Ric Dolphin wrote in “The Bare Facts About Health Care”, (Ottawa Citizen, Aug.20, 2002):
“Sometimes there seems such a whack of naked emperors in this country, one hardly knows whose bare butt to point to first. Nowhere is the emperor more glaringly unclothed and are people less inclined to acknowledge his nudity than in the area of health care. Having had to shepherd two aged and infirm parents through emergency wards, rehab centres, doctors' offices, clinics and the like, I have come to realize that the public health-care machine is wearing out.
In a nutshell, socialized medicine was invented at a time when the majority of the population was young, healthy, having lots of kids and paying into a system that had relatively few expensive, high-tech procedures. We have now moved into a time with an ever- increasing population of sick seniors demanding more high-tech procedures and fancy drugs. Meanwhile, all those babies they forewent or aborted aren't available to pay the premiums.
The fixes are practically as obvious as the symptoms: more accountability; user fees; competition among providers; the privatization of facilities and services to stop those ever- grasping health-care unions in their tracks. Crusty old Don Mazankowski, in his report for the Alberta government released in January, offered a fairly good blueprint for rebuilding the machine. He suggested things such as medical savings accounts, private providers and a reduction in the number of high-priced registered nurses.
Yet doing the necessaries to health care has, in Canadian political circles, become tantamount to clubbing and skinning live baby seals. This is thanks in large part to the extreme and prolonged cunning of the most successful and powerful of all our buck-naked emperors, Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
Through his three successful elections, Mr. Chretien has draped himself in the invisible magnificence of the Canada Health Act. He has defended the sanctity of Canada's medicare system, demonized the American alternative and established a code of official nudism by which every other politician feels bound. One by one, they have all succumbed. Preston Manning once talked sensibly about fixing the broken medical system. But when Mr. Chretien started to brand Reform as the despoiler of medicare, Presto quickly recanted and got naked. Ditto Stock Day, Mike Harris and, eventually, Ralph Klein.
So what can we expect from that redoubtable redistributor of income, Roy Romanow?
The former socialist premier of Saskatchewan is a longtime buddy of the prime minister. Back in 1981, when Mr. Chretien was the federal constitutional affairs minister and Mr. Romanow the dashing Saskatchewan attorney general, they toured the country together selling Pierre Trudeau's Constitution. They were nicknamed Uke and Tuque.
After he stepped down as premier in 2001, Mr. Romanow became the chairman of Mr. Chretien's $15-million Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada. He was to be paid $750 a day and would -- supposedly -- be allowed to reach his own conclusions and make his own recommendations in the report that is due in November.
At first, Uke made a lot of brave noises about having an open mind, being his own man, considering all the alternatives, including even, possibly, user fees or private providers. But word reached my cave in June that officials from the Prime Minister's Office were reportedly becoming more involved in the process. These PMO boffins, I was told, had made it clear to poor Uke that he would be expected to follow the company line.
Health care, goes this line, is intrinsically sound. Best system in the world. Of course, it will need a bit more cash. Taxes will go up a bit, but Canadians are willing to pay a bit more to insure the continuance of excellence. Polls will be engineered to prove this.
Mr. Romanow was urged to try to release the report a bit earlier than November. Such naked vote-buying, tried and tested during three election campaigns could, it was felt, be just what was needed to send that bounder Paul Martin packing once and for all.
Thus by late June, Uke called a special news conference to draw attention to a survey conducted by the Canadian Policy Research Networks, an organization funded by the Liberal government, that purported to show that most Canadians are happy to pay higher taxes to support health care. He also said he was "not convinced" there was a fiscal crisis in health care.
A couple of weeks later, another report was released that suggested some of Mr. Mazankowski's suggested reforms contravened the Canadian Health Act.
And so the striptease begins. It won't be a pretty sight, but it's one of which we, as Canadians, should be extremely proud.
You know the schtick.”
*
Yes, we know the schtick…pretending that socialized medicare is the same as actual health-care. Pretending that sanctimonius Liberals are the only people righteous enough to Provide Health Care To The Masses… Yeah, right.
It’s interesting to go back only a scant six years ago and see Canada's health-care debate as it was at the time… Chretien’s Liberals bamboozled Canada completely.
All this was before Chaoulli appeared in Quebec, before Pierre Pettigrew was castigated by his own Liberals for daring to suggest the provinces have some more leeway in health care delivery, before Prime Minister Paul Martin’s bombastic, soon to be forgotten, flash in the pan health care 'solution for a generation'.
The Romanow report was essentially forgotten; the Liberals never really were going to do anything about it anyway. As Dolphin described, Chretien co-opted Romanow as his front end PR guy to give Chretien legitimacy. What the 'Tuque' did to the 'Uke' was enough to make anyone puke.
Romanow at first was claiming to be open, to be considering all the options, including different options such as possible user fees and private provider options. Those ‘brave noises’ coming from Romanow were quickly made to toe Jean Chretien's line. And even more quickly, the MORE REALISTIC Mazankowski Report’s health care recommendations were demonized, discredited and disappeared… just like Romanow’s were, a little bit later.
Chretien’s Liberals smeared Mazankowski’s report with suggestions it might contravene the Canada Health Act. Now there’s a beauty for you – the Canada Health Act was a piñata for Chretien’s Liberals! Mazankowski’s health care reform proposals were always on the right track – that’s why they were ignored. Canadians were forced to watch and pretend to believe Jean Chretien’s smug, partisan Liberal health-care duplicity for years.
Several years later, Liberal MP Keith Martin boldly wrote in “Four ways to fix health care”, (National Post, Sept.16, 2006):
“In his Sept. 9 column, "Where's the debate on Medicare?" John Turley-Ewart poignantly expressed the horrible experience endured by his ailing mother as she waited for care that came too late. He criticized all political parties for neglecting to offer bold solutions to fix our health care system. However, I can assure the author that within the Liberal party there is a dynamic debate concerning this, the most important issue affecting Canadians. The solutions offered in our debates are varied, and mirror those echoed by Canadians from coast to coast. But while this debate is essential, it must not hinder action.
As a physician, I became a Member of Parliament to save our public health care system because I saw too many patients like Mrs. Turley, who needlessly suffered in silence, or died because they got access to a waiting list, not access to care. Our ageing population and increasingly expensive medical technologies are resulting in an 8% per year increase in costs, while revenues are rising at 3% per year. This has resulted in an ever widening gap between supply and demand. Most provinces spend roughly 40% of their revenues on health care. By 2017, this one item will consume over 70% of their budgets, an utterly unsustainable burden for any province.
Today, this gap between supply and demand manifests itself in longer waiting lines, bed closures, the withdrawal of funding for services ("delisting") and our inability to hire health care professionals. In this environment, it is the poor and middle class who get hurt, not the rich, for they can always go to the United States to receive their care. The facts are stark, frightening and irrefutable. For all patients, the rhetoric must be buried and solutions implemented based on these facts.
So what are some of those solutions?
1. Modernize the Canada Health Act (CHA) to allow the private sector to support the public sector by taking some of the demand out of the public system without removing resources. (Allow people to purchase services with their own money separate from the public system, and forbid public monies from co-funding procedures.)
Many of the principles in the Canada Health Act are excellent, but the single-payer (read: government) requirement is a major obstacle to enabling achievement of the other four principles (comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility). In fact, anyone who works in health care knows that all five principles of the CHA are broken in every province, every day, because of the increasing gap between supply and demand. A modernized Canada Health Act should ensure timely access to quality care for all Canadians regardless of their income, and that this benefit is portable across the land.
2. We need a national human-resource strategy for health care personnel; doctors, nurses, technicians, etc. As we get older, so to do our health care workers, which is causing a crisis in medical manpower, and a deficit that cannot be rectified quickly, or easily.
3. We need a national strategy on mental health. According to the World Health Organization, depression will become the second leading cause of illness in the world. Furthermore, with our ageing population, we will see a massive increase in the incidence of dementias, a situation we are completely unprepared for.
4. We need a Centre for Best Health Care Practices. It is surprising how poor we are at accumulating and disseminating information about best practices. This centre could be within the existing framework of the Canadian Institute for Health Research or the Canadian Institute for Heath Information.
These suggestions would dramatically improve access to health care in Canada. If the feds and the provinces (which are the managers of health care) implement these solutions, we will have a public health care system that will ensure that, regardless of your income or where you fall ill, you will have access to quality care in a timely fashion, not just entry into a waiting list. In doing so, tragedies such as that which befell Mrs. Turley will thankfully become a thing of the past.”
*
Conservative Don Mazankowsi was on the right track and later, Liberal Keith Martin was on the right track. But, their ideas were ignored, buried away and gone as if they'd never been uttered.
It is sickening to see how much time Canadians have wasted pursuing socialism, when we should have been busy pursuing health-care.
*
Monday, March 10, 2008
Jim Bradley's faith-based two-face
Does Jim Bradley have any public comments regarding Christina Blizzard’s column “Grit’s faith-based hypocrisy” (Toronto Sun, Mar.9, 2008)?
During one of the all-candidates' debates held in St. Catharines prior to the last election, incumbent MPP Bradley insinuated that faith-based funding would “fragment” public education. He also stated that his Liberal government “would not extend funding to faith-based schools in the province of Ontario”. Wasn’t Bradley in David Peterson’s cabinet when the Eden school funding originated back in the 1980’s??
Blizzard wrote: “Minister of Transportation Jim Bradley, a Liberal who represents St. Catharines, says the reason Eden is allowed to operate as a public school is because it offers the provincial curriculum and teachers belong to the OSSTF teacher union.” This is now Bradley’s criterion? He never once mentioned this standard for faith-based schooling during the election! It was, though, the PC position all along to bring faith-based schools into the provincial curriculum with certified teachers! (By the way, Bradley - now Mr. Transit - also said: "And we will see GO Transit coming to Niagara". When will that be, Sir?)
Will Bradley now stand up in the legislature and denounce Eden school for the divisive and segregationist institution it must be (if his Liberal election rhetoric was to be believed)?
I wonder if Bradley would comment on these previous essays regarding faith-based funding and his Liberal party's two-faced posturing:
* Liberal Greg Sorbara has amnesia about Eden High School
* Mennonite school in St.Catharines dismissed as "an anomaly" by Liberal education minister Wynne
* Segregation: The new Liberal education solution
During one of the all-candidates' debates held in St. Catharines prior to the last election, incumbent MPP Bradley insinuated that faith-based funding would “fragment” public education. He also stated that his Liberal government “would not extend funding to faith-based schools in the province of Ontario”. Wasn’t Bradley in David Peterson’s cabinet when the Eden school funding originated back in the 1980’s??
Blizzard wrote: “Minister of Transportation Jim Bradley, a Liberal who represents St. Catharines, says the reason Eden is allowed to operate as a public school is because it offers the provincial curriculum and teachers belong to the OSSTF teacher union.” This is now Bradley’s criterion? He never once mentioned this standard for faith-based schooling during the election! It was, though, the PC position all along to bring faith-based schools into the provincial curriculum with certified teachers! (By the way, Bradley - now Mr. Transit - also said: "And we will see GO Transit coming to Niagara". When will that be, Sir?)
Will Bradley now stand up in the legislature and denounce Eden school for the divisive and segregationist institution it must be (if his Liberal election rhetoric was to be believed)?
I wonder if Bradley would comment on these previous essays regarding faith-based funding and his Liberal party's two-faced posturing:
* Liberal Greg Sorbara has amnesia about Eden High School
* Mennonite school in St.Catharines dismissed as "an anomaly" by Liberal education minister Wynne
* Segregation: The new Liberal education solution
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Ontario medicare-monopoly 'riding on reputation', needs rebuild
Here is a chain of letters that developed in Niagara This Week, which began (I'll call it letter #1) with Mike Williscraft’s column, “Health care system in need of trip to E.R.”, (Feb.1, 2008).
Williscraft wrote: “I had a conversation this week with a distraught Niagara resident shocked and dismayed at what she now believes is a seriously broken health care system.
In this instance, the woman referred to a circumstance which took place Tuesday evening. She waited for four hours to get a bed in a common room -- four patients -- with a 102 F-plus temperature. Complicating things for this multiple sclerosis sufferer is her azathioprine prescription, which is an immunosuppressant.
Long story short, after having her bed for about a half-hour, she asked to go to the washroom. She estimates she was gone three minutes.
Upon her return, the nurse informed her the doctor had finally come by when she was gone and, not only did she miss the doctor, but her bed had been given away and she would have to go back to the waiting room. Yikes!
Now, don't get me wrong, this is a sad and unfortunate circumstance, and it happens all too often. If you ask three people, one will know of such a story. I know I do.
Back in 2000, seven years ago tomorrow. I was a few hours from being a statistic ... when I required an emergency appendectomy.
Right off the top, I want to make it clear my situation was no more sensational than hundreds of those which Ontarians have been exposed to in recent years as our once-proud health system has crumbled into a shell of its former self.
My ordeal started with a trip to West Lincoln Memorial Hospital's E.R. at about 11:30 a.m. There was no surgeon in that day, so I had to wait for a transfer to McMaster in Hamilton. By that point, if I you will allow, I can describe my pain situation as being 10 times worse than when I jumped a fence, landed in a rabbit hole, snapping my ankle. I also need to point out, the staffs at both facilities were first-rate. They are simply mired in a system that is failing.
I was told the ambulance would be 30 minutes, I hoped for an hour. Ninety minutes came and went. A nurse called -- 45 more minutes. Soon it was about 2 p.m. The left side of my stomach puffed and was very warm, almost hot. It wasn't a good thing.
Thirty more minutes passed. Another car trip is planned. As I am shuffling to the door, the attendants finally show up. Now, I assumed an ambulance would have a state-of-the-art shock system for delicate procedures en route. It was like riding in a horse and carriage -- brutal to say the least. That was the most pain of the whole ordeal.
Anyway, I get to Mac's E.R. and actually got a side room, while many, many others waited on stretchers in the hall. It was about 4:45 p.m. I saw my surgeon around 7 p.m., with surgery set for 10. I headed into the OR at 11:15 p.m..
After awakening, I was then transported to my room -- a STORAGE room on the 4th Floor.
The staff was, again, great -- constantly apologizing for something they had no control over as they flipped on the lights to search for gauze or whatever all through the night. What they didn't realize was I would have taken a parking spot next to the garbage bin for a solution to the pain.
The following day, just after lunch, my wife rode up in an elevator with a woman whose father had arrived in ER before me. He was still there.
As my caller noted, the system is riding on reputation these days. It is clearly in need of a rebuild. The staff can only do so much.”
In response to Williscraft, Richard Murri wrote (let’s call this letter#2) in “Can't use a snapshot to judge the entire system”, (Niagara This Week, Feb.15, 2008):
"Re: “Health-care system in need of trip to E.R.” by Mike Williscraft (Feb. 1)
I fully agree that certain parts of our health-care system are in need of major repair.
Since the days of Harris/Eves, the system has had to undergo an onslaught of funding cuts, reorganizations, mergers, etc., while the region saw a growth in population and an aging population.
Anecdotal evidence such as that of the poor woman in the article and of Mr. Williscraft in 2000 is, unfortunately, true. However, I can also cite experiences which were positive.
I have not had a family doctor since 2001, using walk-in clinics when necessary.
While this is admittedly not ideal, I have found the experience a mostly positive one.
Two years ago, I too experienced an appendix attack. Upon arriving at St. Catharines General (from Niagara Falls), I was seen by a doctor in emergency within 20 minutes, placed in a bed within two hours and an appendectomy was performed the next morning (a Sunday).
I was home recuperating two days later.
My point is, looking at the situation at any given point in time is not an honest look at the problem.
There is a push on at the moment to go to an Americanized system of delivery of health services, allowing those with the means to obtain services before those without insurance or financial means.
If I had the answer, I would be nominated for the Nobel prize.
I do not. I do know, however that articles such as this serve only to give ammunition to HMOs and certain politicians who would love to grab a share of the health care funding pie in Ontario.”
In response to Murri, and in support of Williscraft, I wrote (letter #3) in “Light needs to be shone on ailing health-care system” (Niagara This Week, Feb.29, 2008):
“Unlike writer Richard Murri in his Feb.15, ('Can’t use snapshot to judge entire sytem") I commend columnist Mike Williscraft’s attempt (Feb.1, 2008) to bring Ontario’s failing health-care system to the discussion forefront, because it sure wasn’t debated during Ontario's recent provincial election.
We need more discussion, not less; we need to realize that these instances of the health-system failing patients are systemic, not dismissively anecdotal and unimportant. How many anecdotes do we need to hear? There is even a constitutional health-care challenge now before the Ontario court!
Where do HMO’s exist in Ontario? It would be great to have that choice. What are the names of these "certain politicians" who Murri claims “would love to grab a slice of the health care funding pie” (whatever that means)? In the last five years, for example, I have heard no Ontario politician or party having the guts to openly challenge our failing health-care monopoly.
The only politicians grabbing Ontario’s entire health-care-monopoly funding pie are Dalton McGuinty's Liberals, who, while blaming others, have themselves created a two-tier system by delisting health-coverage while concurrently creating a new multi-billion-dollar Health Tax.
Let’s not forget that when then-Liberal Finance Minister Greg Sorbara stood to introduce his hated Health Tax in the Legislature on May 18, 2004, Sorbara noted in his budget speech that: "For the past five years, health care budgets in Ontario have grown by an average of 8% per year."
That's right: the Liberals actually complained that for five years the Conservatives spent too much on health-care, and so the Liberals were now going to "control " that! “To improve” health-care, Sorbara said , his Liberals had “to delist” previously-covered health-care!
We need to know that the health-care climate in Ontario is not all settled. We need to reduce the politicians' health-care-policy footprint which restricts our individual health-care choices. We need to see that the Liberal’s Commitment To The Future of Medicare Act is a policy failure. We need to understand that 'universal health-care' is not the same as 'government monopoly health-care'.
And we should also acknowledge and give a note of thanks to the maligned American system which is treating so many Ontarians who have been let down by the McGuinty Liberals.”
I supported Williscraft writing about health-care issues in Ontario: unlike Murri, who condemned him, I commended Williscraft. I clearly pointed out my conviction that we need less government and political intervention in our health system.
Richard Murri’s next letter was indeed interesting, if not outlandish. In (letter #4) “Health-care debate can't be driven by politics”, (Niagara This Week, Mar.7, 2008) Murri wrote:
“I am reluctant to respond to the attack on my letter to the editor of Feb. 15 regarding the health-care system and its apparent shortcomings, however, I cannot allow the statements made and the questions posed by Mr. Bobak to go unanswered.
First of all, I agree that more discussion on this important matter is needed.
The discussion, however, must be informed and factual, not driven by political affiliation or ideological beliefs. Holding up the "maligned" American health system as an example to be copied is ludicrous.
Statements such as, "We need to reduce the politician's health-care policy footprint which restricts our individual health-care choices" and "We need to see that the Liberal's Commitment To The Future of Medicare Act is a failure," are taken directly from the Tory hymn book and hardly raises the level of debate.
I am not a member of any political party and my letter was not a blanket defence of the Liberal Government's handling of the health care file. Mr. Bobak asked for the "names of certain politicians" who wish to increase private medical services. I will give him one: our current Prime Minister, Steven Harper.
Harper has been (and still is) one of medicare's most powerful opponents, but as PM won't publicly state it. He spent years heading the National Citizen's Coalition, set up in the early 1960s with the sole purpose of stopping Saskatchewan from establishing public health care. The attempt failed, but this group, under Harper, never stopped trying to undermine it.
Now as a prime minister waiting for a majority in Parliament, he can do a lot more, mainly by refusing to enforce the Canada Health Act thus allowing more privatization.
Universal health care may not be the same as government monopoly health care and, Mr. Bobak, I didn't say that HMOs exist in Ontario.
I cannot believe, however, that you honestly think no private interests are seeking to profit from our health-care system.”
This is from a person who in letter #2 was complaining that Williscraft's column about health care could “give ammunition to HMOs and certain politicians who would love to grab a share of the health care funding pie in Ontario.” Talk about smugly censoring the level of debate!
By all means, Mr.Murri, let’s censor writers, such as Williscraft, because their writing might inspire changes which you don’t approve! Get flicking real, as Laurel Broten might say! Mr. Murri, you don't believe your own Marxist pablum, do you? The health-care pendulum has tilted too far, for too long, in favour of the anti-profit fear mongerers.
In a near-paranoid statement Murri claims my letter was an “attack”…whoa…easy, there, big fella. That letter answering Williscraft’s concerns, along with yours, in a newpaper, was a “response’, not an attack.
Maybe Murri is used to listening only to the sound of his own voice as he sings his hymns to a mirror. After all the frothy letters Murri has penned over the years (many against the Conservatives) Mr. Murri considers my modest letter an “attack’??!!
Mr. Murri, spare us your ancient crap about Saskatchewan and its socialized health care disaster. Even Janice McKinnon, Saskatchewan's former NDP finance minister, wrote (National Post, July 14, 2004):
"Change is necessary, and I believe that if Canadians open their minds to real change we can preserve the basic principles and goals of the medicare system that was designed 40 years ago. But accepting bold change will require courage and vision.
One of the greatest threats to medicare is posed by those who cling tenaciously to the status quo and claim they are defending Tommy Douglas's vision of medicare by doing so. That was never part of his plan.
Too often in politics, what we cherish most we inadvertently destroy by believing that protecting something means freezing it in time, when in fact protecting it may require dramatic change. Protecting children, for instance, means encouraging them to grow and adapt to the world in which they have to live. If we are going to save Canada's health care system, we will have to change it, and the sooner we embark on the road to change the smoother the journey will be."
How about that I ask Murri to apologize for misrepresenting what I wrote?
Murri wrote in his letter #4 that “Holding up the "maligned" American health system as an example to be copied is ludicrous.” Yet, I never wrote that we copy the U.S. system. Murri just imagined it, like he ludicrously imagines he knows what Stephen Harper will do in the future (and so, Murri possibly also knows next week’s winning lottery numbers as well?)..I've read about such tactics of innuendo and fear in books like Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, but find it incredible to be actually personally smeared by such tactics. Murri just made up what his biases led him to believe. Thanking the Americans for having the capacity and being able to help Ontarians who have been failed by the Dalton McGuinty Liberals is not ‘copying’ their system, Dick. You might pause to wonder, though, why the sicko Ontario system failed, and where (and why) Ontario’s sicko medicare monopoly was forced to send its patients. And you might wonder whose system failed these patients. C’mon, Dick: is it that hard for you to say thanks to our U.S. neighbours; to acknowledge that the American health-care system was there when Ontario’s promises of medicare weren’t?
Mr. Murri, the Canada Health Act needs serious revision, if not a total re-write. The fact is, your innuendo about Harper and the CHA is not factual - the minority Conservative government is maintaining the status-quo. It, along with McGuinty's Commitment to the Future of Medicare act, should be totally reformulated.
It’s the Ontario Liberal government's policies which are at the forefront of the problems we currently experience. By the way, maybe you should acknowledge, while you pursue your obvious anti-Conservative agenda, that Liberal Jean Chretien, for a dozen years, did nothing as the Canada Health Act crumbled under his THREE TERM MAJORITY GOVERNMENT. In the dozens upon dozens of letters you have written to various newspapers over your illustrious career, did you once ever mention anything about Chretien “refusing to enforce the Canada Health Act thus allowing more privatization” ?
And speaking of facts, Mr. Murri, you wrote of “HMO’s” (in your letter #2) as if they actually had some bearing on Ontario. So I had asked in letter #3 where these HMO’s were in Ontario? To which you wrote in letter #4 : “I didn't say that HMOs exist in Ontario”. Yeah: exactly…but you brought them up, in a fear mongering paranoid gambit as if they were relevant in Ontario, as if no one was going to ask you where they actually existed! Well, if they don’t exist in Ontario, why create false alarms??
And there was no answer from Murri regarding these plural “certain politicians who would love to grab a share of the health care funding pie in Ontario.” The best Murri could do when challenged on that was bring up his favourite dear old boogey man, Stephen Harper. Murri could find no politicians of any stripe in Ontario challenging our failing health system - which was exactly my point, and I believe was the whole point of Williscraft’s original column; this is the point we need to keep track of, and not be distracted by knee-jerk reactionary authoritarians like Murri who bring little to the discussion but their own dated ideological biases: Where are the Ontario politicians who are willing to face today's health care challenges? It should be obvious that Liberal Health Minister George Smitherman and his crappy diaper-load of failed statist policies aren't meeting the challenge.
When Murri writes of supposed politicians (who he can’t name) “who would love to grab a share of the health care funding pie in Ontario”, again, what is he talking about? In Ontario, the Liberals have a majority government; they have had it since 2003; they have collected billions of dollars of new health taxes, over and above the billions more they collected from already-existing taxation; and their health-monopoly is not demonstrably improving. The "health care pie" (ie, our taxes) is all appropriated by the provincial Liberal government, and given to its health monopoly. Murri claims he doesn’t have any answers in regards to health care, but sure could win a Nobel prize for casting red-herrings, and he conveniently doesn’t acknowledge the central role of the Liberal health care monopoly as having anything to do with the system’s problems. [What...there's a socialist elephant in the room? Where?! I can't see it...]
Searching for some common ground, I was encouraged that Murri agreed in letter #4 (oh...I might have inadvertantly 'attacked' him again...he did agree on my point, did he not?) when he wrote that "universal health care may not be the same as government monopoly health care." There may be hope once Murri digests what that means and substitutes 'may' for 'is', because this is the fundamental, underlying narrative of my position: that the currently-accepted notion of government-only, single-payer, monopoly health-care as the only method of health-care delivery, is a charade. This is precisely what the current Lindsay McCreith and Shona Holmes health-care Charter court challenges against the Ontario government are all about.
I think also that we should reconsider portraying Ontario’s continual examples of individual health-care problems by dismissively referring to them as “anecdotal”, rather than acknowledging that they’re systemic.
Shedding crocodile tears just doesn’t cut it. That’s a cruel, almost sadistic, response to the real patients failed by our health system: ‘Oops, you suffered…so sorry, old bean…you know, we meant to help you, we even virtually promised to help you, we taxed you for years in anticipation of helping you, you probably thought and even expected us to actually help you when you needed help…but, oops! these things happen…c’est la vie…you can’t expect us to be perfect, or to be literally held accountable, can you?...hey, now, stop your complaining…you are Canadian aren’t you…so get in line and wait…or go to the States…we don’t need your kind here then, anyway’. Really, eh?
I believe there should be less political interference in health care, and have written about this from various perspectives on numerous occasions. I even found Niagara This Week’s caption on Murri’s letter #4 - “Health-care debate can't be driven by politics”, frankly confusing. If anything, Murri demonstrates he is actually in favour of more political interference, not less! Or, maybe, Murri is not in favour of debate, UNLESS the debate is driven by his kind of politics?
The latter seems to me to be applicable. After all, Murri’s initial complaint about Williscraft’s original letter was that it might lead to alarming changes, vaguely involving Stephen Harper and HMO's which do not exist in Ontario, which displease Murri.
By his own definition then, Murri himself actually ‘attacked’ Williscraft by responding to him.
I say, Right On, Mr. Williscraft, and Write On!
Don’t let politically-correct ludicrous censorship deter you.
By the way, here is another story fittingly dealing with the subjects of both writing letters to the editor and poor Ontario health care:
Stephen and Catherine Collins wrote in “Frustrated with health-care”, (Barrie Advance, Mar.3, 2008):
“On Feb. 27 my husband and I sat for five and-a-half hours in Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) waiting to see if we would win the ICU lottery.
My husband was scheduled for abdominal aortic aneurysm surgery, but would only receive surgery if enough ICU beds were available. We did not win the lottery, for the second time, his surgery was cancelled because of a lack of beds. If this has happened to us, I’m sure it is a common occurrence for thousands of Canadians every day.
Tommy Douglas must be rolling over in his grave.
Someone recently told me if a mere 10 per cent of people complained to their MPs, MPPs and newspapers, things would get changed when there is a problem such as this. Sit on your hands and say nothing, and watch our health care go down the crapper. Complacency will only get us more and more medical procedures health care will not pay for.
The government had already taken away eye exams. I guess the government thinks it’s cheaper to take care of the blind than prevent blindness. People who can not afford $100 for the exam could get macular degeneration and glaucoma.
Did you know there is a definitive test for cervical cancer, $90, but our plan will only cover a Pap smear (a crap shoot at best) which is only 55-per-cent accurate. There is also a definitive test for prostate cancer costing approximately $30. Again, this is not covered. Guess it must be cheaper for health care to pay for chemotherapy and radiation.
To this frustrated Canadian, this kind of thinking is penny-wise and pound-foolish. We deserve better. The pen is mightier than the sword, so fellow Canadians, dust off your pens and make our politicians accountable.”
Oh, oh… hope Richard Murri doesn’t complain to shut them up, too. Perhaps Liberal MPP Kim Craitor of Niagara Falls, or Liberal MPP Jim Bradley of St. Catharines, can publicly answer some of the Collins' concerns. We pay incredibly high taxes, while the Liberals raised billions in new Health taxes and cut coverage to supposedly-universal medicare. We have no legal choice but to take whatever the Ontario Liberals deem fit for us receive, yet the Liberals remain unaccountable.
Why aren't more people writing about this?
Williscraft wrote: “I had a conversation this week with a distraught Niagara resident shocked and dismayed at what she now believes is a seriously broken health care system.
In this instance, the woman referred to a circumstance which took place Tuesday evening. She waited for four hours to get a bed in a common room -- four patients -- with a 102 F-plus temperature. Complicating things for this multiple sclerosis sufferer is her azathioprine prescription, which is an immunosuppressant.
Long story short, after having her bed for about a half-hour, she asked to go to the washroom. She estimates she was gone three minutes.
Upon her return, the nurse informed her the doctor had finally come by when she was gone and, not only did she miss the doctor, but her bed had been given away and she would have to go back to the waiting room. Yikes!
Now, don't get me wrong, this is a sad and unfortunate circumstance, and it happens all too often. If you ask three people, one will know of such a story. I know I do.
Back in 2000, seven years ago tomorrow. I was a few hours from being a statistic ... when I required an emergency appendectomy.
Right off the top, I want to make it clear my situation was no more sensational than hundreds of those which Ontarians have been exposed to in recent years as our once-proud health system has crumbled into a shell of its former self.
My ordeal started with a trip to West Lincoln Memorial Hospital's E.R. at about 11:30 a.m. There was no surgeon in that day, so I had to wait for a transfer to McMaster in Hamilton. By that point, if I you will allow, I can describe my pain situation as being 10 times worse than when I jumped a fence, landed in a rabbit hole, snapping my ankle. I also need to point out, the staffs at both facilities were first-rate. They are simply mired in a system that is failing.
I was told the ambulance would be 30 minutes, I hoped for an hour. Ninety minutes came and went. A nurse called -- 45 more minutes. Soon it was about 2 p.m. The left side of my stomach puffed and was very warm, almost hot. It wasn't a good thing.
Thirty more minutes passed. Another car trip is planned. As I am shuffling to the door, the attendants finally show up. Now, I assumed an ambulance would have a state-of-the-art shock system for delicate procedures en route. It was like riding in a horse and carriage -- brutal to say the least. That was the most pain of the whole ordeal.
Anyway, I get to Mac's E.R. and actually got a side room, while many, many others waited on stretchers in the hall. It was about 4:45 p.m. I saw my surgeon around 7 p.m., with surgery set for 10. I headed into the OR at 11:15 p.m..
After awakening, I was then transported to my room -- a STORAGE room on the 4th Floor.
The staff was, again, great -- constantly apologizing for something they had no control over as they flipped on the lights to search for gauze or whatever all through the night. What they didn't realize was I would have taken a parking spot next to the garbage bin for a solution to the pain.
The following day, just after lunch, my wife rode up in an elevator with a woman whose father had arrived in ER before me. He was still there.
As my caller noted, the system is riding on reputation these days. It is clearly in need of a rebuild. The staff can only do so much.”
In response to Williscraft, Richard Murri wrote (let’s call this letter#2) in “Can't use a snapshot to judge the entire system”, (Niagara This Week, Feb.15, 2008):
"Re: “Health-care system in need of trip to E.R.” by Mike Williscraft (Feb. 1)
I fully agree that certain parts of our health-care system are in need of major repair.
Since the days of Harris/Eves, the system has had to undergo an onslaught of funding cuts, reorganizations, mergers, etc., while the region saw a growth in population and an aging population.
Anecdotal evidence such as that of the poor woman in the article and of Mr. Williscraft in 2000 is, unfortunately, true. However, I can also cite experiences which were positive.
I have not had a family doctor since 2001, using walk-in clinics when necessary.
While this is admittedly not ideal, I have found the experience a mostly positive one.
Two years ago, I too experienced an appendix attack. Upon arriving at St. Catharines General (from Niagara Falls), I was seen by a doctor in emergency within 20 minutes, placed in a bed within two hours and an appendectomy was performed the next morning (a Sunday).
I was home recuperating two days later.
My point is, looking at the situation at any given point in time is not an honest look at the problem.
There is a push on at the moment to go to an Americanized system of delivery of health services, allowing those with the means to obtain services before those without insurance or financial means.
If I had the answer, I would be nominated for the Nobel prize.
I do not. I do know, however that articles such as this serve only to give ammunition to HMOs and certain politicians who would love to grab a share of the health care funding pie in Ontario.”
In response to Murri, and in support of Williscraft, I wrote (letter #3) in “Light needs to be shone on ailing health-care system” (Niagara This Week, Feb.29, 2008):
“Unlike writer Richard Murri in his Feb.15, ('Can’t use snapshot to judge entire sytem") I commend columnist Mike Williscraft’s attempt (Feb.1, 2008) to bring Ontario’s failing health-care system to the discussion forefront, because it sure wasn’t debated during Ontario's recent provincial election.
We need more discussion, not less; we need to realize that these instances of the health-system failing patients are systemic, not dismissively anecdotal and unimportant. How many anecdotes do we need to hear? There is even a constitutional health-care challenge now before the Ontario court!
Where do HMO’s exist in Ontario? It would be great to have that choice. What are the names of these "certain politicians" who Murri claims “would love to grab a slice of the health care funding pie” (whatever that means)? In the last five years, for example, I have heard no Ontario politician or party having the guts to openly challenge our failing health-care monopoly.
The only politicians grabbing Ontario’s entire health-care-monopoly funding pie are Dalton McGuinty's Liberals, who, while blaming others, have themselves created a two-tier system by delisting health-coverage while concurrently creating a new multi-billion-dollar Health Tax.
Let’s not forget that when then-Liberal Finance Minister Greg Sorbara stood to introduce his hated Health Tax in the Legislature on May 18, 2004, Sorbara noted in his budget speech that: "For the past five years, health care budgets in Ontario have grown by an average of 8% per year."
That's right: the Liberals actually complained that for five years the Conservatives spent too much on health-care, and so the Liberals were now going to "control " that! “To improve” health-care, Sorbara said , his Liberals had “to delist” previously-covered health-care!
We need to know that the health-care climate in Ontario is not all settled. We need to reduce the politicians' health-care-policy footprint which restricts our individual health-care choices. We need to see that the Liberal’s Commitment To The Future of Medicare Act is a policy failure. We need to understand that 'universal health-care' is not the same as 'government monopoly health-care'.
And we should also acknowledge and give a note of thanks to the maligned American system which is treating so many Ontarians who have been let down by the McGuinty Liberals.”
I supported Williscraft writing about health-care issues in Ontario: unlike Murri, who condemned him, I commended Williscraft. I clearly pointed out my conviction that we need less government and political intervention in our health system.
Richard Murri’s next letter was indeed interesting, if not outlandish. In (letter #4) “Health-care debate can't be driven by politics”, (Niagara This Week, Mar.7, 2008) Murri wrote:
“I am reluctant to respond to the attack on my letter to the editor of Feb. 15 regarding the health-care system and its apparent shortcomings, however, I cannot allow the statements made and the questions posed by Mr. Bobak to go unanswered.
First of all, I agree that more discussion on this important matter is needed.
The discussion, however, must be informed and factual, not driven by political affiliation or ideological beliefs. Holding up the "maligned" American health system as an example to be copied is ludicrous.
Statements such as, "We need to reduce the politician's health-care policy footprint which restricts our individual health-care choices" and "We need to see that the Liberal's Commitment To The Future of Medicare Act is a failure," are taken directly from the Tory hymn book and hardly raises the level of debate.
I am not a member of any political party and my letter was not a blanket defence of the Liberal Government's handling of the health care file. Mr. Bobak asked for the "names of certain politicians" who wish to increase private medical services. I will give him one: our current Prime Minister, Steven Harper.
Harper has been (and still is) one of medicare's most powerful opponents, but as PM won't publicly state it. He spent years heading the National Citizen's Coalition, set up in the early 1960s with the sole purpose of stopping Saskatchewan from establishing public health care. The attempt failed, but this group, under Harper, never stopped trying to undermine it.
Now as a prime minister waiting for a majority in Parliament, he can do a lot more, mainly by refusing to enforce the Canada Health Act thus allowing more privatization.
Universal health care may not be the same as government monopoly health care and, Mr. Bobak, I didn't say that HMOs exist in Ontario.
I cannot believe, however, that you honestly think no private interests are seeking to profit from our health-care system.”
This is from a person who in letter #2 was complaining that Williscraft's column about health care could “give ammunition to HMOs and certain politicians who would love to grab a share of the health care funding pie in Ontario.” Talk about smugly censoring the level of debate!
By all means, Mr.Murri, let’s censor writers, such as Williscraft, because their writing might inspire changes which you don’t approve! Get flicking real, as Laurel Broten might say! Mr. Murri, you don't believe your own Marxist pablum, do you? The health-care pendulum has tilted too far, for too long, in favour of the anti-profit fear mongerers.
In a near-paranoid statement Murri claims my letter was an “attack”…whoa…easy, there, big fella. That letter answering Williscraft’s concerns, along with yours, in a newpaper, was a “response’, not an attack.
Maybe Murri is used to listening only to the sound of his own voice as he sings his hymns to a mirror. After all the frothy letters Murri has penned over the years (many against the Conservatives) Mr. Murri considers my modest letter an “attack’??!!
Mr. Murri, spare us your ancient crap about Saskatchewan and its socialized health care disaster. Even Janice McKinnon, Saskatchewan's former NDP finance minister, wrote (National Post, July 14, 2004):
"Change is necessary, and I believe that if Canadians open their minds to real change we can preserve the basic principles and goals of the medicare system that was designed 40 years ago. But accepting bold change will require courage and vision.
One of the greatest threats to medicare is posed by those who cling tenaciously to the status quo and claim they are defending Tommy Douglas's vision of medicare by doing so. That was never part of his plan.
Too often in politics, what we cherish most we inadvertently destroy by believing that protecting something means freezing it in time, when in fact protecting it may require dramatic change. Protecting children, for instance, means encouraging them to grow and adapt to the world in which they have to live. If we are going to save Canada's health care system, we will have to change it, and the sooner we embark on the road to change the smoother the journey will be."
How about that I ask Murri to apologize for misrepresenting what I wrote?
Murri wrote in his letter #4 that “Holding up the "maligned" American health system as an example to be copied is ludicrous.” Yet, I never wrote that we copy the U.S. system. Murri just imagined it, like he ludicrously imagines he knows what Stephen Harper will do in the future (and so, Murri possibly also knows next week’s winning lottery numbers as well?)..I've read about such tactics of innuendo and fear in books like Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, but find it incredible to be actually personally smeared by such tactics. Murri just made up what his biases led him to believe. Thanking the Americans for having the capacity and being able to help Ontarians who have been failed by the Dalton McGuinty Liberals is not ‘copying’ their system, Dick. You might pause to wonder, though, why the sicko Ontario system failed, and where (and why) Ontario’s sicko medicare monopoly was forced to send its patients. And you might wonder whose system failed these patients. C’mon, Dick: is it that hard for you to say thanks to our U.S. neighbours; to acknowledge that the American health-care system was there when Ontario’s promises of medicare weren’t?
Mr. Murri, the Canada Health Act needs serious revision, if not a total re-write. The fact is, your innuendo about Harper and the CHA is not factual - the minority Conservative government is maintaining the status-quo. It, along with McGuinty's Commitment to the Future of Medicare act, should be totally reformulated.
It’s the Ontario Liberal government's policies which are at the forefront of the problems we currently experience. By the way, maybe you should acknowledge, while you pursue your obvious anti-Conservative agenda, that Liberal Jean Chretien, for a dozen years, did nothing as the Canada Health Act crumbled under his THREE TERM MAJORITY GOVERNMENT. In the dozens upon dozens of letters you have written to various newspapers over your illustrious career, did you once ever mention anything about Chretien “refusing to enforce the Canada Health Act thus allowing more privatization” ?
And speaking of facts, Mr. Murri, you wrote of “HMO’s” (in your letter #2) as if they actually had some bearing on Ontario. So I had asked in letter #3 where these HMO’s were in Ontario? To which you wrote in letter #4 : “I didn't say that HMOs exist in Ontario”. Yeah: exactly…but you brought them up, in a fear mongering paranoid gambit as if they were relevant in Ontario, as if no one was going to ask you where they actually existed! Well, if they don’t exist in Ontario, why create false alarms??
And there was no answer from Murri regarding these plural “certain politicians who would love to grab a share of the health care funding pie in Ontario.” The best Murri could do when challenged on that was bring up his favourite dear old boogey man, Stephen Harper. Murri could find no politicians of any stripe in Ontario challenging our failing health system - which was exactly my point, and I believe was the whole point of Williscraft’s original column; this is the point we need to keep track of, and not be distracted by knee-jerk reactionary authoritarians like Murri who bring little to the discussion but their own dated ideological biases: Where are the Ontario politicians who are willing to face today's health care challenges? It should be obvious that Liberal Health Minister George Smitherman and his crappy diaper-load of failed statist policies aren't meeting the challenge.
When Murri writes of supposed politicians (who he can’t name) “who would love to grab a share of the health care funding pie in Ontario”, again, what is he talking about? In Ontario, the Liberals have a majority government; they have had it since 2003; they have collected billions of dollars of new health taxes, over and above the billions more they collected from already-existing taxation; and their health-monopoly is not demonstrably improving. The "health care pie" (ie, our taxes) is all appropriated by the provincial Liberal government, and given to its health monopoly. Murri claims he doesn’t have any answers in regards to health care, but sure could win a Nobel prize for casting red-herrings, and he conveniently doesn’t acknowledge the central role of the Liberal health care monopoly as having anything to do with the system’s problems. [What...there's a socialist elephant in the room? Where?! I can't see it...]
Searching for some common ground, I was encouraged that Murri agreed in letter #4 (oh...I might have inadvertantly 'attacked' him again...he did agree on my point, did he not?) when he wrote that "universal health care may not be the same as government monopoly health care." There may be hope once Murri digests what that means and substitutes 'may' for 'is', because this is the fundamental, underlying narrative of my position: that the currently-accepted notion of government-only, single-payer, monopoly health-care as the only method of health-care delivery, is a charade. This is precisely what the current Lindsay McCreith and Shona Holmes health-care Charter court challenges against the Ontario government are all about.
I think also that we should reconsider portraying Ontario’s continual examples of individual health-care problems by dismissively referring to them as “anecdotal”, rather than acknowledging that they’re systemic.
Shedding crocodile tears just doesn’t cut it. That’s a cruel, almost sadistic, response to the real patients failed by our health system: ‘Oops, you suffered…so sorry, old bean…you know, we meant to help you, we even virtually promised to help you, we taxed you for years in anticipation of helping you, you probably thought and even expected us to actually help you when you needed help…but, oops! these things happen…c’est la vie…you can’t expect us to be perfect, or to be literally held accountable, can you?...hey, now, stop your complaining…you are Canadian aren’t you…so get in line and wait…or go to the States…we don’t need your kind here then, anyway’. Really, eh?
I believe there should be less political interference in health care, and have written about this from various perspectives on numerous occasions. I even found Niagara This Week’s caption on Murri’s letter #4 - “Health-care debate can't be driven by politics”, frankly confusing. If anything, Murri demonstrates he is actually in favour of more political interference, not less! Or, maybe, Murri is not in favour of debate, UNLESS the debate is driven by his kind of politics?
The latter seems to me to be applicable. After all, Murri’s initial complaint about Williscraft’s original letter was that it might lead to alarming changes, vaguely involving Stephen Harper and HMO's which do not exist in Ontario, which displease Murri.
By his own definition then, Murri himself actually ‘attacked’ Williscraft by responding to him.
I say, Right On, Mr. Williscraft, and Write On!
Don’t let politically-correct ludicrous censorship deter you.
By the way, here is another story fittingly dealing with the subjects of both writing letters to the editor and poor Ontario health care:
Stephen and Catherine Collins wrote in “Frustrated with health-care”, (Barrie Advance, Mar.3, 2008):
“On Feb. 27 my husband and I sat for five and-a-half hours in Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) waiting to see if we would win the ICU lottery.
My husband was scheduled for abdominal aortic aneurysm surgery, but would only receive surgery if enough ICU beds were available. We did not win the lottery, for the second time, his surgery was cancelled because of a lack of beds. If this has happened to us, I’m sure it is a common occurrence for thousands of Canadians every day.
Tommy Douglas must be rolling over in his grave.
Someone recently told me if a mere 10 per cent of people complained to their MPs, MPPs and newspapers, things would get changed when there is a problem such as this. Sit on your hands and say nothing, and watch our health care go down the crapper. Complacency will only get us more and more medical procedures health care will not pay for.
The government had already taken away eye exams. I guess the government thinks it’s cheaper to take care of the blind than prevent blindness. People who can not afford $100 for the exam could get macular degeneration and glaucoma.
Did you know there is a definitive test for cervical cancer, $90, but our plan will only cover a Pap smear (a crap shoot at best) which is only 55-per-cent accurate. There is also a definitive test for prostate cancer costing approximately $30. Again, this is not covered. Guess it must be cheaper for health care to pay for chemotherapy and radiation.
To this frustrated Canadian, this kind of thinking is penny-wise and pound-foolish. We deserve better. The pen is mightier than the sword, so fellow Canadians, dust off your pens and make our politicians accountable.”
Oh, oh… hope Richard Murri doesn’t complain to shut them up, too. Perhaps Liberal MPP Kim Craitor of Niagara Falls, or Liberal MPP Jim Bradley of St. Catharines, can publicly answer some of the Collins' concerns. We pay incredibly high taxes, while the Liberals raised billions in new Health taxes and cut coverage to supposedly-universal medicare. We have no legal choice but to take whatever the Ontario Liberals deem fit for us receive, yet the Liberals remain unaccountable.
Why aren't more people writing about this?
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Remember Summer
As we're freezing during an ice storm today, Mar.5, 2008, complaining about the cold, I recall the thermostsat reading back on Aug. 3, 2007 (above) @ 116F, when we were complaining about the heat!
Are we aware two-tier is coming?
Watched CHCH TV Live at 5:30 with Donna Skelly and Mark Hebscher on Mar.4, 2008; their guests on a health care segment were Tony Clark, of Kidney Cancer Canada, who found his cancer treatment thanks to a pharmaceutical company on compassionate grounds, and Dr. William Hryniuk, of the Cancer Advocacy Coalition of Canada, who said British Columbia is the best province in Canada to be in if you have cancer.
Skelly at one point asked: “Why is the government so resistant to help people who are dying of cancer obtain life saving drugs?”
Clark said: “It’s unbelievable to think that we live in a country like Canada and even in a province like Ontario where we have all these problems. I think they put a value on human life at a certain number of dollars per year - and Dr. Hryniuk probably knows what that is better than I do, I think it’s in the 60-70 thousand dollar range – and if the treatment options surpass that they say tough luck, you know, if you don’t have private insurance, we can’t help you.”
Hebscher: “Is that indeed the case, Dr. Hryniuk?”
Hryniuk: “It's absolutely correct”
Hryniuk mentioned that the approvals process for new drugs is much faster in the U.S. than in Canada, where it is a five step process. Hryniuk said that our health system is “rationing the treatment” of cancer. He also believes that Canadians should start to realize that they will have to get their own drug or critical care insurance, and get it while they are younger– and, although he’s not in favour of two-tier, it’s coming.
Clark also agreed that people will need their own health-care insurance for such critical illnesses. “Day after day, patients are dying because they don’t have private health insurance.”
This sobering segment should be required watching for Ontario’s Liberals. Remember the election of Oct. 2007 – there was nary a peep about ANY health care problems in Ontario. Locally, Jim Bradley, St. Catharines MPP, hardly talked about health care at all. There was no problem with the system!! Just sit back and relax - let Dalton do the driving!
Oh, sure, McGuinty accidentally bumped into some inconvenient cancer patient in the hospital while McGuinty was campaigning, and when the patient (Mike Brady) refused to shake the Liberal’s hand (saying to McGuinty ‘you’re not helping any’), McGuinty JUST WALKED AWAY, essentially calling the patient a liar, saying to him “that’s not true”.
But, again, this is exactly what this segment of Live at 5:30 was saying – the government is not helping. That’s Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government of Ontario: the government with the high tax rates; with the high health taxes; cuts in coverage; rationing of care; and high employer taxes; that promised in 2007 it won’t raise taxes again – what will McGuinty do now?
We still don’t even know – since Nov. 2007 – why the Niagara Health System in St. Catharines - Jim Bradley’s backyard - has the third highest patient mortality rate in Canada. Is it due to underfunding? The hospital has said it needed more money – where’s the investigation into this? Where’s the Liberal government’s explanation for this? Was everything really all well and good in Ontario’s health care system during the election?
The Liberals never told Ontarians that we will need to get private health coverage, because the government rations patients’ treatment allotments! Everything was supposed to be covered in our Douglasonian, universal health-care Utopia, wasn't it? The trick for the Liberals was to grasp and control political power by portraying a mirage that the Liberals are the sole worthy gatekeepers for the myth known as single-payer, government-run, monopoly health-care. Their health-care house of cards is collapsing; that ball of yarn spun by smug tax-raising, patient-choice-denying Liberals is unravelling quickly.
Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal Premier of Ontario, set the tone for the next four years when he walked away from that cancer patient during the election.
Ontarians voted to be further victimized by Liberal healthcare duplicity.
*
Skelly at one point asked: “Why is the government so resistant to help people who are dying of cancer obtain life saving drugs?”
Clark said: “It’s unbelievable to think that we live in a country like Canada and even in a province like Ontario where we have all these problems. I think they put a value on human life at a certain number of dollars per year - and Dr. Hryniuk probably knows what that is better than I do, I think it’s in the 60-70 thousand dollar range – and if the treatment options surpass that they say tough luck, you know, if you don’t have private insurance, we can’t help you.”
Hebscher: “Is that indeed the case, Dr. Hryniuk?”
Hryniuk: “It's absolutely correct”
Hryniuk mentioned that the approvals process for new drugs is much faster in the U.S. than in Canada, where it is a five step process. Hryniuk said that our health system is “rationing the treatment” of cancer. He also believes that Canadians should start to realize that they will have to get their own drug or critical care insurance, and get it while they are younger– and, although he’s not in favour of two-tier, it’s coming.
Clark also agreed that people will need their own health-care insurance for such critical illnesses. “Day after day, patients are dying because they don’t have private health insurance.”
This sobering segment should be required watching for Ontario’s Liberals. Remember the election of Oct. 2007 – there was nary a peep about ANY health care problems in Ontario. Locally, Jim Bradley, St. Catharines MPP, hardly talked about health care at all. There was no problem with the system!! Just sit back and relax - let Dalton do the driving!
Oh, sure, McGuinty accidentally bumped into some inconvenient cancer patient in the hospital while McGuinty was campaigning, and when the patient (Mike Brady) refused to shake the Liberal’s hand (saying to McGuinty ‘you’re not helping any’), McGuinty JUST WALKED AWAY, essentially calling the patient a liar, saying to him “that’s not true”.
But, again, this is exactly what this segment of Live at 5:30 was saying – the government is not helping. That’s Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government of Ontario: the government with the high tax rates; with the high health taxes; cuts in coverage; rationing of care; and high employer taxes; that promised in 2007 it won’t raise taxes again – what will McGuinty do now?
We still don’t even know – since Nov. 2007 – why the Niagara Health System in St. Catharines - Jim Bradley’s backyard - has the third highest patient mortality rate in Canada. Is it due to underfunding? The hospital has said it needed more money – where’s the investigation into this? Where’s the Liberal government’s explanation for this? Was everything really all well and good in Ontario’s health care system during the election?
The Liberals never told Ontarians that we will need to get private health coverage, because the government rations patients’ treatment allotments! Everything was supposed to be covered in our Douglasonian, universal health-care Utopia, wasn't it? The trick for the Liberals was to grasp and control political power by portraying a mirage that the Liberals are the sole worthy gatekeepers for the myth known as single-payer, government-run, monopoly health-care. Their health-care house of cards is collapsing; that ball of yarn spun by smug tax-raising, patient-choice-denying Liberals is unravelling quickly.
Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal Premier of Ontario, set the tone for the next four years when he walked away from that cancer patient during the election.
Ontarians voted to be further victimized by Liberal healthcare duplicity.
*
Monday, March 3, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Are Canadians individualists or collectivists?
Robert Fulford asked in his interesting article (National Post, Feb.16, 2008) titled “Preaching the dogma of dependency”:
“In political matters, are Canadians individualists or collectivists? [Garth] Turner, Liberal MP for the Ontario riding of Halton, deserves attention in this context because he's an experienced foot soldier in the army of politicians and bureaucrats governing Canada. A former business journalist, he's proven he can sit as a Conservative, an Independent or a Liberal. As a politician never accused of originality, he has a firm grip on the conventional wisdom. That, and his flexibility, make him a representative figure…
He's now among those Liberals who favour defeating the government on the budget. In this role, he told a Globe and Mail reporter on Wednesday that Harper may well deserve defeat: "The reality is, if the budget doesn't satisfy people's economic concerns, if it doesn't quell those anxieties that families have about the future, then they should be presented another alternative." (Italics added.)
Hiding in the shadows behind those words, probably unclear even to Turner himself, is a whole philosophy of political life. Politicians soak up this doctrine without ever understanding
With politicians so willing to take responsibility, we always have someone else to blame its implications. What they know and like most about it is the way it makes them more important than they would be otherwise.
As Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois members or Conservatives, they discover that voters are happiest when they believe they can depend on government to solve most of their problems. There are citizens and even institutions opposing this idea, but the progress they make is erratic and often only temporary.
We can be fairly certain that not even Garth Turner believes a budget passed by Parliament will "quell" the anxieties of the citizens. Anxieties about the future are so numerous, and are caused by such a multiplicity of forces, that governments can do only a little to alleviate them and nothing whatever to "quell" them. If an auto worker fears unemployment because foreign cars are cheaper, can the government fix that? No. Passing high tariffs against Korean cars, for instance, would be impossible without destroying the trade policy Canada has pursued, with great success, for generations. In most cases, our economy depends heavily on the financial health of other countries, especially the U.S. It also evolves according to technological change, not government decisions.
Yet we blame the government for every weakness in the economy, just as we blame educators because they can't teach students who show up at school with no desire to learn. (Almost everybody says the schools are failing the students. Hardly anyone points out that the students and their parents are failing the public education system.)
Who taught us this habit? The Liberals, above all. They have been more than happy to encourage the rise of dependency on government while presiding over the decline and fall of individualism in every aspect of politics and commerce.
With politicians so willing to shoulder responsibility, we always have someone other than ourselves to blame. Politicians discover our fears through polling, then promise to pass laws that will improve the conditions that worry us. In most cases, of course, they fail, sometimes spectacularly. Naturally, we are disappointed, and we decide that politicians are liars. This elaborate system of cynical commitments followed by impulsive blaming has turned into a form of moral and intellectual corruption far deeper than anything forbidden by Parliamentary ethics or the Criminal Code.
Garth Turner may still be a newcomer in the Liberal party, but he proved this week that he can compress into a few words the automatic, unthinking arrogance that has been an essential part of Liberalism for generations.”
*
Fulford’s column reminded me of the Ontario Liberal approach to health care and the environment, promising changes that never really materialize. Liberal health care duplicity is legendary, as is Liberal environmental duplicity. Just trust us seems to be their mantra.
Ontario Liberals continue to beat the dying - if not already dead - horse of universal, single-payer, government-run health care, despite the fact that Health Minister George Smitherman has already acknowledged that the government can’t do it all when it comes to health care delivery. Yet the preaching of dependency and the fearmongering about allowing patient choice and privatization (spoiling the Liberal’s health care power base) continues. Despite the Chaoulli decision in Quebec, and the recent Castonguay Report in Quebec, the Ontario Liberals and their status-quo-supporting sycophants have done nothing to discuss, prepare, or pro-actively set the new future of health care in Ontario in motion. It’s as if they are waiting and hoping that the McCreith/Holmes health care charter challenge now before the court in Ontario (similar to Quebec’s earlier Chaoulli challenge) ultimately fails, and that the Liberals can then merrily continue propagating their failing health care monopoly in perpetuity.
The Liberals, likewise, whine consistently about the environment, now blaming the federal Conservatives for alleged inaction. Ontario's Liberals cringed, opposed and fobbed off Ottawa’s attempt last year to set a California –type standard across Canada – citing damage to Ontario’s auto manufacturing industry. Yet when all the Kyoto B.S. was being bandied about (with St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley cheerleading in Ontario), the Liberals downplayed that any damage to Ontario’s economy would be minimal!
Again, like with health care, Ontario Liberals stubbornly refuse to look next door to Quebec. Quebec was the first Canadian province to adopt the California emissions standard, as reported in the St. Catharines Standard story “Quebec adopts California’s stringent emissuions controls” (Dec.12, 2007).
Ontario’s Liberal Premier Dalton ‘Clean-Air’ McGuinty has had since 2003 to put his money and his policies where his mouth and his rhetoric are. Yet here too, the Liberals are laggards behind Quebec.
When Fulford writes of politicians’ willing to shoulder responsibility, I question how far this responsibility really goes.
No politician, Liberal or not, is held liable for patients’ suffering and deaths caused by the government-run health monopoly. Maybe they might not be re elected, but that’s a far cry from being actually held responsible for what occurs on their watch. They claim to assume responsibility, and we give away our trust to their monopoly, only to find that when the promises are not delivered, there is no one ultimately accountable - it's "the system" that's to blame!
The sinister aspect of this is that politicians ultimately are conveniently insulated and held harmless from the blow-back of their own decisions.
“In political matters, are Canadians individualists or collectivists? [Garth] Turner, Liberal MP for the Ontario riding of Halton, deserves attention in this context because he's an experienced foot soldier in the army of politicians and bureaucrats governing Canada. A former business journalist, he's proven he can sit as a Conservative, an Independent or a Liberal. As a politician never accused of originality, he has a firm grip on the conventional wisdom. That, and his flexibility, make him a representative figure…
He's now among those Liberals who favour defeating the government on the budget. In this role, he told a Globe and Mail reporter on Wednesday that Harper may well deserve defeat: "The reality is, if the budget doesn't satisfy people's economic concerns, if it doesn't quell those anxieties that families have about the future, then they should be presented another alternative." (Italics added.)
Hiding in the shadows behind those words, probably unclear even to Turner himself, is a whole philosophy of political life. Politicians soak up this doctrine without ever understanding
With politicians so willing to take responsibility, we always have someone else to blame its implications. What they know and like most about it is the way it makes them more important than they would be otherwise.
As Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois members or Conservatives, they discover that voters are happiest when they believe they can depend on government to solve most of their problems. There are citizens and even institutions opposing this idea, but the progress they make is erratic and often only temporary.
We can be fairly certain that not even Garth Turner believes a budget passed by Parliament will "quell" the anxieties of the citizens. Anxieties about the future are so numerous, and are caused by such a multiplicity of forces, that governments can do only a little to alleviate them and nothing whatever to "quell" them. If an auto worker fears unemployment because foreign cars are cheaper, can the government fix that? No. Passing high tariffs against Korean cars, for instance, would be impossible without destroying the trade policy Canada has pursued, with great success, for generations. In most cases, our economy depends heavily on the financial health of other countries, especially the U.S. It also evolves according to technological change, not government decisions.
Yet we blame the government for every weakness in the economy, just as we blame educators because they can't teach students who show up at school with no desire to learn. (Almost everybody says the schools are failing the students. Hardly anyone points out that the students and their parents are failing the public education system.)
Who taught us this habit? The Liberals, above all. They have been more than happy to encourage the rise of dependency on government while presiding over the decline and fall of individualism in every aspect of politics and commerce.
With politicians so willing to shoulder responsibility, we always have someone other than ourselves to blame. Politicians discover our fears through polling, then promise to pass laws that will improve the conditions that worry us. In most cases, of course, they fail, sometimes spectacularly. Naturally, we are disappointed, and we decide that politicians are liars. This elaborate system of cynical commitments followed by impulsive blaming has turned into a form of moral and intellectual corruption far deeper than anything forbidden by Parliamentary ethics or the Criminal Code.
Garth Turner may still be a newcomer in the Liberal party, but he proved this week that he can compress into a few words the automatic, unthinking arrogance that has been an essential part of Liberalism for generations.”
*
Fulford’s column reminded me of the Ontario Liberal approach to health care and the environment, promising changes that never really materialize. Liberal health care duplicity is legendary, as is Liberal environmental duplicity. Just trust us seems to be their mantra.
Ontario Liberals continue to beat the dying - if not already dead - horse of universal, single-payer, government-run health care, despite the fact that Health Minister George Smitherman has already acknowledged that the government can’t do it all when it comes to health care delivery. Yet the preaching of dependency and the fearmongering about allowing patient choice and privatization (spoiling the Liberal’s health care power base) continues. Despite the Chaoulli decision in Quebec, and the recent Castonguay Report in Quebec, the Ontario Liberals and their status-quo-supporting sycophants have done nothing to discuss, prepare, or pro-actively set the new future of health care in Ontario in motion. It’s as if they are waiting and hoping that the McCreith/Holmes health care charter challenge now before the court in Ontario (similar to Quebec’s earlier Chaoulli challenge) ultimately fails, and that the Liberals can then merrily continue propagating their failing health care monopoly in perpetuity.
The Liberals, likewise, whine consistently about the environment, now blaming the federal Conservatives for alleged inaction. Ontario's Liberals cringed, opposed and fobbed off Ottawa’s attempt last year to set a California –type standard across Canada – citing damage to Ontario’s auto manufacturing industry. Yet when all the Kyoto B.S. was being bandied about (with St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley cheerleading in Ontario), the Liberals downplayed that any damage to Ontario’s economy would be minimal!
Again, like with health care, Ontario Liberals stubbornly refuse to look next door to Quebec. Quebec was the first Canadian province to adopt the California emissions standard, as reported in the St. Catharines Standard story “Quebec adopts California’s stringent emissuions controls” (Dec.12, 2007).
Ontario’s Liberal Premier Dalton ‘Clean-Air’ McGuinty has had since 2003 to put his money and his policies where his mouth and his rhetoric are. Yet here too, the Liberals are laggards behind Quebec.
When Fulford writes of politicians’ willing to shoulder responsibility, I question how far this responsibility really goes.
No politician, Liberal or not, is held liable for patients’ suffering and deaths caused by the government-run health monopoly. Maybe they might not be re elected, but that’s a far cry from being actually held responsible for what occurs on their watch. They claim to assume responsibility, and we give away our trust to their monopoly, only to find that when the promises are not delivered, there is no one ultimately accountable - it's "the system" that's to blame!
The sinister aspect of this is that politicians ultimately are conveniently insulated and held harmless from the blow-back of their own decisions.
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