A human face on the misery of government-run medicine :: Political News and commentaries

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June 19, 2009

A human face on the misery of government-run medicine

Via Anthony Dick's Warning From Up North, I suggest readers check out Dick's December 06 piece: "A Deficient Monopoly - Canadian health-care -- nothing close to paradise":

Canada's universal-health-care system has long been a darling of the nanny-state Left. Its stated purpose, jealously touted by swooning cohorts of compassion from coast to coast, is to provide free and equal health care for all, regardless of ability to pay.

In practice, sadly, this high-minded endeavor has hit a few snags. The pesky fetters of reality have imposed stingy budget constraints on the enterprise, while the promise of free service for all has increased the demand for treatment. The Canadian government has thus struggled to treat more patients while spending as sparingly as possible on each of them, causing waiting lists to swell and the quality of care to sag (comment-read as "rationing"). Not helping matters have been some medical professionals, who have fled the public system in search of better compensation. With shaking heads and sullen spirits, everyone involved agrees: It's just not fair.

Now, with a national election shaping up for the end of January, Canadians are wondering how they will finally mend their creaking structure of social justice. The nation's politicians have worked themselves up into their usual frenzy of health-care debate. But this time, a new blip has appeared on the radar screen -- in the form of Jacques Chaoulli, a 53-year-old French Canadian physician who in June won a health-care-related lawsuit against the government of Quebec. Chaoulli had alleged that the province's regime of restrictive health-care regulations was oppressive to the point of illegality, and the Canadian Supreme Court ultimately agreed. Chaoulli's story is interesting not only in its own right, but also for the light it sheds upon the strange politics of the country to our north (and to our left).

(Emphasis mine).

As Dicks points out here:

... President Obama's supporters could raise the defense that ObamaCare doesn't go quite as far as Canada's system in terms of state control. But then, many of them consider that a disappointment, not a relief.

AS for ObamaCare not going quite as far as Canada's system, think again.

And then there's that matter of just how in the hell we'll pay for it. We simply can't afford it.

Posted by Richard at June 19, 2009 11:25 AM

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