HillaryCare Preview--Part II

Back in October I wrote a posting called HillaryCare Preview about the flue vaccine shortage. What a bust that story really turned out to be. The medical officials and media managed to scare the heck out of a few gullible citizens, but by in large, other than revealing the fact that government meddling in the process had caused a supply shortage, and thanks to a relatively mild flue season, the final result was “much ado about nothing.”

Government involvement in healthcare at any level is historically a problem. Grand intentions and far reaching promises soon dissolve into a quagmire of expensive bureaucratic red tape, ultimately delivering more paperwork than doing any actual healing.

We have all heard about how wonderful things are in Europe and Canada with their Socialized medicine. You just walk into a clinic, get your healthcare “du jour,” and stroll out the door confident in the knowledge that the government is picking up your tab. But take a look at this story about Canadian healthcare.

“TORONTO - A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."

The patient wasn't dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care."

Can you imagine being in the position of needing something as simple as an EKG and having to wait three months to get it? I am certain that I could call a doctor right now and have one scheduled not later than this Friday. Yes it would cost me $500, but if I need it, I need it and our present healthcare system can supply it because there are probably twenty five EKG machines in every county of Georgia.

Americans who flock to Canada for cheap flu shots often come away impressed at the free and first-class medical care available to Canadians, rich or poor. But tell that to hospital administrators constantly having to cut staff for lack of funds, or to the mother whose teenager was advised she would have to wait up to three years for surgery to repair a torn knee ligament.”

"It's like somebody's telling you that you can buy this car, and you've paid for the car, but you can't have it right now," said Jane Pelton. Rather than leave daughter Emily in pain and a knee brace, the Ottawa family opted to pay $3,300 for arthroscopic surgery at a private clinic in Vancouver, with no help from the government.

My girl Pat tore a piece of cartilage in her left knee last October. Within three weeks she had the condition diagnosed with X-Rays and a MRI and had the outpatient surgery done at a local sports clinic. Total cost—about $5,000. Out of pocket expense—about $1000, and worth every damn cent. Of course, this didn’t include the $200 per month that she pays for private health insurance, for the past 22 years she has worked at her company, something that many Americans feel that they are entitled to at zero cost. That attitude really galls me.

You see, the problem is, there is no such thing as “zero cost” medical care. Somebody has to pay, even if the government gets in the middle and tells you that it is free. Look at the Canadians situation…

"The average Canadian family pays about 48 percent of its income in taxes each year, partly to fund the health care system. Rates vary from province to province, but Ontario, the most populous, spends roughly 40 percent of every tax dollar on health care, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The system is going broke, says the federation, which campaigns for tax reform and private enterprise in health care.

It calculates that at present rates, Ontario will be spending 85 percent of its budget on health care by 2035. "We can't afford a state monopoly on health care anymore," says Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario director of the federation. "We have to examine private alternatives as well."

Is this where you want to see us go here in the US? I damn sure don’t. And for those of you out there that are self-insured or are wealthy enough to think that you will just bypass the system, you can forget about it if Hillary gets her way. Imagine having the money to pay for your own healthcare, but the government making it illegal for you to pay the doctor outside the “government system?” That provision was buried in Hillary Clinton’s 1992 Universal Healthcare proposal. They wanted to put doctors in jail for accepting private funding, and cut off your ability to get treatment if you were caught going around the rules.

In 1984 Parliament passed the Canada Health Act, which affirmed the federal government's commitment to provide mostly free health care to all, including the 200,000 immigrants arriving each year. The system is called Medicare (no relation to Medicare in the United States).

Despite the financial burden, Canadians value their Medicare as a marker of egalitarianism and independent identity that sets their country apart from the United States, where some 45 million Americans lack health insurance.

Notice the emphasis on lacking “health insurance,” not lacking “health care.” So what is the big damn doodling deal here? I know that you might be getting tired of me using this statement, but looking at the Constitution of the United States, nowhere in it do I find the words “Life, Liberty, and free unlimited access to state of the art medical treatment.” It just isn’t there. And I seriously doubt the 45 million number. Who did that census? Probably the proponents of the “Universal Healthcare” idea.

I am so tired of hearing this refrain. The only healthcare crisis we have here in the US is the imaginary one created by the media and the Democrats. Yes costs are rising faster than inflation, but technology and new forms of treatment are advancing faster than inflation also. Today a bottle of 100 generic aspirin costs a buck and one half. Twenty-five years ago I bet it cost two or three dollars. Where is the crisis here? Can’t afford Tylenol or Advil? Buy Aspirin, you ungrateful moron.

"Canada does not have fully nationalized health care; its doctors are in private practice and send their bills to the government for reimbursement.

"That doctor doesn't have to worry about how you're going to pay the bill," said Deber. "He knows that his bill will be paid, so there's absolutely nothing to stop any doctor from treating anyone."

Deber acknowledges problems in the system, but believes most Canadians get the care they need. She said the federal government should attach more strings to its annual lump-sum allocations to the provinces so that tax dollars are better spent on preventive care and improvements in working conditions for health-care professionals...

Meanwhile, the average wait for surgical or specialist treatment is nearly 18 weeks, up from 9.3 weeks in 1993, according to the Fraser Institute, a right-wing public policy think tank in Vancouver. A Fraser study last year said the average wait for an orthopedic surgeon was more than nine months.

So if Pat and I lived in Canada, she would most likely still be limping around with a brace on her bad left knee. The lack of medical care would probably have severely limited her ability to make her weekly trips to Chicago and could have cost her her position with her company. A torn cartilage turns into unemployment, and on and on and on...

And in the time since she got her surgery done in November last year, how many Americans would have died waiting three months for an EKG?