Our progressive neighbors to the north (Canada, not the DPRK) are light years ahead of the USA in the health care arena. But The One is single-mindedly driving us to catch up quick. So, let’s dispense with all the political bickering and hear from a genuine Canadian on what we have to look forward to one day soon:
When the pain in Christina Woodkey’s legs became so severe that she could no long hike or cross-country ski, she went to her local health clinic. The Calgary, Canada, resident was told she’d need to see a hip specialist. Because the problem was not life-threatening, however, she’d have to wait about a year.
So wait she did.
In January, the hip doctor told her that a narrowing of the spine was compressing her nerves and causing the pain. She needed a back specialist. The appointment was set for Sept. 30. “When I was given that date, I asked when could I expect to have surgery,” said Woodkey, 72. “They said it would be a year and a half after I had seen this doctor.”
So this month, she drove across the border into Montana and got the $50,000 surgery done in two days.
“I don’t have insurance. We’re not allowed to have private health insurance in Canada,” Woodkey said. “It’s not going to be easy to come up with the money. But I’m happy to say the pain is almost all gone.”
Alrighty then. Sign me up. Besides, there’s always Mexico.
The “new medicine” that Mr. Obama and his Democrat minions are trying to force down the country’s throat is going to kill the patient. Great example, John. Is it folly to think we can stop it?
For movie buffs, perhaps you saw the grisly flic “No Country For Old Men”, academy award winner and all…… I thought it was one of the best I’d seen for a long, long time if one looked below the surface gris. just a little. A scene near the end when Tommy Lee Jones goes to visit his old friend, former cop disabled by a thug who shot him and was just released from prison to see if he is going to seek revenge on the thug is the best scene of the movie and best dialogue too. The old guy who lives alone far out in the desert in an isolated shack-type hovel tells Tommy that he’s given up on such thoughts, saying something to the effect, ‘it’s coming”…….. like a slow tidal wave…..(ugly, inevitable social change, he’s referring to)….. and comments with direct clipped words about destruction of our education system, partental authority, crime……. moral values…..all in a few words said much better than I can say it here……. and he concludes……’for any man to think he can stop it, it’s pure vanity……..”
They were and remain haunting words…………and it’s worth seeing the movie again just for that scene……
John, It’s funny you mention the media (or loss there of). I happened to catch a bit of an interview with the infamous Micheal Moore (one of the most left individuals on the planet). He pointed out that Goldman Sachs received 12.5 billion dollars of the AIG bailout money. Goldman Sachs said it basically deserved the money, though they did not need it, because that would cover their loss should AIG fail. Of course we all know that AIG then gave out 165 million in bonuses. Which this administration said they did not know about. Until later we learned Timmy (Turbo-Tax) Geither helped negotiate the deal when he was with the FED (prior to becoming the treasury sec). Now Moore did not attack this administration as he has the Bush admin he merely said he was pointing out the facts. The largest recipient of campaign dollars from both AIG and Goldman Sachs? Barrack Obama.
More glimpse’s into the future.
Valerie Jarrett, Chicago resident, lawyer, business woman and civic leader (sic) who is also best friend to BO and now senior WH advisor and assistant to Mr. Obama for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, yeah, really. Her former company in Chicago has the account for organizing any potential Olympic activity in Chicago. I think she’s the same one who praised Van Jones and said how much “we” admire him and have been watching him and are happy to have him on our team.” Yeah. Oh, and almost forgot, Jarrett was born in Iran. Yeah, but I’m sure there’s nothing to that.
Note too, please, that Chicago is the residential home of Mr. Obama……… you know………… the huge home that he got such a great deal on, like half price, plus was given a strip of land from the bordering lot that rendered that lot bordering buffer-lot unbuildable…..all at very reduced prices, thanks to Mr. A. Rezco, now convicted former friend and supporter/fund-raiser to Mr. Obama (convicted on 16 of 24 counts of fraud and bribery 2008). Coincidentally, Mr Rezco is Syrian, BTW. And now we find that Mr. Obama has somehow found time in his busy schedule to travel to Denmark, in the midst of and during all the other pressing domestic and foreign policy issues, and indeed even war-fighting issues, to throw his hat in the ring in hopes of bringing the Olympic games to Chicago. Hummm. Chicago of all places. Wonder if he would be there on behalf of San Antonio, if San Antonio were a potential venue?
I’m confused. Is all this just a coincidence?
Another unrelated and surely just a coincidental story, the school that was filmed with the students singing an ode to Barack Hussein Obama, you know the one with the Marxist lyrics about equal pay for equal work (from each according to his means, to each according to his needs)…………Yeah, the one where the principal said she would do it again if she could…….yeah, that one……… that school district is now complaining that the video of the performance was taken without permission. Huh? A parent needs permission from the school district to film their child in a school activity? Hummmmmm……
Is this sorta the like the same thing as when Humana criticized the Dem’s proposed health legislation, that one of the authors of the legislation, whose name starts with a “B”, threatened to have Humana “investigated”. Would these two things constitute First Amendment violation issues, maybe……..you know………..the freedom of speech thingy???
What’s going on here? As some have commented before on this blog……is this called connecting the dots? Or is connecting the dots something else – something else that is required to be outside of Barack Hussein Obama activities?
And while I’m at it……. just another observation………… of the 7 senators who voted to preserve Acorn funding………..two of the seven, (that’s both) were from ILLinois – Obama territory. When questioned as to why he voted to preserve funding…….. he commented that in his experience someone had to be found guilty before they were hung. No shit. He actually said that. Nothing about the multiple pieces of documentation/evidence that proved the activity. Oh my. And oh, BTW, one of those Senator’s was Mr. Burris, you know the guy who was appointed to replace Mr. Obama – no coincidence that they are both black is there? Are we PC here John? Can I say that? And that Mr. Burris, post-appointment, was found to have lied in his testimony to the ILLinois legislature that led to his appointment, but when he promised not to run for reelection he was not censured and was allowed to remain a US Senator for the remainder of the term. Which will mean in addition to all the rest of the implications, then, that he will draw full pension as a US Senator for the rest of his life – the pension that we will get to pay for. Wow. Just wow.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. All of this, and much, much more, obviously, in a mere 8 months. I wonder what the next 3+ years will bring?
In the post above, excuse me please, the Senator who commented that someone had to be found guilty before they were hung is Senator Durbin (D/IL). The same senator who testified on the Senate floor that American soldiers in Iraq were attempting genocide on the Iraqi people. Yeah, really. I guess that’s also free speech because he not only wasn’t censured (as was Mr. Joe Wilson, (Rep/SoCaro) for only calling Mr Obama a liar) Mr. Durbin never apologized, as Mr Wilson of course did. Mr. Biden said he was embarrassed by what Mr Wilson did, but he apparently wasn’t embarrassed by Mr. Durbin’s vote to sustain funds for Acorn nor his comments against the US military and forces fighting in Iraq. Pretty amazing stuff, huh?
Help me here. does any of this stuff constitute what they call a “double standard”? Also, is it maybe a a form of hypocrisy? I’m really confused.
Further comment to Frank:
Did you catch Mr. Moore’s comment about capitalism being evil? When questioned as to if he saw a conflict between his condemnation of capitalism and the fact that he had become and is fabulously wealthy, a millionaire many times over, through his films that attack and vilify the methods and practices of his own country, particularly the conservative movement? His response? Glancing at the camera that was filming his comment, “Yeah, that is a sort of dilemma.”
As some other astute observer commented recently, I wonder if Mr Moore will now decide to give away all that cash to the poor and downtrodden he is so eager to raise up and provide for, similar to how Mr. Ted Kennedy did with his wealth.
Oh, wait. Sorry, that was our money Kennedy gave away, not his, wasn’t it? Sorry for my mistake on that one.
Smack: No-one ever said Moore was not smart. In my mind the only reason he pointed out the obvious was to try and win-over more centrists and conservatives to actually (spend money) view his farse of a movie. And, attack and villify his own methods. As they say if you want to hide something hide it in plain sight.
The video was not shot at the production but rather while the children were practicing the one minute song that was part of an hour long program during black history month.
It wasn’t a very good song. Neither was this one that school kids sang about George W. Bush’s response to Katrina in 2006:
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/17/katrina-song/
I read all these comments quite frequently and always like to hear everyone’s point of view. I have never commented before but felt like I had something to say about this issue. I don’t know anyone else’s background, but I am someone who has been personally affected by serious healthcare issues with my loved ones. My most beautiful daughter was born with Spina Bifida. Now being only 17 years old at the time and scared to death, I had to turn to Medicaid to help with insurance. In the 12 years since being on a government run healthcare system, I have never once been told my child cannot see the doctor….the best doctors, at top medical facilities. Her care has been nothing short of a miracle and a blessing. No one has ever turned us away, delayed treatment or refused seeing us because we were on a government funded program. And still to this day, when I have access to the supposed best health insurance and finest plans that companies can offer, my daughter still recieves Medicaid and sees outstanding physicians. And not one patient with private insurance received less care or a delayed appointment because the doctor was seeing someone like her. I don’t know what we would have done had this not been something that our great country does. Is it fair that people who are offered the best insurance and work hard everyday have to chip in to help those less fortunate? I hope the answer is yes. Because I will spend the rest of my days helping people who were in my same situation.
Now what Obama is offering and suggesting is another way for American’s to find medical care for situations much like my daughter. A way to care for themselves and their familes without losing everything. I have a family friend who purchases her own insurance as her husband is a contractor in the construction business. Her son has a congenital heart defect and has been to surgery three times in his short 11 months and been hospitalized for 6 weeks. Since the husband lost his business as the economy worsened, they could no longer afford this plan that promised to take care of them. They have lost their house, cars and all of their savings to pay for this sick little boy. What if a public option allowed for a situation like this not to become so dire? They were not poor or illegals or anything else I have heard ridiclous people say. They were hard working Americans that were affected by a lack of options for medical care.
I believe that healthcare is a right and should be afforded to everyone. Our country was founded on the belief that we are ONE nation that should not be divided but have shared liberties for all. No one is trying to take away your right to see a doctor and in a reasonable time frame. All we are asking for is everyone, ONE nation, have access to that too. I am thankful everyday that our government helped my daughter to live and I thank each person that works hard as well to make that happen.
Thanks for commenting Lauren. I hope you will continue to contribute to the discussions here. You make some fair points, but I couldn’t help but thinking that the existing system worked very well for you. I’m tempted to say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
Now, I recognize that there could always be ways to improve and I’m not opposed to that. What I’m against is a massive government intrusion that leaves us in a situation like our Canadian neighbors have to deal with.
As Joni Mitchell so aptly put it: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone…”
Basic is pretty good up here but that is where it ends. If somebody needs something beyond basic it gets a little rough.
But it IS broken. As Lauren pointed out millions of good, hardworking people are going broke in this country just because they get sick. She and many others agree that EVERYONE should have access to the coverage she got for her child.
And I think the point is also being made that, contrary to what many people say, not everything the government runs is bad. Really? So our schools, military, police department, fire department, highways, state park, etc are all bad? If our government is so bad, then why do we tell people the USA is the best country in the world? I’m not saying the government it the answer to everything but I do think we have a pretty good one and one that does some very good things. It is not perfect of course.
So the public option is bad? Why? Because it will hurt the profits of these wonderful insurance companies that are making billions driving people like Lauren’s friend broke with high rates and busted coverage. Heaven forbid that they get some competition and in the process we help some people in this country that really need help.
And Obama has said our system won’t be like Canada. We will have private insurance with a public OPTION.
This country is too great for people to go broke beacuse they get sick or die becaue they don’t have any money. It isn’t your right to own a house or a car but in the USA it should be a right to have acess to health care in all situations.
It is unfortunate that many people who have grand and positive observations about the greatness of the USA are either too young to have a complete perspective, probably too uninformed to really know and perhaps without the experience of travel to gain insights to the truth of what the USA really is vis-Ã -vis other pretty good countries.
The great promise of the USA has been squandered in favor of immediate gratification, personal irresponsibility and the constant pressure by a sizeable segment of the citizen base to not be held accountable for personal actions. In our quest to be truly great we seem to have made ourselves into something less than we were largely by leaning on the government for every sort of bail-out solution to all of our problems, now the health care one as well. The decline of this once great country is well defined by what has happened to the American family and the public school systems which pretty much tell it all. America’s greatness, if there is a true greatness anymore, lies primarily in the ‘opportunity’ to get ahead which is better than that in most other countries. Indeed, so many immigrants run to the US for that purpose alone and quickly develop talents for skirting the tax laws by doing untraceable cash business and other ways to maximize their income – it’s easy to do and easy to see such exploitation happening all around them, so why not. Compared to where many of these people came from, that aspect of the American culture is often too good to pass up. But these same immigrants are not nearly so enchanted with most of the rest of the culture. They willingly take the free ride of emergency treatment in General Hospitals while they privately acknowledge that if’s a practice that will probably lead the country to ruin, given enough time.
Personally I am mystified by the frequent comments that health care is a “right” and I am amazed when I see this touted by otherwise bright people. What makes it a right? Ok then, if a right, that right should be interpreted as meaning that if you accept responsibility for yourself and your family you have the right to work for a living and buy whatever health insurance you choose. I accept that basic, life sustaining health care should be given to those without means, but someone has to pay for the best medical care, it’s very expensive and will remain so – I do not believe that should be shouldered by the general public. If the government is involved in any of this at all it should be by a federal law that requires open competition by health care companies in every state. Aside from that, health care law can be managed at the state and local level and the federal government should keep their meddling noses out of it as established law requires them to do, BTW. Of course this law is being ignored just as so much of other established law is being ignored by an out of control congress.
I grew up in a home with 5 siblings, with a divorced mother who had a 5th grade education. My mother worked in an ice-cream factory for most of my youth, taking a bus to work and back everyday in all weather. Our health insurance that she could barely afford was with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and it came through her employment but she still had to pay the premiums. We never had a dime of welfare or any hand-outs whatsoever for anything and got virtually zero support from a divorced and, in this sense, irresponsible father. We lived in a public housing project and were thankful for the housing. None of my siblings were ever incarcerated or addicted to any substances and all grew up to have their own jobs and families and yes, to buy or otherwise qualify through their employers for their own health care programs.
When I was a child I was bed-fast for three years and sick for three or four more with a seriously life-threatening and debilitating illness. My mother’s Blue Cross insurance through her employer in her ice-cream factory job paid most of it, my mom the rest out of her meager income. During that time the frills of living, what few their were, were cut back even more as she further belt-tightened to cope with the situation. We came through it. Thankfully, no one died and everyone grew up to appreciate what life is and how hard we all have to work to make it and grateful for the opportunity to be able to.
One would think that given the truly marginal situation I grew up in that I should be first in line to support a national public health care system – but nothing could be farther from reality. This is solely because I have witnessed how the Federal Government can’t do anything right extended to even policing the actions of their own member’s and holding them accountable for pretty much anything. So, yeah, health care should be a right for every citizen. Every citizen should have the right to work for and obtain whatever plan they can qualify for, but it should not be handed to them at public expense, basic needs and life sustaining treatment aside. There will always be philanthropic organizations and agencies to help those with truly difficult situations and well there should be. But to put all of that burden on the shoulders of every citizen and managed with the ineptitude that only the federal government is capable of won’t get it done.
IMV, only one example is meaningful in this debate and it should be the one from which every other decision should follow. That is, how well has the federal government managed any other such large programs. Answer: they haven’t and clearly, they can’t. Nearly all have been disasters but somehow this one will be different? End of story.
Actually a national health care system could be a workable idea, but only in the extreme and it ain’t gonna happen in this lifetime. Under current management, it would just never be implemented or run in such a way to be effective and manageable, seems certain. That said, if in fantasy a good system ever came to pass it should only be implemented, if ever, under specific conditions. I’ll try to spell out what I mean.
Example: If ever there is a national health care system, having seen the way everything else the government got involved with ended up……. it should probably be run similar to the way DoD has learned to cope in the Defense Industry – this part should not be an after effect to be brought up, debated, argued out and then, inevitably watered-down before it is implemented after a general health care system legislation was passed, it would have to be required in the legislation, otherwise it would never see the light of day – it very well might not be even then. It would have a chance of success, perhaps slim, but a chance, if it was provided through private contract with private companies providing the services. Only then, logically, could a company hope to manage the business with efficiency and hire and fire people as needed to get the job done. The reason this could work is that in order to meet specific requirements posed in the contract the contracting agency would have to hire well qualified people to do the jobs, would have to have control over their production and standards (and would have to specifically have the latitude to do these things to a degree that most Federal guidelines would not allow) and most importantly, would have to re-compete for the contracts periodically. The recompetition aspect is what keeps them honest, within reasonable cost limits, and makes them disciplined to provide superior service. Anything else will simply be another job welfare program with the government hiring to the lowest common denominator……the sick, lame, lazy and incompetent, affirmative action placement recipients handling your appointments, your lab results and mostly calling in sick because they can. A disaster by any measure. Just look at anything else the government runs – graphic examples abound. BTW, I believe this is intuitively known by the citizens of this country but they are not used to connecting the dots with clarity or to putting voice to it.
A very few examples of your Fed Gov’t at work – many more abound:
Why is the VA a mess?
Why is Social Security a mess and near on bankrupt? (and moreover, why does it remain such with virtually no action taken by the Fed gov’t to correct it?)
Why is the Post Office a mess and bankrupt BTW and seems to always have been?
Why is, except for John, the Federal civilian employment system a mess (primarily for the lower grades for whom it is impossible to cite any employee for incompetence or to fire – ain’t gonna happen – Federal protections, and most of these positions are held by minorities – go figure).
What about the problems in TSA – look up (Transportation Security Agency problems), you’ll be amazed.
What about schools?
What about the borders?
What about Medicare, Medicaid? Don’t make the mistake of saying this or that is good because people like it – look at the whole subject, the problems, the cost overruns, etc.
…and it’s not really necessary to come up with more examples because you can find your own. Just think of something the FedGovt is involved with and look in to it and you’ll see for yourself.
Someone made some examples a while back and listed off a bunch of things that the Federal government does well but most of them weren’t Federal and those that were Federal were fraught with known management problems. Only one was any good, the military, and that is in spite of the Fed Gov’t, not because of it.
No. I am left with the undeniable conclusion that a competitive contractual system for administration of a national health care system could never be a serious consideration or it would already be part of the legislation.
So one asks, why is this?
Well, clearly, in my view, it is because what these Democrat legislators want in reality more than anything else, and again, in my view, probably THE underlying goal inextricably tied to these health care proposals, in concert with their criminal leaders, is a direct shift into socialism…….this is essential to the whole thing which is why you will never see a provision for contracted providers or hear it discussed as a consideration. Think about it. If you wanted to make sure something would work, given the track record of failure and incompetence the Fed Govt has with everything they touch, what would you do? You would look around for things the Gov’t did that worked and just about the only example you would find as a pretty consistently good example, would be the way that DoD works.
One thing for sure. Once a program is implemented it is near impossible to get rid of. Most anyone who has lived long enough to have a worthy opinion knows that from experience.
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Hardly anyone knows that each member of congress pays $500 a year for an on-site medical program that has state-of-the-art methods and personnel – this works out to $41.66 per month for the best health care in the world, the best money can buy – not a bad deal if you can get it, which you can’t. In addition, the benefit extends beyond the capital and into their districts and local regions as well, but you can be sure that your health care plan will not be as good.
Not in this lifetime.