Americans Want It, Canadians Don’t

Despite what you probably think, I am really sick and tired of writing about government run health care and the threat it is posing to America.  I just can’t believe how much information is out there that shows it just doesn’t work, yet people still push for it.  The ignorance and/or sheer evil never ceases to amaze me.

So today, I saw this article in the WSJ.  From the article:

Hoping to capitalize on patients who might otherwise go to the U.S. for speedier care, a network of technically illegal private clinics and surgical centers has sprung up in British Columbia, echoing a trend in Quebec. In October, the courts will be asked to decide whether the budding system should be sanctioned. More than 70 private health providers in British Columbia now schedule simple surgeries and tests such as MRIs with waits as short as a week or two, compared with the months it takes for a public surgical suite to become available for nonessential operations.

'What we have in Canada is access to a government, state-mandated wait list,' said Brian Day, a former Canadian Medical Assn. director who runs a private surgical center in Vancouver. 'You cannot force a citizen in a free and democratic society to simply wait for healthcare, and outlaw their ability to extricate themselves from a wait list.'"

In other words, while Congress debates whether to set U.S. medicine on the Canadian path, Canadians are desperately seeking their own private option. At least Ms. Woodkey had the safety valve of Montana and private American medicine. Once Congress passes a form of Medicare for all, with its inevitable government price controls and limits on care, Americans might not be so lucky.

Let's hope that by then Canada has expanded its own private option, so Americans will one day be able to visit Alberta for faster, better care. Unless Congress bars that too.

(Emphasis mine.)  I don’t think that’s quite the “Hope” Obama had in mind, but yes, let’s hope for at least that much.  At the most, let’s hope, fight and win the battle for free market health care in America.