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The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care
City Journal ^ | Summer, 2007 | David Gratzer, M.D.

Posted on 07/16/2009 4:59:47 PM PDT by T.L.Sink

Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited FIVE days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything I thought I knew about Canadian health care. I soon discovered the problems went well beyond overcrowded ERs. Patients had to wait for practically any diagnostic test or procedure, such as the man with persistent pain from a hernia operation whom we referred to a pain clinic - with a THREE YEAR wait list; or the woman needing a sleep study to diagnose what seemed like sleep apnea, who faced a TWO YEAR delay; or the woman with breast cancer who needed to wait four months for radiation therapy, when the standard of care was four weeks. At a time when Canada's population was aging and needed more care, not less, cost-crunching bureaucrats had reduced the size of medical school classes, closed hospitals, and capped physician's fees, resulting in hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for needed treatment - patients who suffered and, in some cases, died from delay. Nor were the problems I identified unique to Canada - they characterized ALL government-run health systems. Consider the recent British controversy over a cancer patient who tried to get an appointment with a specialist, only to have it cancelled - 48 times! More than 1 million Britons must wait for care, with 200,000 in line for longer than SIX MONTHS.

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
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The most interesting thing about the article is that it describes how the nations with some form of a socialized health care system - Canada, Britain, France and even Sweden - realize it's been disastrous and are moving AWAY from that towards privatized, free-market models. The supreme irony is Obama and the Democrats have us moving INTO such a system. And this at a time when have right before us clear evidence that such a system will provide inferior patient care and astronomical taxes.
1 posted on 07/16/2009 4:59:47 PM PDT by T.L.Sink
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To: T.L.Sink

NOTE: The Liberal elite are wealthy and DON’T STAND IN LINE.

Its all about political power and taking away health care from the non-elite and giving it to the losers.


2 posted on 07/16/2009 5:04:43 PM PDT by whitedog57
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To: whitedog57

“Its all about political power and taking away health care from the non-elite and giving it to the losers.”

Its about political power period. Toe the line or you will suffer.


3 posted on 07/16/2009 5:11:58 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: whitedog57
NOTE: The Liberal elite are wealthy and DON’T STAND IN LINE. Its all about political power and taking away health care from the non-elite and giving it to the losers.

Obama & the Dhimmicrats know this. That's why they have ELITE health care. And they're expecting all us conservative peasants to go die quietly in the desert.

4 posted on 07/16/2009 5:12:39 PM PDT by kromike
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: T.L.Sink

an old article but right on point


6 posted on 07/16/2009 5:25:55 PM PDT by GeronL (UnitedCitizen.Blogspot.Com --------- United Citizens Nation! ------------- Join Today!)
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To: T.L.Sink

7 posted on 07/16/2009 5:30:36 PM PDT by Kukai
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To: T.L.Sink

Folks, the answer is very simple. Mobilize your family & friends, stage a protest with as many people as you can persuade to go to the steps of the Capital, and make yourself heard.

Secondly, make sure you and everybody you know votes for a CONgresscritter in ‘10 that is NOT an incumbent. I don’t care if that non-incumbent is a communist or some other specie. Get the entrenched idiots out of office and MAKE THEM AFRAID OF THE BALLOT BOX.

Right now over 96% are returned to office every election. That MUST STOP !

If there is no longer an “elite” in CONgress, they won’t vote one thing for us and another thing for themselves.


8 posted on 07/16/2009 5:41:18 PM PDT by nicola_tesla (www.fedupusa.org)
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To: whitedog57

The liberal foreign elite don’t stand in line because they come to the USA for the best and most efficient health care.


9 posted on 07/16/2009 5:57:32 PM PDT by T.L.Sink
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To: Kukai

Great cartoon! I’m laughing as I type. “Many a truth is said in jest.” - Shakespeare


10 posted on 07/16/2009 6:01:17 PM PDT by T.L.Sink
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To: nicola_tesla

I think you’ve made a good argument for term limits which I support. We have it for the highest office in the land - the presidency - why not for those lower political hacks who think they’re entitled to a lifetime tenure of office?


11 posted on 07/16/2009 6:07:50 PM PDT by T.L.Sink
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To: T.L.Sink

Great article. One of the clubs the socialized medicine liberals like to whack us over the head with is the life expectancy canard, that ours is lower than even Canada’s and France’s.

When they factor out automobile accidents and homicides, Americans outlive citizens of every other western country.


12 posted on 07/16/2009 7:17:46 PM PDT by rlmorel ("The Road to Serfdom" by F.A.Hayek - Read it...today.)
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To: long hard slogger; FormerACLUmember; Harrius Magnus; hocndoc; parousia; Hydroshock; skippermd; ...


Socialized Medicine aka Universal Health Care PING LIST

FReepmail me if you want to be added to or removed from this ping list.

**This is a high volume ping list! (sign of the times)**


13 posted on 07/16/2009 8:19:01 PM PDT by socialismisinsidious ( The socialist income tax system turns US citizens into beggars or quitters!)
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To: rlmorel

Good observation. There are certainly many factors other than just health care that influence life expectancy.


14 posted on 07/16/2009 8:24:07 PM PDT by T.L.Sink
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To: socialismisinsidious

There was a guy on Dennis Prager today who had a sister in Canada. He had kidney cancer and she had another type of cancer. He describe the long process for treatment in Canada, that caused her to come to the states for care. His treatment in the US was diagnosed and he had surgery within a week.


15 posted on 07/16/2009 8:25:00 PM PDT by nufsed (Release the birth certificate, passport and school records.)
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To: T.L.Sink

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw


16 posted on 07/16/2009 11:44:32 PM PDT by mojitojoe (All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.)
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To: T.L.Sink

We don’t have to wait for legislation on term limits. We can impose our own - vote them out ASAP. All of them.


17 posted on 07/17/2009 5:39:15 AM PDT by nicola_tesla (www.fedupusa.org)
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To: mojitojoe

Thanks a million for that YouTube clip which really makes the point of the whole post. I think the fact that three proven political and moral frauds - Michael Moore, John Edwards, and Bill Clinton - support socialized health care speaks volumes for why it’s just a Big Government power grab. I think the only honest guy is SOCIALIST Bernie Sanders because his political agenda is at least very clear!


18 posted on 07/17/2009 5:55:08 AM PDT by T.L.Sink
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To: nicola_tesla

True enough. But just in case the voters fail to vote them out it would be nice to have the force of law behind us. By the way, we’ve seen what happens with no term limits for Supreme Court justices. Mark Levin, in his book, documents how some have been on the bench who are senile, mentally deranged or in other ways too physically or emotionally incapacitated to even make such enormously important decisions affecting the American people.


19 posted on 07/17/2009 6:12:27 AM PDT by T.L.Sink
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To: T.L.Sink
The most interesting thing about the article is that it describes how the nations with some form of a socialized health care system - Canada, Britain, France and even Sweden - realize it's been disastrous and are moving AWAY from that towards privatized, free-market models. The supreme irony is Obama and the Democrats have us moving INTO such a system. And this at a time when have right before us clear evidence that such a system will provide inferior patient care and astronomical taxes.

And our giant push toward it is on. Did it even save the other nations any money? It is ironic, sad and sickening.

And with many Americans working for less, if they're working at all now, who's to pay all these astronomical taxes? Will those who lost their jobs through no fault of their own be at the bottom of that list?

One thing we have learned from other nations' forays into the hell of socialized medicine. It works just fine - if you manage to stay healthy. It also helps if you can save the funds and travel out of country for help.

20 posted on 07/17/2009 8:28:43 AM PDT by fortunecookie (Please pray for Anna, age 7, who waits for a new kidney.)
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