Jon Christian Ryter -- Hillary, John and Barak, Part 1

HILLARY, JOHN AND BARAK
PART 1 of 2

By Jon Christian Ryter

July 25, 2007

NewsWithViews.com

America's far left still thinks socialized medicine is good for everyone simply because everyone would be covered (whether they want to or not) and, because everyone (except their poor constituents) would be forced to pay exorbitant taxes to the federal government to finance it. It would also be very good for government since it would promulgate the bureaucracy. When she carried the self-ascribed title of co-president (and took the job description just a little too seriously for most of official Washington, DC), Hillary Clinton�with the help of strategist Ira Magaziner�forged the legislation known as the Health Security Act of 1993 that would have nationalized 1/7th of the US economy if it had made it through the Democratically-controlled Congress. As the media hawked the Health Security Act, they constantly pointed out that our neighbor to the north, Canada, has had national socialized medicine for 28 years, beginning with the passage of the Orwellian healthcare system�the Canada Health Act�that covered 100% of its citizens. It was an Orwellian victory any utopian socialist�but no one else�would be proud of.

In fact, it was so Orwellian that Canadians living elsewhere in the world are still required to be covered. Just like the mandates in Hillary's proposed Health Security Act had it been enacted. And, like Hillary's Health Security Act, the Canadian healthcare system determined when it was pointless to waste the taxpayer's money funding health care for terminal conditions� conditions like terminal cancer, the final stages of AIDS, and just plain old "old age."

Until the last few years, the medical community of Canada was convinced that the medical system in Canada was on par with that in the United States�even though Canadians have historically flooded across the border to seek medical attention in the United States�particularly when they were faced with life-threatening medical conditions, most of which would have required an extended waiting period in Canada.

When you compare the training and proficiency of healthcare providers in Canada to those of the United States there's little or no difference. Although they are not quite as innovative, Canadian doctors are every bit as capable as US doctors, and Canadian healthcare facilities are every bit as good as US hospitals. The biggest differences between the private healthcare system in the United States and the public healthcare system of Canada are found in the area of personal cost�and the wait. The US healthcare system�due largely to the extraordinary cost of malpractice insurance�is far more expensive than the Canadian universal healthcare system. But at least in the United States, if you have a heart attack and need bypass surgery, that lifesaving operation is performed within hours�not months or years.

Healthcare costs are kept artificially low in Canada because the government is the provider. Private insurance companies (which insure human life and property) are discouraged from offering health insurance policies. Six Canadian provinces�Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Quebec�have banned insurance companies from offering health insurance to their policyholders. The other four Canadian provinces have laws that discourage private insurers from offering health plans while a national law makes it illegal for Canadian citizens to pay for health care that is [a] deemed medically necessary and [b] is provided by either the provincial or national government. Yet, scores of Canadians purchase health insurance coverage in the United States every year because, increasingly, the medical orthodoxy of the Canadian healthcare system is being challenged by patients and doctors alike. Even without private healthcare coverage, more and more Canadians cross the border every year to have critically-needed medical procedures done in the United States.

While the largest number of healthcare seekers come to the United States want elective cosmetic surgery, many of those who come need lifesaving procedures that are not available to them in Canada, or that are not available to them quick enough to prolong their lives. Patients seeking plastic surgery at Canadian hospitals have an average wait of 35.4 weeks�over 8 months�before the procedure can be done. While there is an average delay of 10 weeks for any surgery, women with gynecological problems are forced to wait at least 14 weeks after they are diagnosed before surgery can be done. Those requiring ophthalmological surgery will generally wait 27.3 weeks. If you need orthopedic surgery, you will likely wait at least 40 weeks before the bone doctor goes to work on you. If you need neurosurgery, the odds are pretty good you will wait up to 32 weeks for the procedure you need to save your life. If you need cardiac surgery, you only have to wait 8 weeks. When the cancer time bomb is ticking inside your body, you will still wait at least 5 weeks for surgery�and an additional 5 weeks before you can start radiation therapy.

Michael Moore, who uses his propaganda skills as a film maker, ignores the monumental problems with the Canadian healthcare system and calls the US healthcare system "sick." In his new documentary "Sicko," Moore portrays the US healthcare system as inferior to that of Canada. All of the top tier 2008 Democratic presidential contenders propose slightly different versions of a universal healthcare system for Americans if they get elected. And, as US politicians�who argue that only the United States and Mexico are the only two developed countries in the world without universal healthcare�are struggling to develop a system that won't bankrupt the treasury coming out of the chute, the Canadians are fighting the socialist bureaucracy in Canada to undo 28 years of bad medical law to privatize their failing public healthcare system.

Under the current system�which is actually a hodgepodge of different socialized healthcare plans�every Canadian citizen (with a few exceptions) regardless of their medical history, income or standard of living, is entitled to precisely the same access to hospitals, the same medical treatment from primary care physicians, and the same eye and dental care as anyone else. The government pays 70% of the cost, the patient pays 30%. The problem with the Canadian system is not centered on the exorbitant cost to the taxpayer�who not only pays a stiff tax for the coverage, but 30% of the cost for the treatment as well�but, rather, on the inability of the Canadian system to deliver medical services in a timely fashion. The bureaucrats in Canada are fighting the current attempts to privatize the system because they believe privatization will lead to "inequality" in healthcare with wealthier Canadians being able to buy certain treatments or more "deluxe" services than the poor. As it is today, the wealthier Canadians simply get on a plane and fly to Johns Hopkins, the Cleveland Clinic, or some other major US medical center specializing in their particular disease or disorder�without a 6 to 40 week wait for surgery.

Over the last couple of decades private clinics offering specialized services began popping up in various Canadian provinces. Private health insurance plans, which have always existed to help defray the patient's portion of the healthcare bill, and which are generally offered as part of employee benefits packages in most Canadian companies, are now being used to defray a portion of the cost for care in private facilities.

Even though they do so, under federal law in Canada, private clinics cannot legally provide any medical procedure that is covered by the Canada Health Act since that could be construed as offering better medical care to those who could afford private care than that which is generally available under the public health system. For example, if you needed an MRI or Petscan, you could be forced to wait several months at a public health system hospital or clinic. In a private clinic, the doctor would order the test one day and the MRI, catscan or Petscan could be scheduled for the next day�like it is here in under our archaic private healthcare system that Hillary, John and Barack want to change for us.

The Hillary Clinton Health Security Act of 1993 was modeled after the Canadian healthcare system�which is touted by the Canadian government as the best public healthcare system in the world because, the Canadian government noted, the average lifespan of a Canadian is 80.1 years�higher than it is in the United States. The average lifespan for men in the United States is 79.8 years. Longevity is lifestyle related. The fact that the average Canadian lives 3 months longer than an American is not because healthcare is better in Canada than it is in the United States since nothing could be farther from the truth. If it was, Canadian citizens and Canadian physicians would not be suing the Canadian government for the right to purchase personal health care outside of the Canadian healthcare system.

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Two years ago a 47-year old Canadian physician, Dr. Jacques Chaoulli, sued the provincial Quebec government for the right of his patients to buy health care on their own. Chaoulli is one of a growing number of doctors in Canada who have opted out of the provincial healthcare system. Because he opted out, the Quebec Health Care Act prohibits him from providing private medical services in public health hospitals�which all Canadian hospitals are. For part two click below.

Click here for part -----> 2,