Private health care fun
It seems to me like we have a bit of irony on the campaign trail.
It goes like this: The supposed supporter of private health care has, near as I can tell, never made any use of private medicine. Has not been to a private hospital, has not had a private doctor, has not... well, you get the picture. Meanwhile, it now turns out that both of the supporters of public medicare have much more to do with private medicine than most would think.
The Canadian Press has discovered that Jack Layton had a hernia operation at the Shouldice hospital. The Shouldice clinic is a private, not-for-profit hospital. Yeah, private. Like with shareholders and CEOs and earnings statements and capitalism and so on.
Of course, everybody knows that Paul Martin, maybe the most embarassing excuse for a prime minister in my country's history, has a private phsysician who runs Medisys Health Group, a private, for-profit health care clinic. Not like the rest of us, who don't have that luxury (but should. And will!).
Meanwhile, former NDP premier of B.C. [Ed.: Got it, Thurley] and current (but not for long) Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh got the most money from capitalist health care pig-dogs (actually, what do lefties call these sorts of people nowadays? I'm always confused about the animal references. Maybe now they're capitalist hyenas or snakes or frogs or chickens or something. Whatever. I don't know what these people have against animals anyways).
Slick bunch of politicians, hm? (At least they're all healthy).
It goes like this: The supposed supporter of private health care has, near as I can tell, never made any use of private medicine. Has not been to a private hospital, has not had a private doctor, has not... well, you get the picture. Meanwhile, it now turns out that both of the supporters of public medicare have much more to do with private medicine than most would think.
The Canadian Press has discovered that Jack Layton had a hernia operation at the Shouldice hospital. The Shouldice clinic is a private, not-for-profit hospital. Yeah, private. Like with shareholders and CEOs and earnings statements and capitalism and so on.
Of course, everybody knows that Paul Martin, maybe the most embarassing excuse for a prime minister in my country's history, has a private phsysician who runs Medisys Health Group, a private, for-profit health care clinic. Not like the rest of us, who don't have that luxury (but should. And will!).
Meanwhile, former NDP premier of B.C. [Ed.: Got it, Thurley] and current (but not for long) Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh got the most money from capitalist health care pig-dogs (actually, what do lefties call these sorts of people nowadays? I'm always confused about the animal references. Maybe now they're capitalist hyenas or snakes or frogs or chickens or something. Whatever. I don't know what these people have against animals anyways).
Slick bunch of politicians, hm? (At least they're all healthy).
posted by P. M. Jaworski at 10:34 p.m.
4 Comments:
Shouldice hospital was grandfathered in to the OHIP system in the 70's. Layton paid for the surgery with his OHIP card, not cash. Many people go to private clinics (MOST MRI clinics in Canada are private) without knowing they are private.
FYI... most of the money for these clinics comes from OHIP and/or employment medical plans. Result? No one ever spends money on medical care in Canada.
If no one ever spends money on medical care in Canada, then what's with all the taxes? If medicare is free, why are provincial governments talking about "funding" medicare?
By "no one," I'm sure you meant regular old people. Still, even here you're wrong. Dentistry is medical care on most peoples account, and we pay for it out of pocket. Plenty of medical services (not deemed "medically necessary") are paid for out of pocket. The RCMP, people on workers comp, criminals sitting in federal penitentiaries, and foreigners are all formally exempt from the Canada Health Act. So someone pays for them. Like their employer, or someone else. And they get to use fully private services.
As for Layton, he should just say what a great job the Shouldice clinic did, and wouldn't it be great if we had more private hospitals? He'd be right to say that.
uh.. Dosanjh is the former NDP Premier of B.C., not Saskatchewan. (And personally I prefer 'capitalist pig' ;) )
Great blog I hope we can work to build a better health care system as we are in a major crisis and health insurance is a major aspect to many.
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