Stéphane Dion’s Blog Campaign Co-Chair, president of the Richmond Hill Federal Liberal Riding Association and York Region Area Director for the Liberal Party of Canada makes a startlingly frank admission;
I support public education, where tax dollars are used to pay for a helpful social program that the market did not provide efficiently. I also support a government organized child care system because the market has failed to provide this important social program. Further, I support public health care because it is a manner of rationing scarce medical resources in a way that the market could never do.
(And don’t miss this child care pile-on in the comments.)
At 27 years of age, how can this “green behind the ears” baby be taken seriously on anything, let alone a Federal Budget. Being a barely-graduated lawyer means nothing and Dion using the services of Cherniak simply shows the lack of talent pool within the Liberal party.
I suggest Cherniak get many more years of life experience under his belt before his comments make any sense and before his opinion can be granted any credibility.
He is being, surprisingly, and probably inadvertantly, honest.
One can spend an infinate amount of resources upon health care and we would all still get sick and die.
Clearly we have to limit our resources somehow, either through overt rationing or via price. I prefer the price mechanism because that does leave the individual the freedom to make the decision of how much health care to themselves.
He, being a statis, obviously prefers to make the decision for the masses.
Mississauga Matt, these anecdotes support the idea of having to pay something, making one think twice.
The problem with socialism is that it renders the citizenry dependant and helpless. Worse, it makes them take the system for everything it can as the state takes so much from them, their hard earned money.
Mississauga Matt, these anecdotes support the idea of having to pay something, making one think twice.
The problem with socialism is that it renders the citizenry dependant and helpless. Worse, it makes them take the system for everything it can as the state takes so much from them, their hard earned money.
…and maybe stop taking your money Sean.
When the state controls medicine, does it not have an incentive to “eliminate” you when you grow old and expensive? Water takes the shape of its container. Always has. Always will.
This is coming from someone who can’t stand reading his tripe, as someone blown away by his comment approval system, as someone who is parent of two children in happy family with one salary at the moment and lastly a life long, conservative voter.
I went over and read his post after reading the comments here on it. I am ashamed to say that I actually agree with his sentiment regarding credits for families with children and not for others. I don’t understand how it works or how it is ever justified. Being unprincipled, value lacking conservative I will certainly use it but I don’t agree with it. With the surpluses of late, this could have been done across the board and maybe, just maybe some of the long braindead latte center of the universe crowd might appreciate the extra couple of trips to Starbucks it would allow them and consider voting sensibly next time around. My single and hitched DINK friends pay their fair share of tax. You want to descrease the tax burden on families, remove sales tax from toys, cloths and other such grabs. However robbing Paul to pay Peter and Pauline is wrong.
Is it a reward to get the stagnate birth rate up? I’m snipped as I learned my lesson but that aside giving me a tax break at best would lead to maybe renting a couple of DVDs, a bottle of cheap wine for the Mrs. and me snoring on the couch before the first flick was over. No help to the birth rate there.
Consider the uproar on this side of the spectrum should a government give singles a tax credit to offset the increased cost of being single. It might give them enough money for an extra round at the bar when they go out. They might meet the right cougar with the clock clicking loudly and get lucky and raise the birth rate there.
I see in the latest rendition he is ensuring to distinguish himself from the grand old Liberal party. Garth should have stayed independent and he could use the same trick.
Anyways, I have to go repent to for siding with him on that front. The rest of it was the usual tripe.
I needed a kidney transplant. 8 year waiting list here in BC, which essentially meant death for me if I waited. So I did what I needed to do. Took a trip to Pakistan and bought a kidney and surgery. $30,000 bucks later (all in including airfares, food and accomodation) I have completely normal kidney function. We ARE free to choose.
I should point out, that the cost of a kidney transplant here in Canada is 60,000. I paid half that including the cost of the kidney. On the way back I spent time in Bangkok International Hospital. Hips are $5000. I know where I am going when my 53 year old hip starts creaking. Got a kidney 12 days after first contact with the Pakistani hospital. Bangkok international will put a new hip in within a week from contact. 5 star hospital suites as well. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference between my suite at Bangkok Intl. and a Fairmont hotel room.
The worst hospital I stayed in was Vancouver General. I was there from December 27th to Jan 2. All of the staff took sick days during this time and the few nurses who showed up were all getting double or triple time. I did not receive a hospital meal for the first two days I was there. Someone in administration was unable to recognize my presence in room 132. I had to eat out of vending machines (good thing they had a Stouffers machine). Staff in the pharmacy could not supply the medication the Dr. ordered for 3 days. I survived on the extra supply I was given by Bangkok international. Utter chaos. Utter waste of resources. Beyond repair. The Canadian Medical system is nothing more than a feed trough for employees.
Fly, don’t cry.
I have mixed feelings about letting the free market educate our children and of the wisdom of allowing the government access to easily manipulated young brains. The free market includes religious groups who teach their young followers that their ideology must be obeyed even if it conflicts with our law. Similarly, I suspect that the PQ government provided day-care to push their political beliefs on their young charges.
We have brainwashing occurring with no corresponding offsets to challenge it if we dispense with a public system. Ontario, in my opinion, made a grave error in allowing the Catholics to have their own system in that they cannot now deny groups with more sinister motives the same opportunity.
We should separate church and state from education.
Bruce
Living a stones throw from the border I have a US insurance policy the covers things like knee, hip, etc elective type surgery. I bought it about 10 years ago when we were being told by the government of the day that health care and it’s services would always be dictated by your Doctor. My 180 government aversion policy has once again served me well. Actually, just found it, it was 14 years ago. After surgery for a tennis elbow type of thing I am still financially in the hole but not by much. My pain was restricted to 10 days after a phone call. That was worth it alone, here it was 3 months to a year. I am still a surgery or two away from breaking even, but is that the point? NO. Why couldn’t I spend my money here supporting our system? They shut down operating rooms here for lack of funds, hello, my dollars could keep it open. Stupid people are unfortunately always stupid, and, afraid of change.
Cherniak all day long.
Favorite pastime … mirror gazing
Favorite person … Cherniak
Favorite topic … Cherniak
Favorite word … Cherniak
Favorite sex act … Masturbation
Favorite political system … Communism
Most admired person based on style … Garth Turner.
How can any thing from the Lieberano$$$ be startling. When the looney left is involved anything is open. Just look at Dion for example. A French citizen no less. France a declining leftist State. They would really like us to be a clone of Europe; instead of being like the Americians which we are in so many ways.
I can’t wait for an election campaign, when leftists to start crying about how the Canadian healthcare system isn’t socialist enough for us.
Meanwhile Edwards, Clinton and Moore will do the same in America by apparently advocating for all hospitals in the country to be run like the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre…
bagadonitz, are you the bagadonuts of tim blair fame?
I’m shocked at Cherniak’s stupidity re child care. He’s a lawyer? He’s a lawyer with no common sense.
If this is how most young Liberals think, then that party is in serious trouble.
I have mixed feelings about letting the free market educate our children and of the wisdom of allowing the government access to easily manipulated young brains.
Hey, Jim, the free market doesn’t give a damn where and in what modality you educate your kids, that’s the point. The state sure as hell cares, or haven’t you noticed the unsolicted lefty dogma driven pc crap that’s shoved down your kids throats. Dumbing down and creating sycophants is necessary to create lefty voters.
As far as socialized health care, I’m fine not participating in it. Husband and I are self-employed here in the US and pay our share, but, then, I’ve never really wanted the gov’t in my life much past the services of the post office, common defense and decent roads. I’d rather pay as I go privately than subsidize every slacker that refuses to. Illegals getting US free health care, sorry, it’s earned.
Health care isn’t a right, it’s as much a commodity as your electric bill. The ridiculous socialist attitude that it should be awarded equally to everyone, and I’m not talking about the truly disabled who are consequently indigent, is a sham.
As a nurse I’ve met plenty of slackers that have a ridiculous $5 co-pay on their health services/meds and chose cigarettes/alcohol/you name it as a priority.
The CBC, NYT’s, lefty media, lefty politicians are never going to cameo those losers.
“Being a barely-graduated lawyer means nothing and Dion using the services of Cherniak simply shows the lack of talent pool within the Liberal party.”
I don’t even think he is a lawyer. He wasn’t accepted at the law firm he was articling at.
But you are dead on about the lack of a talent pool in the Libs. Cherniak is sure evidence of that.
I also noticed that he screens his comments section very closely. I’ve had many comments not accepted.
YET EVEN THOUGH THE COMMENTS ARE SCREENED TO FILTER OUT THE NEGATIVE COMMENTS HE STILL GETS VERY FEW POSITIVE COMMENTS ALL THE WHILE PLAYING TO A FRIENDLY CROWD.
I think “immature” would be a good description of Jason Cherniak.
I am compelled to visit my doctor every 5 or 6 weeks to receive an injection, or I could develop a rather more serious medical condition. I don’t know what that visit costs… $150.00? $200.00?
Is the Emergency at the Saskatoon City Hospital still closing down at 7:00 P.M.?
I understand Saskatchewan is still losing G.P.s, surgeons, etc… to Calgary and the U.S. I personally have seen 3 doctors, on a professional basis, who have left the province because of the crumbling condition of the Saskatchewan health care system. One of them saved my life, I’m certain. The southern U.S.A. is a long way to go for a visit if I require his services again. Oh well, at least there won’t be a long wait time…
Here’s a thought. Why not make me pay for the 6-week visits? The entire cost, that is. I’ve got a good job, and might also be able to get Blue Cross or some other insurer to help defray some of the $1700.00 or so dollars it would cost me annually for those injections.
Would I like it? No. Would it cause me great hardship? No. Would it unburden the health care system of looking after the “small stuff” (like my injections)? Yes. Would Sask Health be able to re-direct those funds to places where it would be more efficiently spent? Like on keeping emergency rooms open, and giving surgeons all the o.r. time they actually require to do their jobs. One would hope so.
Your house is burgled. The thieves made off with your $2600.00 plasma and your $1000.00 camera.
Call the insurance adjuster? Just so you can pay higher premiums for the next few years, ya lousy risk you. Insurance is for catastrophic loss! Like if the house burns down, or you get killed in an accident (cheap, $400,000 term life to protect your wife and kids).
Hope I’m not offending anyone, but buying package policies for things like auto glass is simply foolish, in my humble opinion. Every so often you have to pony up $800.00 for a new windshield; think of the premiums you’ve saved for the last, oh, 7 or 8 years… money which was put to better use, no doubt. It’s the same thing with government health care. People should be forced to pay their own health costs for the “small stuff”, and a couple thousand bucks is pretty damn small stuff even for a working stiff (which I am), as measured against a 6-month wait for an M.R.I., or a 3-month wait for a biopsy, or an 18-month wait for a new hip.
So what are you trying to say? That instead of “rationing” scarce medical resources you would rather that scarce medical resources go only to those who have the ability to pay?
Yeah KC…just like in Cuba and NK. Maybe you should move there??
It’s certainly comforting to know that if dentistry ever becomes “scarce”, we’ll have a governments ready to step in and ration our access to fillings and extractions.
Quick anyone – can you name any commodity in Canada so scarce it requires consumer “rationing”?
Good frickin’ grief. You’d think these people lived their whole lives inside a Romanow-led think tank.
The Don Mills Surgical Centre, a facility built at no expense to the taxpayer or the public health system, recently proposed to undertake 1,500 knee-replacement surgeries for public system users, at a cost to the public system of $1,082 less per procedure. The Ontario government rejected the proposal.
In other words, a medical facility festooned with high-tech medical equipment is made available to the overburdened public system, at lower cost, yet the overseers of the public system said “no”.
Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman explains: “The not-for-profit model, moving forward in the context of our public health-care system, is the way to move forward to produce continuing results for the people of the province of Ontario.”
Seriously.
Ontario PC leader John Tory noted in the March 23 National Post (Letters) that the Don Mills proposal would save the public system $1.6m, enough to pay for another 276 surgeries at the higher public-system rate, and that it would shorten wait times.
It doesn’t matter, though; those “concerned about public health care” inevitably label such solutions as being a danger to the public health-care system.
Is there even a word for that?
Wimpy Canadian@10:26
Re. Tim Blair, I didn’t know what you were talking about till I googled it. Alas that poster is not me. I have been using this nickname with this particular spelling online for the best part of 9 years. Joseph Bagadonitz was a character in a bit done by Jerry Forbes on CJAY in Calgary. I like the name, guessed at this spelling and used it forever.
I am totally confused about our UNIVERSAL medical care system. (I am sure I am not alone).
Things that aren’t covered by this universal system are things like vision care and dental care.
If a person cannot see, they cannot work. If they cannot chew without pain, they will probably not be able to work. Remember that poor lady with the teeth rotting out of her head due to a disease. This wasn’t covered by our UNIVERSAL system, and there was no mechanism to have it covered. Why do you we all need health insurance in Canada?
So, when someone complains about the threat to our UNIVERSAL health care system that private services would cause I remind them that all dentists are not part of this UNIVERSAL system, and that all eye care specialists are not part of this UNIVERSAL system.
The UNIVERSAL health care system is a crock. A multi-tier medical system already exists here in Canada. It simply needs to be expanded.
The free market system will take over. For those who cannot afford it, then I am sure we can take care of them somehow. In the end, my guess is there will be far few people denied service on the basis of ability to pay than due to the inability to provide the service.
Aside from being a moron with little real life experience, Cherniak appears to be almost completely ignorant of the most basic details of the Canadian Tax system. Did someone write the final for him notes when he took Taxation in Law School?
If mercy killing ever were funded for Political Parties the Liberal Party of Pantywaist Dion should qualify for first in line. They’re both suffering and insufferable!
Kids of today thing the 3 Rs means REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE becuase of this eco-wacko poppycock
They would see us all dead except their own, for even a particle of their political dogma, no matter how false or harmful. Which to them, is more sacrosanct than the bible.
It works on paper so well & seems so equal. Bureaucrats love paper solutions. Reality bores them. To tedious to deal with facts. Its more fun to play pretend.
Unfortunately they people who are effected are not paper.
That is until your on the other side of the equation. Remember they have their own hospitals. No waiting times for any politico or sports figure,. The rest of us should die or just shut up. Where children & they the adults.
After all they think the money to run the system of horrors comes from them . Not you or me.
Besides you will just spend any of your earned money on beer & popcorn.
Papa knows best, or in this case, the little French citizen with no clue of the human tragedy that has become our health system. After all, him & his crony‘s will never use our one…
I’m tired of people thinking that “universal” means “free”. We pay out the ying-yang for our health care. Check your tax bill, people! Quality for money is non-existant in our system. Like others said, a lot of money is tied up in administration and bureaucracy.
There are so many ways that pressure could be taken off our health care system. Pharmacists should be able to prescribe certain perscriptions and renew them and nurses should be able to see people who suspect that they have a cold or basic flu symptoms. Nurses should be able to do a lot of the basic doctoring that goes on. I’m tired of having to make an appointment a week in advance to see my doctor, sit in the waiting room for an hour or more after the set appointment time, and all so that I can get the guy to renew my perscription which takes a whole 2 minutes. What a waste. I wonder how much the government pays him for that visit? We should have a parallel private system.
On the issue of govt-funded daycare, the day that I pay my taxes to the govt so that they can redistribute it to a bunch of soon-to-be unionized and over-payed daycare workers that only work in cities and I continue on raising my kids myself is the day that I pack my bags and move to the USA. Socialism sucks.
Someone should do a study on how much productivity is lost due to waiting for medical services.