thinking that is suitable to the cause.
Majority is presented as a small fringe, then, the minority is actually robust black hole of nothingness that can put on the appearance of whatever.
To tell you the truth, the communists were better at this, you knew they were lying, they knew they were lying and in a strange set of circumstances everybody understood everybody. The difference is that this is happening in so far free, soon to be subject to a party diktat, society.
This shocks the hell out of people that went through this kind of stuff.
It can’t be a lot of fun opposing socialized health insurance in America. One is instantly categorized as a racist and a divisive tool of corporate interests.
I was born before the National takeover of Doctors and hospitals. In Cypress Hills, Sask. we had excellent Doctors who made house calls and were personal friends as well as Doctors…our Doctor gave out free advice when he met his patients in the street, post office, etc – no appointment was required.
One day our family Doctor was fishing near our place and he ‘heard’ that my Dad had sliced his head open when the farm hand slipped and fell on his head. The Doctor stopped at our place, stitched up Dad’s head and stayed for supper. We were not rich, the Doctor knew that; he did not send a bill….
When hospitals were still free, many of us girls volunteered our time as ‘Candy Stripers’. We put on red and white striped dresses and checked into the hospital after school to help the nurses; we read to patients, served meals, brought home made treats, cigarettes,bed jackets, slippers, and good will from our own places and from other women who made things for sick people in their spare time. My Dad always bought Copenhagen pipe tobacco for his uncle who was ‘laid up’ two months with a broken leg. It smelled spicy and like home in his hospital room.
People stayed in very clean rooms, the nurses wore starched, bleached white uniforms, the sheets were starched and bleached and ironed and changed every day. The food was so good that I ate the free supper I got for volunteering, with relish (we ate very well at home – we had good grass fed beef – our own – and an acre vegetable garden; Mom made our bread and all of our baked goods).
How old is Linda Mcquaig? She is my age and she comes from the same neck of the woods – she was not a Candy Striper I guess…and she didn’t go to the hospital or she, like myself, would see the difference between before and after medicare.
Don’t do it America – learn from Canada and GB.
I would bet that when Linda McQuack goes to the hospital, she asserts the fact that she is a super-fabulous journalist so the staff give her priority attention as not to attract critique from the bowels of the Red Star.
That is how the liberal elite behave.
Well said Chris in the Bridge. I am assuming that the bridge is Lethbridge,Alberta. If so you may remember the “Third Way” of health care delivery that was to be proposed by Klein about 5 years ago. When the ‘Friends of Medicare’ (nurses union) heard that a change may be coming down the road,they went out and spent a wheelbarrow full of money on signs and advertising proclaiming that the third way was the US way,and that would kill our health care forever. They were wrong,and since that time they have lost some of their media shine. They,the friends of medicare,would rather you spent a couple of years in pain and misery,then spend your own money to buy relief. They care about only one thing,and that is their own comfortable status quo.
After my last stay at the Ottawa hospital, (19 days for orthopedic surgery), I arrived home just ahead of a substantial bill. This despite having paid for years into tier 2 (semi-private) coverage. It seems the insurance company paid only a portion of the Ottawa rate. For McQuaig to claim that one can spend months in a Canadian hospital without owing a penny, is simply untrue, from my experience. She is as ignorant of Canadian health care as she is of the US system, vastly different from state to state.
Another myth I can dispel is that Canadian health care workers are indifferent to your type of insurance coverage. One of the first persons I saw in the emergency room was an accountant with a clipboard asking about my coverage. This was determined before I ever saw a room. There are areas of care which are not “free”, ambulance travel, certain drugs, etc. There are positive things to say about Canadian health care without distorting the situation.