Posted on 06/10/2005 3:02:12 AM PDT by Squawk 8888
There is a rule of punditry that says when a court hands down a decision with which you disagree politically, it is judicial activism.
On the other hand, when you agree with it, it is a landmark decision that finally injects some common sense and sanity into the system.
In this case, Canada's abysmal health care system.
So it was with the Supreme Court of Canada's decision released yesterday that struck down the Quebec law prohibiting private insurance companies from offering coverage for procedures that are offered by the government's public health plan.
Well, hallelujah! It's about time. Sure, this applies only to Quebec right now, but you can expect similar legal challenges in provinces across the country.
The fact is that this country is in bad company when it comes to its one-tier, public only health system. North Korea and Cuba are the only other countries to ban private medicine.
Former Ontario premier Mike Harris and former Reform leader Preston Manning recently released a report through the Fraser Institute calling for more private delivery of health services.
There were all the usual hoots of derision when they did so.
Political leaders, federal and provincial, tripped over themselves backing away from it. With good reason.
It's political suicide to suggest even the most modest of private involvement in the health care system.
But now the Supreme Court of Canada itself is suggesting there's a role for private medicine in Canada.
In reality, of course, we already have two-tier health care in this province. If you don't want to wait for an MRI or a hip replacement, you can travel to Buffalo or Cleveland and get one -- if you have the dough.
Predictably, Premier Dalton McGuinty declared his commitment to our one-tier mediocrity yesterday.
"Ontario's position on medicare is very clear and, in fact, it is now embodied in Ontario law, our Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act," he told the Legislature. "This law protects universal, public medicare. It ensures that all Ontarians have access to quality care, regardless of their ability to pay."
Actually, it doesn't ensure us much more than a place in the line for treatment. And as Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice John Major noted in yesterday's high court decision: "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care."
Liberals like to say that private insurance will lead to, "U.S.-style health care." Ah, yes. that would be the system where you don't wait for surgery forever and where you actually get to see a real doctor quickly.
"Our public health system is our heritage," the Liberals will tell you.
So, apparently, it's our birthright to die waiting for surgery. It's our patriotic duty to line up for diagnostic tests, for hip replacements, even for a simple trip to the family doctor.
We have a health system that's like some overbearing nanny.
She clutches us to her vast bosom and in so doing, smothers us. It's this stubborn insistence that we have a wonderful, one -tier, publicly funded system that often leaves cancer patients out in the cold when it comes to new medications.
It's a Catch-22. The public system can't afford to pay for them but Big Nanny says no, you can't pay out of your own pocket.
Increasingly, you see patients travelling south to get the drugs our government, in its infinite nannydom, won't let them have. Lines for hip replacement are months, sometimes years, long. Cataract surgery? Forget it.
Yet this, according to Health Minister George Smitherman, represents, "the best expression of Canadian values."
Huh? How's that? Are we Canadians such wussies that we actually enjoy watching our parents die on waiting lists?
In any other civilized country in the world, if you told patients they would have to wait months for cancer treatment, there would be riots in the streets.
In Canada, we're just too polite for our own good.
In other provinces such as B.C., Alberta and Quebec, private clinics have already sprung up. Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling will simply give more legitimacy to their existence.
"We have had some who have suggested that they are going to come into Ontario to provide services just like that and we showed them a bill," Smitherman said. One of the Liberals' first laws enshrined one-tier medicine and banned queue-jumping.
The message is clear: Change the system -- or change our anthem.
Oh, Canada. We stand in line for thee.
Bookmark.
(((.)))
Amazing how the media, courts and the people are beginning to rouse from our slumber- most people are now starting to realize that human life is more important than socialist ideology. The next step is to nudge them towards the next logical step, which is the universal truth that human freedom is more importan than either. This ruling is good news for health care, good news for Canada, and good news for the cause of liberty. We MUST get Stephen Harper on board with this because if we stick to our guns we can bury the Libs without ever again having to mention their sorry record of corruption. The Conservative Party is once again being handed the country on a silver platter and we cannot afford to punt it back yet again to Martin's gang.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
If Hillery had her way, she would have setup the same disastrous single-payer system in the US; then where would Canadian's go for medical treatment?
Hillarycare would be the ticket out of poverty for several Caribbean islands.
Then the socialists would move to strict border controls to prevent people from seeing an out-of-plan doctor. Come to think of it, this might be the only way we will ever control our borders.
As gratifying as it may be to make witty remarks about the damage modern Liberalism has done to my country, this ruling has presented conservatives in both of our nations with an opportunity to prove that our philosophy is the best way to protect the right to life and liberty enshrined in in the constitutions of both our countries. Conservatives in Canada now have the opportunity to prove that it is neither cruel nor unpatriotic to claim that social programs do more harm than good, while Conservatives in America have the opportunity silence the Left whenever they try to cite Canada as a shining beacon for all that collectivism works.
It already is. Health care fraud by non-residents has become a serious issue here over the past few decades. Unfortunately all efforts to call for a serious crackdown on the perpetrators get stifled by the fear of being labelled a bigot.
Ontario will never pass a law allowing the proletariat the same equality as their overlords have achieved. And where Ontario stands firm, the Liberals will continue in office, regardless.
Anyone really believe that Mats Sundin waits two years for arthroscopic surgery? Anyone ever see Dalton McGinty at Toronto Western in the waiting room full of the sniveling children of refugees, waiting 12 hours to have a cut sewn up or to have one of the few doctors look at his child's broken arm?
Only when Ontarians actually begin dying in numbers that will attrack international media attention (for example, in the next plague), will matters in Canada begin to change. Even then, the overlords will be proclaiming the Gospel According to Baghdad Bob, that there's nothing wrong with the health car system of Canada and Ontarians are not dying .... but they will be broadcasting from Florida.
"Only when Ontarians actually begin dying in numbers that will attrack international media attention (for example, in the next plague)"
Already happened with SARs and Canada was the only country that let it spread thanks to its inefficient system.
Wait til West Nile hots up (there's a move afoot to file a class action by the victims that died in the last round) -- especially since the GTA have a no-pesticides law in place.
We have all been to the Motor Vehicle Administration. We have stood in line for Tag and Title work. We get to the front of the line the Clerk spots something wrong we go back to the rear of the line after fixing it and start all over. The Motor vehicle Admonistration knows we have no choice, They are the only game in town, If we dont like it , what can we do about it.
Well now we have tag and tile company's that we can pay a bonus to and get things done in a timely manner without the long line .
This compares well to Canadas health care system
I would disagree. We did a far better job than the ChiComms (who precipitated the outbreak by lying about its existence), but I concede your point that our system was a hindrance to our response.
We agree.
Wait just a minute there.
Isn't it the case that we Americans are lectured by our "more enlightened" countrymen and by the moral superiors who reside in the Great White North (and please understand that I understand that not all Canadians think that they are our moral superiors) that the Canadian Health Care system is the system we should have here in the USA?
Yes. Which is why you owe it to yourselves to remind every liberal you meet that even our Supreme Court has gone on the record saying our much-vaunted system is a failure and that the government's blind adherence to ideology is killing people.
More to that point: I just paid a visit to DUmmieland and there is absolutely NO mention of the decision. Not in Breaking News, not in their Canada forum, not in their Health Care forum. The American Left is yet again in denial and yet again being woefully ignorant of the Canadian mindset. They are trying to pretend that there is no huge dissatisfaction with our health care system and they are in denial of the fact that we are now realizing that the problem has little to do with money and a lot to do with principle. For my part, here in Canada I will continue to point out to my contrymen that in spite of the similarities between our Liberals and your Democrats the fact remains that Canada's best friends in the Oval Office have all been Republicans and that Canada's worst enemies in the White House and Congress have all been Democrats. And every time a fellow Canadian boasts (rightly IMO) about our role in the abolition of slavery in your country I will point out that it was a Republican president who finally got rid of it and that it was the Democrats who supported it and who were enacting Jim Crow legislation and encouraging the lynchings. I will also point out to any Canadian or American I meet that our role in the Abolitionist struggle had nothing to do with Yank-bashing and everything to do with the fact that the Underground Railroad was inspired by the old-fashioned Canadian value of our hatred for bullies. I will further point out that our efforts played a part in the painful process in America of discovering, examining and ultimately correcting a fatal flaw in their Constitution and over the ensuing century and a half our American friends have handsomely repaid us for the favour. And finally I will tell everyone whom I meet that we are doing the world an enormous favour by serving as an example of how two ornery, cranky, boorish, obnoxious neighbours can share an unguarded border without once sending our soldiers across it to kill people and break things.
You might also point out that, during the debate on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it was Democratic Senators who opposed the legislation, and it was Democrats who filibustered against it. It took the efforts of the Senate Minority Leader at the time (Sen. Everett Dirksen) to pass the landmark act.
"And finally I will tell everyone whom I meet that we are doing the world an enormous favour by serving as an example of how two ornery, cranky, boorish, obnoxious neighbours can share an unguarded border without once sending our soldiers across it to kill people and break things"
Ornery? Maybe Cranky? Sometimes
Boorish? Compared to what other countries?
Obnoxious? I hardly think so.
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