A Paul Krugman Poll Goes Horribly Wrong

55 Replies to “A Paul Krugman Poll Goes Horribly Wrong”

1. I’ll concurr with Phantom that it’s who you know not being “rich” that gets you top care in Canada. My wife is a doctor and let me tell you, I get high speed access to medical care. Granted, I’m directly in the chain, and most of my “Front of the line” access ususally happens outside of regual clinic hours.
   It’s akin to having a brother in law that’s a mechanic, or cousin that’s a lawyer. Things just go that much faster with family connections.

2. Riding on a plane one time, I overhead a Canadian defending your health care system. He said there were no serious waits “as long as you make a small donation.” Was this man crazy, or has anybody else heard of this?

3. incidentally, I have only been asked for a bribe twice in my life, once by an Italian in Rome, and once by a Canadian.

4. tim, he was crazy.
   Its a -large- donation. You buy the hospital a new wing, they fix you up.

5. Phantom:
   We’re not “rich” by any standards I know. Even though my brother-in-law’s death left two million to look after his mother, between running her home, paying her bills, and indulging her gifts to her 20-odd grandchildren, there was very little left each year. I’m not complaining, as I was a recipient of some of that largesse, but we weren’t “Ted Rogers” rich by any stretch. But, in part of fact, I went to Upper Canada College, I knew people who knew people.. etc. It’s easy to jump the queue if you know the right people, which is why I’m so angry about the way the Canadian system works – fast access if you know the right people, slow access if you don’t.
   Ayn Rand wrote about this in Atlas Shrugged. She called it the “politics of pull”. Yup.