Do we really want Canadian health care? June 29, 2009
I spent a portion of last week in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
And, I came away with one simple question.
Do we really want Canadian-style health care?
First though, it often saddens me to see cities and areas like Calgary.
It is bustling. It is vibrant. Despite the weak economy (Calgary is very dependent on oil prices because of their massive oil sands that supply America), Calgary is hopping. It is young and hip and diverse.
It relies on oil - well the MINING of oil. Unlike the Middle East and most everywhere else where oil is drilled, the oil sands of Alberta provide oil via mining.
There is construction. There is new people moving in all the time. It is an area that is growing. It is an area where both oil and mining are embraced. They just announced relaxed regulation of gas exploration because they understand the importance to the area economy.
Unlike WV, where industry and coal are fought tooth and nail at every turn, Alberta embraces it - and because of that embrace is by far the richest and most vibrant province in Canada.
But, the real shocker to me was their insistence that their health care was better than America’s. It surprised me to see an area so supportive of industry, also so supportive of a health care system that Americans would simply never stand for.
The miners who I spoke with actually loved the Canadian plan. They couldn’t get over how American hospitals compete against each other.
They decried the money spent in our system on advertising, drugs, and procedures.
They claimed their quality was equal to ours while spending less money.
They proudly proclaimed that their health care system was better.
Then, a funny thing happened. They began talking about their actual experiences within this system they so defended.
There was the recent news of a cancer patient who had to wait three months for treatment.
One guy told me that he had to push his wife around in a wheelchair because she needed a hip replacement.
For…
14 months.
Yep, 14 months waiting hip replacement surgery.
Others scoffed and said he was just too cheap to travel to the states to have it done. One had a knee replacement in the states - in 2 months - for $10,000.
Hmmmm…
So Candians love their system of health care. As long as their is the option of bypassing it for quicker, better care in the states.
I wonder where Americans will travel to get their healthcare needs met if we move to Obama’s single payer health care plan?
Let’s hope the Mexican health care system gets it’s act together soon or we better get our hips replaced soon.
-->
Loading...
11 Responses to “Do we really want Canadian health care?”
As with the Cap & Tax nightmare, the push to socialize the health care industry is about one thing: POWER. All those who would be dependent on the federal government for income, health care, etc, are ripe Democratic voters, and Obama & Congressional Democrats know it.
How sad that so many Americans value their freedoms so little that they would exchange them for mediocre (at best), cradle-to-grave care. God save the American dream and ideal from the extreme leftists currently in control of our government.
There is a very simple cause to the current health care mess.
Therefore, there is a very simple solution to fix the mess.
For 15 years I have encouraged state Republicans and wished that national Republicans would come out publicly with a unified message promoting a simple, rational, coherent reform plan. As with most issues, we have just gotten individual Republicans bashing anything that the Democrats propose.
Last week we were invited to comment about PEIA.
PEIA is not a flat tire that can be patched up and then will be OK.
It is just one small part of the massive US Health Care industry that has a systemic problem.
PEIA, Medicare, Medicaid, as well as private insurance, will never have long term viability until that problem is addressed.
Single Payer in U.S.= Medicare for all. Do people on Medicare wait that long for such surgeries? No. You do want Medicare when you retire, right?
I like the argument that the US does not want socialized medicine. I wonder what we call medicare and medicaid (costing tax payers 765 billion a year)? So when people like to argue the point try saying, “we don’t want to expand socialized medicine.” Might get my attention more if they just admit that we already have it!
I’m glad there’s so much diversity of opinion on this site and we’re not subjected to a one-sided view of the Canadian medicare system. By the way, how’s the insurance business profits going anyway?
That’s all that you guys are worried about anyway, isn’t it?
All for orders, here. We are against single-payer health insurance. Salute the insurance companies. Do not deviate from the standard of money. Money counts, people don’t.
Clark, just because our country is a little bit pregnant in terms of government-run healthcare, that doesn’t mean going further down that dangerous path is right.
B.K., I’m not advocating for expanding health care…Just that we already have it! Read the 8:18 am post again!!!
The premise of this entire post is as absurd as the often made, yet always wrong, statements that Obama is pushing socialized health care. First, I recommend folks read this article from the Denver Post for some perspective of what is ACTUALLY taking place in Canada.
http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_12523427
Second, the United States is not moving toward the Canadian health care system anymore and to make such claims is just lazy partisanship. I have seen no legitimate plan before Congress that implements a single payer system of any kind. Perhaps a single payer system is preferable but reasonable people can disagree. What reasonable people cannot disagree about is the facts on the ground, of which appears to be lacking in this post.
Finally, not even the Canadians have socialized health care and Obama is not trying to implement a socialized health care system. There will still be private insurance, private docs, private hospitals, and a private pharmaceutical industry. In essence, without a public option we will all still be getting kicked in the privates so that the profit margins of those profiteering from the sick can buy another house in the Caymans.
Saturday I walked in our 4th of July parade w/ my DAR chapter. As we were at the beginning, following the opening military unit, I was able to watch the whole thing at the end of the street.
There was a flatbed truck of lovelies and more walking promoting government healthcare and carrying signs advocating a call to Mollohan to demand it. If you wanted to see a collection of losers–that was it. It looked as though they had rounded up the homeless from under a bridge and given them the signs w/o even cleaning them up or giving them any clothes.
Yep!! These dregs are from my ’60’s generation who never thought they should have to do ANYTHING for themselves except grab my purse.
I want NOTHING to do w/ government healthcare. NOTHING.