The Scarlet C

Following up on this post from July 9, it seems that Canada is slouching towards the inevitable: admitting that their much beloved government-run health care system simply cannot provide all the care that their citizens need. 

Canadians have long prized their public healthcare system as a reflection of national values, and have looked askance at the inequities of private medical care in the United States.

But now that the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled private health insurers should be allowed to compete with the public system, the future of Canadian healthcare is a question mark.

In the short term, the decision may light a fire under provincial governments to improve chronic problems, especially long wait times for surgeries, tests, and treatments. Some experts believe the ruling could eventually spawn a parallel, private healthcare system here.

“For our government, it’s a very strong indictment of the way they’ve handled the system,” says Dr. Albert Schumacher, president of the Canadian Medical Association. “I hope it will move us forward in the debate. ‘Private’ has always been used by politicians as a very evil word, associated with America and for-profit. But it’s not necessarily so.

Gee, rank anti-Americanism as the basis for domestic social policy.  Unfortunately all too typical in Canada and Europe.  For the specifics on the case that behind the Canadian court decision, read the original post linked above.  For me, however, the most fascinating aspect to this article was this.

For many Canadians, private healthcare wears the scarlet A - for America.

“There is no political support for American-style healthcare,” says Michael McBane, coordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition, a healthcare advocacy group. He says he hopes provinces will toughen laws to prevent private insurers from entering the market.

Allowing people to buy private health insurance violates fundamental rights, McBane says, because not everyone will be able to afford it.

“You can’t discriminate based on the size of your wallet on something as important as healthcare,” McBane says. “I would say this is an aberration and the democratic process will correct it.”

I don’t think I have ever, in my entire life, seen a more clear example of the fundamental idiocy of the socialist mideset than this statement above.  I have said countless times on this blog that the goal of socialized health care is not to provide the best level of care to patients, it’s to guarantee that everyone in the country, regardless of income, receives the same level of crappy care.  Nobody can complain about it because nobody is getting anything better or worse than anything else.  And here a “healthcare advocate” has actually claimed that allowing citizens to use their own money to purchase superior healthcare is an “aberration” and a “violation of fundamental rights.”

In other words, your right to purchase healthcare using your own money so that you don’t have to wait six months for an MRI or spend 18 months in agony waiting for a hip replacement is a violation of the fundamental rights of some unemployed loser to receive the same level of care that you do.

This is why I am so opposed to implementing a Canadian-style healthcare system in this country.  Sure it will guarantee that everyone in America would have coverage, but it would come at the cost of ruining what is unquestionably the best healthcare system in the world.

Allyson Lange, a federal government employee, says she would support a parallel, private health system but doesn’t expect dramatic changes.

“There would be too much opposition,” Ms. Lange says. “We see a lot of what goes on in the US - people go broke because they have a health issue.”

Did you catch the fundamental flaw in this statement?  These people went broke because they received treatment.  Yes they had to pay for it and most likely had to file bankruptcy, but they still received the treatment.  Canada’s solution to preventing people from going broke over health care matters is simply to deny them the care in the first place. 

Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko, is going to be an expose of the American healthcare system, during which he will undoubtedly hail the superiority of the Canadian model.  Do you think he’ll mention the monumental failings of the Canadian system, or will he conveniently file off the rough edges like he always does?

Update: Ooops!  I forgot to put the link in to the original article.  Here it is.