Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Dear Liberal Friends

Tell me how ObamaCare is gonna be different here, and if the words "hope" or "change" escape your lips, I'm liable to slap you.



If greed gets me better care than this, I'll take greed, thanks.

UPDATED: I thought this video was more entertaining than anything. I shouldn't have been so snide about it, I suppose, but I think the screen shot sort of captures the un-seriousness of it. Been getting some feedback from people who think I'm thinking this is a definitive video proving how bad Canadian health care is. I think of this as a sort of Michael Moore-ish piece for our side, much less than an academic or even serious attack on universal health care.

This
, I think, is much more effective in demonstrating the inefficiencies of our neighbors to the Great White North:

Dany Mercado, a leukemia patient from Kitchener, Ontario, is cancer-free after getting a bone marrow transplant at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.

Told by Canadian doctors in 2007 he couldn't have the procedure there, Mercado's family and doctor appealed to Ontario health officials, who agreed to let him have the transplant in Detroit in January 2008.

The Karmanos Institute is one of several Detroit health facilities that care for Canadians needing services not widely available in Canada.

If you want a movie that more seriously addresses the problems with both the Canadian and, to a lesser extent, American health care systems, I can't recommend this movie enough. It's a great story about life, family, and death.

1 comment:

Amy Y said...

Ok first of all... what American doctor clinic is open on Sunday? I have to go to Urgent Care or the ER when I am sick on the weekend. And I've never been to the ER (in several states) where I didn't wait at least 2 to 10 hours.

Secondly, as far as I know the new health plan wouldn't take away any doctors or close any hospitals. So I'm not sure why in America the wait times would change a lot? If they change slightly because more people have access to health care, I'm Ok with that.

Third, if it's really that bad in Canada and the citizens aren't happy with it, why haven't they voted to eliminate social health care and go back to corporate, for profit health care?

And fourth... I'm not sure why everyone keeps assuming that our socialized health care system is going to be just like Canada's? I've said it before, but surely we are smart enough to figure out a system that would work a little better, learning from others' mistakes?