Hillary's Dream Will Be Your Nightmare, A Canadian Warns [re:socialized health care]

CNSNews.com ^ | January 24, 2003 | Rachel Marsden

[D. Miles]

Hillary's socialized medicine is alive and well in the USA! All one has to do is look to TN to see the blueprint for her plan, it is called tenncare! The state is drowning in debt, providers go unpaid, people wait on lists for care because some providers have opted out of the nightmare. Rural hospital are clsoing, clinics are closing, and doctors are going elsewhere.

But not one official will admit the failure and scrap the program and return to the medicaid program. They keep throwing good money down the rathole, with most of the funding going to administrative costs.

Wakeup folks, look at tenncare very carefully and weigh the results before you jump up and say yes we need a program that covers all! We need government to get out of healthcare and then we might see costs drop and care be affordable for all.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The true measure of the Canadian health care system can be taken in the hospitals and clinics in Duluth, MN.

[alisasny]

SHare your rant with these people...

In my home province of British Columbia, 24 people died in one year while waiting for heart surgery. On the other side of the country, kids in desperate need of heart surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto were being sent home. At Moncton Hospital in New Brunswick, patients were being kept in hallways and closets because of a lack of beds. In some cases, ambulance workers spoke of how they would drive dying patients from one emergency room to another in search of available beds or adequate equipment.

Sounds like they would all agree with you....< sarc off >

[Protagoras]

Hillary made the mistake of taking to large a bite on her way to communism. Bush's plan of incremental steps, ala new prescription entitlemants through the existing socialist system, will work much better.

Remember, only a Republican could go to China and only a Democrat could reform welfare. A Republican can socialize the country much easier than a Democrat.

[Protagoras]

You can fight your fights against socialized healthcare any way you like, but leave us Canadians out of it with all your lies. We like our system just fine, thank you.

The author is from Canada, your fight is with him. If there was a lie, it was by a Canadian. So leave us out of your internal piss fights.

It would also be better if you addressed them on a point by point basis when you try to refute them.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Each state in the US has an agency charged with reviewing the need for these costly machines and services. Hospitals cannot just buy an MRI because the hospital down the street has one. Likewise the need for special surgery teams, "heart centers," etc., is reviewed for its need in the community it serves. This is a congressional mandate based on the fact that our hospitals care for Medicare (federal) and Medicaid (state paid) as well as private coverage patients. Without the agency's approval, federal and state money is withheld.
What Canada has done to control costs is to put in a ridged system of rationing with the US dialed in as the unofficial relief valve. If the US system did not exist, the Canadian system would fail completely.

[Protagoras]

Just wondering why a Canadian socialist is posting to an American conservative website.

I'm guessing you aren't any more Canadian than I am.

And you can't read.

[Protagoras]

This guy is being pretty quiet. I'm guessing he is trying to avoid the big ZOT.

If he appears on the moderators or Robinson's radar screen, I'm guessing he's gone. But I'll never tell, it's nice to have the ocassional commie here for target practice. :^}

[alisasny]

Rachel Marsden

Rachels Place on the Web

Rachel is a Canadian-born journalist who has worked in both broadcast and print in the US and Canada. She has hosted call-in talk radio shows in Vancouver, BC, and has produced the nationally-syndicated "BQ View" with Blanquita Cullum at Radio America in Washington, DC. Rachel has anchored and produced news programs in Vancouver, and has worked at ABC News in New York as a production associate and assistant to Connie Chung.

Rachel holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Vancouver's Simon Fraser University, and completed her broadcast journalism training at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. She is currently pursuing post-baccalaureate studies in Law and Criminology.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I knew a guy in Duluth who served on Miller-Dwan Hospital's board. You would be astonished at the number of folks who drive down from Thunder Bay for care in an American hospital.

[Protagoras]

You would be astonished at the number of folks who drive down from Thunder Bay for care in an American hospital.

I'm not even surprised much less astonished. I know it to be true.

I had a long discussion with a Canadian guy who used to be in my golf foursome 10 yrs ago or so. He always waxed poetic about his homeland and their superior systems up there. He particularly loved the so called health care system.

When I asked him why his sister was in a Detriot hospital, he said she needed surgury. I replied that I was sorry, but that wasn't my question, what I meant was, why isn't she in a hospital closer to home. He sheepishly replied that she coundn't get into one. They were afraid she might die while she waited.

I felt sorry for him, but he never could bring himself to admit the real problem.

As an aside, I once asked him why he lived in the states. He admitted that he couldn't find a job at home.

He said he loved this country despite it's shortcomings. When I asked if he was going to become a citizen, he said no, he didn't want to give up his entitlements at home.

Same reason Mexicans come here. Sad as hell.

[IvanT]

There have been incidents of sick people being driven around from hospital to hospital up here in Ontario from time to time, that is definately no lie. The reason behind that had more to do with the Ontario gov't cutting costs in the 90's than anything else. Although there are some serious issues with regards to socialised medicine. I think that this issue, along with several others, I.e. gun control, are things America should look at when considering such measures for themselves. Canada is very much a microcosm of the U.S. But plain and simply, if socialised medicine is failing in a small country such as ours, which hasn't really been proven, then the Yanks should take notice, because there's certainly cause for alarm, so I wouldn't blame them for using us as an example - it's only prudent. In the long run, should socialised medicine prove to be a failed endeavour in such a small nation, I can't imagine it could ever work in a nation as massive as the U.S.

[Protagoras]

It won't work anywhere because it is based on a faulty premise. But that is beside the point.

The point is that this country was founded on the basis of individual rights and limited government. Socialized medicine is incompatible with that ideal.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I visit Canada three or four times a year. Calgary, Regina and Toronto for the most part. I learned a while back that the health care issue is not a good discussion topic, mainly because my Canadian counterparts believe they're not getting a fair shake from their own government. They don't needed to be reminded by us Yanks.

[Protagoras]

They don't needed to be reminded by us Yanks.

Precisely why this article being written by a Canadian is relevant.

I reserve the right to argue it with them on my own soil when they bring it up however. And this site is open to the world even though it is based in the USA. It is surely fair game here.

Socialism and fascism are both evil and many who participate here advocate both in one degree or another. And then call themselves conservatives. I expose 'em every chance I get.

[VeritatisSplendor]

What would Hillary's Hollywood friends do under Hillarycare? Just wondering.

Mrs VS