Obamasnare
If you have no idea what you are talking about, please do not use my country as an example. Health care is not rationed in Canada by “government bureaucrats”, it is rationed by Doctors who make the best medical decision possible. Surgeons prioritize by need in the same way that emergency doctors, family physicians and nurses all do.
Nobody likes to wait for health care, period. I agree with that. It is awful that 830,000 Canadians (a number that is often mentioned, but it’s source, The Investor’s Business Daily, produces similar pronunciations about Canadian healthcare regularly and doesn’t provide any raw figures on how they obtained this data) may be on a waiting list, but it is also an illustration of the Canadian idea of medicine and a distinctly American version.
This is why, no matter how eager or ambitious a plan, America may never be ready for socialized medicine: The American definition of medicine is the best, right now. If you do not have that, then you have nothing. The Canadian idea? What I need, when I need it.
I’m not sure that is a gap you can close. When everyone believes that a socialized solution will have to maintain the same free-market drivers that the current system has, then you are bound for failure. Socializing medicine isn’t about making medicine better for those who can currently afford it, it is about making medicine accessible to those who currently cannot. It is about making it available and reliable for those who need it, when they need it most. It is about prevention and a population view.
American individualism is powerful and it is something that I would never want to see gone. It adds a fascinating level of colour to society and it is one of the reasons that the country has done so well.
Part of accepting a universal health system involves some degree of de-individualization of perception. To accept that you have no more or better access to healthcare than your neighbor may be at complete odds with how most American’s perceive themselves, and why should they be expected to see themselves any other way? Canada is a country where you may very well find yourself recovering in the same ward as a homeless guy from downtown, or you may have your childbirth in the same operating room as a mother who has spent her life on welfare.
You have to accept that. You have to accept that not only will you have to sleep just a few rooms away from someone you may not otherwise associate with, but that you may very well be paying for their stay.
To those in the debate who want to hold Canada up and find cracks in our system: get a life. To those who think they can fundamentally change what is not only a commercial but a cultural issue: good luck.
