Tommy Douglas: Our Health Is A Political Football

The Canadian health care system would collapse without the US system for a back-up.

Doctors practicing in Newfoundland are not good enough for me. The medical education given at Memorial University is not good enough for me.
ect...

I guess a large bank account "ALLOWS" one to be a hypocrite

"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."

But now that I'm a politician, I'm in favour of denying you that right. Just because I can. I'm also in favour of forcing you by law to pay for the care of others, including those that don't deserve care, and I'm in favour of denying you by law the right to spend your own resources on your own health without leaving the country. Just because I can.

A couple of generations later and no one knows the difference. If you asked anyone they'd swear that their health care was free. This way people don't know what a rip-off their getting for the dollars that magically disappear from their income...without their knowledge....supposedly.

There's only one word that comes to mind right now and that's ASSHOLE.

Why didn't the reporters ask if he would push to have the procedure he had added to the list of publicly funded procedures?

Its not that the doctors in Canada don't know about more advanced / less evasive procedures, its that the politicioans haven't put it on the list nor bought the equipment for it.

Of course that may have something to do with the fact that publicly funded health-care for all can never afford the real good stuff the "evil, rich" get.

When something is profitable it is made available to those who pay the profitable price, when it is socialized it is rationed according to bureaucratic budgets. Heart surgery becomes just a cost code on a ledger somewhere, reduce the number from 5 a day to 4 a day and look how much we save.

The middle class is left rotting with the lower class under the guise of fairness, while our betters always have the US/cash option.

And if it turns out he's not entitled to reimbursement, well, he's gong to accept that, as if he was doing us a favour. What a piece of crap. And for those that defend him, try to grasp the main point here; if you praise limited choice and enforce it on other people, then live by that.

I really, really loathe Danny Williams. I have nothing good to say about the man, or the people who vote for him. Therefore, I will comment no further...

Say 'Goodbye' Danny, your time is over. You have no one to blame but yourself. After all, you can't blame us for booting you out of office.

There is a reason we call this 60 year old man "Danny" and not Dan, and that is because he is still a petulant child.

"This was my heart, my choice and my health," Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.

"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."

Denying choice to others is, however, what you and other Canadian politicians have been doing for most of my life.
Enjoy your well cared for black skeevy little heart, Danny boy.

And so is Shirley Douglas some kind of an expert on health care systems? How being the spawn of someone grants them some kind of clairvoyance or special knowledge in a field is way beyond me.

I am so sick and tired of the propaganda surrounding our #30 health care system. It is the radical left wing idealogues and medical system unions that are holding Canada's system back and Canadians have been so brainwashed they can't see straight.

Our family doctor came from South Africa about five years ago. He has practiced in a number of countries and he says - in no uncertain terms - that Canada's system is poor but Canadians are completely oblivious to the fact because they don't know any better.

Hypocrite. I do not mind that Premier Williams spent his own money and had the procedure done out of the country. I detest him for being part of the elite that insist that healthcare has to be government controlled and rationed 'for the common good'.

A question for all supporters of state run care. How is it in a supposedly free country that a doctor can only work for the government at a rate of pay set by the government? The medical class has been enslaved by the government which claims to provide us 'free' healthcare (which is rationed to balance the budget) using our extorted tax dollars. I am in the field of aviation not medicine, by the way.

In a free country, a citizen can enter into an agreement with a doctor for a service at an agreed upon price. The government has no business in that transaction unless a crime or breach of contract occurs.

HYPOCRITE!

Had a two-tier system existed in any of our provinces, I don't doubt Danny would have had to have gone much further than Halifax.

Hell, there might even have been a private clinic in St. John's if some hotshot doctor thought there was a good living to be made from it.

And Danny wouldn't have looked quite so two-faced.

Is the CBC going to hammer on him for going to the U.S. for Bush-style private healthcare? Just like they did when Layton did it?

God knows the shitstorm that they'd manufacture if Harper went to the U.S. for a procedure.

Makes me sick.

Might as well go get in the cattle chute and wait my turn.

I detest him for being part of the elite that insist that healthcare has to be government controlled and rationed 'for the common good'.

It's the something-for-nothing Canadian public that insists on this lunacy. Don't expect a politician to attempt to try and sell an unmarketable commodity: much smaller government, higher after-tax incomes, self reliance. When -- but really a big IF -- the culture changes, our politicians will reflect this. Politicians don't lead; they find a line and run up in front of it.
Ask yourself this question: what would be the shelf life of a politican who advocated even a small deductible ($10) for each doctor visit. Or this one: one who advocated allowing Canadians to opt out of 'universal' health care with a corresponding tax reduction.

Calling politicans hypocrites is trite.

The real question that nobody in the MSM wants to ask is: "How much of this procedure was covered by Newfie Medicare?"

Did they pay anything at all? Did they give him the same rate as if they had to refer him to another province or country? How about travel expenses? so many questions, so much to deny.

Hahaha ... youse Albertans have to pay for your sickness care Zwoz says.... we get ours free.
...-

"Medical system will remain publicly funded, says Zwozdesky
Edson Leader - Ed Moore - ‎3 hours ago‎
Albertans should rest assured that the province's health care system will remain publicly funded, says the Minister of Health and Wellness."

My so called doctor sends me for a cat-scan on my hip, it takes 3 months of waiting and well over 7 grand in tax dollars. Meanwhile in Seattle you can have one the same week you call for an appointment and its only 25 hundred. GO FIGURE.

Tommy the commie Douglas is NOT near dead enough!

...and I didn't need the damn thing but his buddies at St Paul's need the coinage, I had already told him what the damn thing showed.

Doctors in Canuckistan the ones who aren't good enough for elsewhere.

And of course any of us can also hop on down to Florida to jump the queue here. Oh yeah we CAN'T AFFORD TO. We have to wait in line. And be happy that we don't have to pay for it....Oh yeah we actually DO have to pay for it in increased taxes and premiums every month off my pay cheques. But we don;t have to pay for it. Except for extra stuff. When my wife was fighting breast cancer, she needed a drug to boost her immune system so she could tolerate the chemo. Well sorry but you have to cough up $3600/mo yourself. If we weren't fortunate enough to have a company drug plan she may have not had the opportunity to take chemo to get rid of the cancer. But don;t worry, the treatment was free. Oh except for all the travel because the treatment wasn't available in our town. Yup our system is working great...

"My health, my choice. Your health, my choice."

I remember that in 2005, the Sask NDP convention proposed a resolution to ban private MRI clinics and results from private MRI clinics. Too many citizens, tired of the year or so wait, were going to AB and the US for diagnostics and then expecting treatment from our medical system. To the NDP mind, this was "cheating". In reality, it messed with the government rationing system. The long waiting times for doctors appointments, specialists, diagnostics and treatments are specifically designed to weed out enough patients to prevent a total collapse of the medical system.

The Danny Williams and the Douglas crowd will never admit that the system is substandard. They can afford to be ignorant.

I get what you are saying, but I don't know what you would have had him done differently all the same.

Not one of us would have chosen the rib breaking surgery with longer recovery over a little cut under the arm.

I'm not sure how big a champion of public health care Danny Williams has been in the past, however at that moment and since that moment he surely is aware of the benefits of two-tiered health care.

Perhaps instead of being angry we should use this opportunity to write to him and urge him to push for privatization of some aspects of Canadian healthcare.

I think he'd be as good, if not immensely better than a lot of us at getting his point across. Perhaps he is the right person at the right time to get some real change done in this country.

Oh Danny Boy it is not that you chose to look after yourself. Would I be able to own Critical Care insurance in your Province? Is it not illegal? Why?

First of all:
"He said he spoke with and provided his medical information to a leading cardiac surgeon in New Jersey who is also from Newfoundland and Labrador"
interesting, don't you think?

Second, his surgery sounds like it was done through a laparoscope, very common in Canada now. My guess is he had the choice of Edmonton or Miami, and Miami was less politically touchy!

Someone should do a tally of these hypocrites:
Williams
Stronach
Bouchard
Bourassa
Chretien

Why the beef? Danny Williams is only doing what every public personality in Canada would do!

Canadians are the stupidest people in the world! They allow their elected politicians to take them for granted and treat them like crap.

Suck it up or take an action to try to make a difference.

What Canada needs is a REAL CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT that is an activist organization independent of the CPC.

The Canadian healthcare racket works very well for unions - does it not?

Mr. Burton, the point is the rest of us don't have the option of heading off to get the easier option, we have to stand in line, get the bone breaker, then suffer the weeks of recovery. And why couldn't he have had it done somewhere in Canada? Oops that might mean jumping the queue.

'My health, my choice'. But our government doesn't allow us to say: 'my health, my choice'.

We can't, unless we are wealthy, choose to go to the US. We can't choose a private clinic here.

Our health care system is not free - and how many times have we heard people spouting such nonsense - but is a prime taxpayer burden. AND, we have no choice but to use it, with its inadequate funding, its long waits, its services available only in select places.

Williams comment should be the slogan of the anti-Obama Health Care in the US: 'my health, my choice'.

I'd certainly like to hear, face to face so to speak, that the less invasive surgery ISN'T available in Canada...anywhere in Canada.
I'm guessing he didn't want to get caught queue jumping; going to Miami on his own dime would be seen as less objectionable. Hell, people are going out of the country regularly, for surgery.
http://www.medical-tourism-india.com/heart_surgery_india.htm

"Mr. Burton, the point is the rest of us don't have the option of heading off to get the easier option"

Well, no, that's not quite true. You are no more prevented by law from pursuing this option than Danny is.

You really mean one of two things: either you cannot afford the easier option or you just don't want to pay for it.

It's not even that Danny Williams went to the US for care. It's the "good enough for me but not for thee" attitude that angers me. He is no fool in seeing discrepancies in the system he supports for others. Why should someone wait for an MRI because a politician thinks he should?

Norman @ 2:44, you forgot Taliban Jack.

Lorenzo @ 2:49, you got a bullseye with that comment!

Have to agree with Colin.

ET: ... and it is against the law to purchase private health insurance in some provinces.

By the way, does anyone here know of a single politician or public personality who has languished on a waiting list in Canada?

So in Canada it is illegal to spend your own money to buy your own health care

So in Canada it is illegal to sell or buy health care insurance.

So in Canada, we export jobs and money to the evil 'mericans by forcing our citizens, like Danny boy, to skip the lines here and spend our money there.

I'm gobsmacked Taliban Jack is not protesting exporting of high paying unionized jobs to The Great Satan.

Pity he wants to, no he does, deny the right of choice for us mere mortal Canadians.

"My Heart! My Choice!" should be used as a rallying cry for all who want to legalize private medicine and medical insurance, and remove the state obligation.

Even if you have the money to purchase health care in the US, you have to be healthy enough to get there. That's the real ugly of the Tommy Douglas health care system - by the time you realize you're just a body in a ward waiting for your clock to wind down, there's no where else to go. They made sure of that.

So Tommy D's daughter and grandson are BIG medicare supporters? Last time I checked Shirley Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland live in L.A. where they don't use Canadian medicare. I'm pretty sure Shirley's divorce settlement from Donald and Kief's paycheque from "24" make them ineligible for California medicaid and US medicare. Real easy to support a bad system for the sake of Tommy D's legacy when they do run the risk of having to depend on it.

Obviously Danny wins the hypocrite of the year award and is a strong runner up for hypocrite of the decade.

I found it interesting that the cardiac surgeon advising him was from Newfoundland but now practicing in NJ. Why is that Danny?

The surgery Williams had done could have been performed at St. Pauls hospital in Vancouver and it's been available there for over 10 years. There are also some extremely skilled cardiac surgeons in Vancouver. The only problem if he'd have gone to Vancouver he would probably have to share a room with an HIV+ hooker with endocarditis; such an experience would be far too upsetting to a man of his stature. Much nicer to go to Florida where he'd have a nice private hotel type room with all the amenities that an important politician requires and, most importantly, no contact with the great mass of unwashed smelly patients that crowd Canadian hospitals.

Is the economic situation in Newfoundland the result of everyone who has any brains or drive having left that place?

I'm surprised that some enterprising MSM reporter hasn't bothered to dig up the facts re which provincial governments might have denied budget funding to proceed with likely submitted proposals for setting up similar heart surgery centres here. Bet the documents would make for fascinating reading on how to fob off or smother medical innovation while at the same time fast forwarding every bureaucratic whim imaginable in the medical maladministrative apparatus.

What? He didn't go to Cuba? Where they have the best DAMN health care system in the world!!

Mark Steyn is all over this:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDM3YzQyYTU0N2UzN2U5NWYxYzE5ODE3NTRjMDNiMGE=

"Last time I checked Shirley Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland live in L.A. where they don't use Canadian medicare."

I think it's safe to say they probably have an upscale private medical plan.

Many posters blindly supporting William's right to go to the US on the CBC comments are missing the point.

No one would deny Danny Williams the right to get the best medical care he could afford but as the PREMIER of a province he has been outspoken in stating Canada has the best health care system and damning the American system yet when his health is threatened he, of course, goes where he can get the best care, to the US, though Canada has excellent world class doctors right here that do the same operation.

As an example of public/private medical we have the excellent Shouldice Clinic in Toronto, a private hospital treating only hernias yet fully covered by the OHIP card, that is world renowned and I went there for my operation and met people from around the globe. This one hospital brings in millions of dollars to Canada. Another hypocrite who fights "two tiered" treatment all the time, Jack Layton, went there. Imagine if we had dedicated private hospitals, as France does, fully covered by our medical cards for hips, knees etc. for prompt, specialized care. Americans would begin to come here.

Yet politicians like Williams refuse to allow us regular Canadians this option and that should be the real focus of his medical treatment. He should be now leading the charge to implement public/private care in Canada. What happens if the US goes to government full Medicare and this choice that Williams made maybe no longer there?

Well at least it was one less Newfie on the dole.

"The Canadian health care system would collapse without the US system for a back-up."

You know, I went back over the comments and realized that the very first one posted by "the bear" was resoundingly true in its simplicity.

I don't quite follow you there, Dave.

If you were able to go to the Shouldice Clinic, how does this prove "regular Canadians" are denied this option?