By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--June 28, 2009
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“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.” Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.Why is this? Didn’t the Canadians find the perfect solution, the “fair” one for all citizens? If you think bureaucratized, government systems are the way to go, ask yourself if this woman is “worth” saving?
Sick with ovarian cancer, Sylvia de Vires, an Ontario woman afflicted with a 13-inch, fluid-filled tumor weighing 40 pounds, was unable to get timely care in Canada. She crossed the American border to Pontiac, Mich., where a surgeon removed the tumor, estimating she could not have lived longer than a few weeks more. The Canadian government pays for U.S. medical care in some circumstances, but it declined to do so in de Vires’ case for a bureaucratically perfect, but inhumane, reason: She hadn’t properly filled out a form. At death’s door, de Vires should have done her paperwork better.Or ask yourself if government has the capacity to address problems when they inevitably occur?
The Ministry of Health declared that British patients should get ER care within four hours. The result? At some hospitals, seriously ill patients are kept in ambulances for hours so as not to run afoul of the regulation; at other hospitals, patients are admitted to inappropriate wards.Obamacare will bring this mess onto all our heads. Do situations like this exist today in the U.S. system, anyway? Yes. Can they be easily fixed. No. But the difference is, patients currently have options to be able to “fix” their own situation. Once Obamacare is forced upon us, there will BE no solutions, no “fixes” that the individual can make to help himself. We will all be forced to suffer. …well, maybe not all. For Obama is exempting government workers and unions from the hell he is about to force upon the rest of us. Listen to Claude Castonguay. He has already been there. He’s seen the mistake that is national healthcare. Let’s learn from other’s disastrous decisions, shall we?
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.