A Canadian Physician Speaks the Truth

Recall that Canada’s premiere Danny Williams headed to the U.S. for his own life saving heart surgery.

Staunch defender of Canada’s single payer system, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier, Danny Williams needs heart surgery.  Evidently, single payer is just fine for the peasants, but when a high ranking politician has to have life saving surgery, Canada’s magnificent health care system loses some of its luster.

Canada’s socialized medicine scheme is working so smoothly that Canadian health agencies have had to negotiate contracts with hospitals in the United States to provide the care Canada’s system can’t offer.  The Detroit Free Press reports that these lucrative agreements “provide more immediate services for patients whose health is at risk.”

“Three Windsor-area hospitals have arrangements with Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, to provide backup, after-hours angioplasty. Authorities will clear Detroit-Windsor Tunnel traffic for ambulances, if necessary. The Detroit Medical Center also provides Canadians complex trauma, cancer, neonatal and other care.”

Should the unthinkable happen, and congress manages to force Soros Care on the American people, where will we send our inevitable overflow? 

“Canada’s U.S. backup care ’speaks volumes to why we don’t need government to take over health care,’ Scott Hagerstrom, the state director in Michigan for Americans for Prosperity, said of the Canadian arrangements with Michigan hospitals. ‘Their system doesn’t work if they have to send us their patients.’”

At CPAC 2010, I had the chance to speak with a Canadian physician who told me I might be surprised at the number of Canadians attending the event.  Screwing up America doesn’t really benefit their country.

This doctor is a specialist and made it clear to all within earshot that if we adopt a Canadian style health care system in America, we are out of our minds.  His speciality is a type of pediatric medicine so specialized that he works strictly on referrals.  The wait times for children with life threatening conditions are appalling.  Lots of luck complaining to your local bureaucrat.

The doctor did acknowledge that the Canadian system does function adequately in emergency care; if you are in an accident in Canada, you will be treated. 

They probably have a lot of practice in emergency medicine.  Denying urgently needed care to sick patients provides a steady flow of victims into the ER.