EDITORIAL: This isn't brain surgery - Opinion

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Feb. 01, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: This isn't brain surgery

Tales from the Canadian health care system

American supporters of socialized medicine have learned not to call it that, anymore. Instead, they use euphemisms such as "single payer" -- as though they seek to hold some giant lottery in which a Yazoo City garage mechanic named Billy Bob Bufus would be selected to reach into his coveralls and pay everybody else's medical bills for a year.

Early on in his administration, looking for something for the first lady to do, Bill Clinton appointed his wife to head up a giant secret task force to draw up a proposed new nationalized "Health Security Act." Mrs. Clinton put together a 1,300-page doozy. Under her plan, anyone attempting to "get out of line" and pay cash for faster medical attention could have gone to jail.

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That sounds far-fetched, but it's actually typical of any "one-payer" government medical monopoly. If things in limited supply are not rationed by price, they have to be rationed by bureaucrats.

Stuart Browning is a young filmmaker who has put together a series of short films warning Americans about the dangers of collectivized medicine and the benefits of free markets in health care. One of these films, "A Short Course in Brain Surgery" can be viewed for free in only a few minutes on your home computer, at www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php. It's worth the time.

The five-minute short introduces us to a retired Ontario body shop manager named Lindsay McCleith. Mr. McCleith had terrible headaches and suffered a seizure. Both he and his doctor suspected a brain tumor, and asked the Canadian National Health system to schedule the diagnostic test known as an MRI. Mr. McCleith got his appointment -- four months away.

He and his wife offered to pay cash to get faster attention. But that's not allowed in Ontario. (Sound familiar?)

He crossed the border to Buffalo, N.Y., and got his test in four days. Turned out he had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. Armed with this evidence of the seriousness of his condition, he returned to Canada, seeking quick surgery and reimbursement for his expenses. The Canadian "single-payer" system which American leftists yearn to emulate would do neither.

His doctor estimates Mr. McCleith would have waited eight months for treatment in his home country. Here, the whole process -- diagnosis, consultation, surgery -- took one month.

Fortunately, he and his wife had enough money to cover the $28,000 cost -- though Sandra McCleith says she would have gladly mortgaged her home to pay the bills. "When your life is in danger, you're desperate," she says.

That only works if you can get to America, though. No amount of money would have bought them timely treatment in Canada. Even "asking for permission" to go to the United States takes eight months.

Today, Hillary Clinton says she's "learned her lesson" about proposing socialized medicine.

But one examines her written and spoken record in vain for any declaration that government-enforced collectivism is inherently wrong, in medicine or anywhere else. Instead, we're left to conclude the "lesson" Sen. Clinton has learned is that it's wiser to impose socialized medicine incrementally, one small step at a time, rather than be honest and spell out your intentions, handing fans of freedom as fat and juicy a target as her gigantic "Health Security Act."

Nor is there any indication that her remaining Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, has foresworn this vital plank in the socialists' century-old roadmap to serfdom, either.

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Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background. David Johann wrote on February 02, 2008 01:30 AM: In the second post on this topic, I asked: "SO WHAT'S THE BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM, RJ?" The post immediately below offers one response. The RJ, as typical, offers none, but never passes the opportunity, like one of Richard Mellon Scaife's papers, to bash the Clintons. In the second post on this string, I rhetorically asked: "The current system as it exists in United States is the best of all possible health care systems. How many people actually believe this?" The post immediately below offers one response. In contrast, the RJ bashes the Clintons. InsuranceTeaseDOTcom wrote on February 01, 2008 08:23 PM: U.S. Health Care System is 37th in the world. Canada's is ranked 30th. Britain's is ranked 18th. Japan's is ranked 10th. Singapore's is ranked 6th. Italy's is 2nd. France has the best health care system in the world. No matter what atrocities you site happening in Canada, they are worse here. Support HR 676 & SB 840 tim wrote on February 01, 2008 05:11 PM: one more thing david, the military is not run so great either, take for example the v.a., politicians telling generals how to fight a war and soldiers dying because they are not sure if they have to kill or be killed because they fear being prosecuted by the same politicians that sent them there. our military deserves better. if you want to stand on that soapbox not everybody is going to agree with you. tim wrote on February 01, 2008 05:00 PM: hey david,i heard on the news about a letter sent 19 miles took over a week to arrive. i didnt say anything about our military. as for the mortgages if the gov. cared, they would have stepped in long before this mess came along,wouldnt you say? David Johann wrote on February 01, 2008 04:49 PM: Tim, do you think we should privatize the military? (BTW, my mail arrived today just fine, and usually does unless some meth addict is trying to break into my mailbox and steal my identity). After we privatize the military, we can completely privatize health care too. That should work about as well as letting the free market decide who qualifies for mortgages, wouldn't you say? tim wrote on February 01, 2008 04:34 PM: the gov. cant even run the postal service, what makes anyone think they could do any better with our health care? the gov. cares for one thing and that is themselves,getting reelected and saying anything to get reelected, including telling us their version of healthcare is best for us. what a bunch of bull. David Johann wrote on February 01, 2008 04:20 PM: It sounds like what Jim Donohue is looking for some good, responsible, intellectual discourse on health care policy. Jim Donohue wrote on February 01, 2008 03:22 PM: Anecdotal and simplistic. Quote the relevant statistics...Cost to the society as a percent of GDP. Life expectancy. Infant Mortality. Now square these numbers with your example. John F wrote on February 01, 2008 02:28 PM: cas127, If Medicare fueled the recent medical price inflation, why does it spend less per patient than does private care? You have an excellent point that perhaps we should have waited to start Medicare until we had gathered funding for it, and that may be a useful notion for phasing it in for everyone. That would make it more expensive in the near term, but more stable financially in the long run. The free market model for medical care doesn't work. Private insurers will not cover those who are apt to cost them a lot of money (primarily seniors and the disabled), nor will they cover those who can't afford it. So the taxpayers end up covering those groups of people through Medicare and Medicaid. That leaves the private insurers to cover those who are least expensive to insure, yet they still spend more per patient. Why is that? Answer that and you will understand why allowing anyone who wants to to enroll in Medicare is a good idea. People would not be required to do this; they could keep their private plans if they wanted. They could switch to Medicare and buy a supplemental policy if they thought Medicare wouldn't provide them with enough coverage. But employers would no longer be burdened with these costs and we would all benefit. It wouldn't cost us any more to provide people with medical care than it does now, we'd just pay for it through taxes instead of through payroll deductions and through the additional cost on any goods we buy from anyone who currently provides their employees with insurance. I heard somewhere that GM pays more for employee health care than they do for steel. Imagine what the price of your Impala would have been if they didn't have to cover that insurance cost. Denny Eckstein wrote on February 01, 2008 02:08 PM: I am certainly not an expert on socialized medicine nor am I for or against it. But I do know that to condemn a whole system on one example is irresponsible. Mr. McCleith's tale is an unfortunate one. We all can sympathize with his ordeal. But for every Canadian that has to wait four months for an MRI I am sure there are 20 Americans who die because they were not able to afford the treatment they needed. Your newspaper should be more responsible to it's readers than to support this type of journalism. Read All Comments