What About Canadacare?

A hat tip to commenter's at Gateway Pundit for directing me to this article by Let Freedom Ring. Muchas Gracias, people! Read the whole article, it's a good read. Here are a few selections from it:

I’ve long thought that Canadacare was vastly overrated. Thanks to Drudge highlighting this article, I now have proof galore that Canadacare is a disaster. Here’s what I’m referring to:

SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country’s health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country, who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting, recognize that changes must be made.

“We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” Doig said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “We know that there must be change,” she said. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”

The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there’s a critical need to make Canada’s health-care system patient-centred.

Health care systems that aren’t “patient-centred” are worthless. If the patient’s needs aren’t the health care system’s highest priority, then that system’s priorities are worthless. PERIOD.

So much for that old complaint that Canadians have better healthcare then Americans, eh? Wait, it gets better.

Who cares if everyone is insured if there are 17 week waiting periods for primary care physicians and longer waits for specialists? Who cares if everyone is insured if Canada has one-third of the MRI machines per capita that the United States has?

The question that conservatives should’ve been asking John Q. Public is whether they were willing to trade breakthroughs in equipment and life-saving procedures so that everyone is insured. We’ve failed in that type of messaging. Starting immediately, I won’t make that same messaging mistake again.

It must’ve about killed them to write this:

His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that “a health-care revolution has passed us by,” that it’s possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and “that competition should be welcomed, not feared.” In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

It must’ve been painful for someone who’s worked in a single-payer system to admit that “competition should be welcomed, not feared.” It must’ve been eye-opening and painful. While Obama and the Democrats have tried extolling the virtues of single-payer, albeit in code, Canada is moving in our direction. (Isn’t irony wonderful?)

Yes. Yes it is. Like I said, so much for that old fable that Canadians get better healthcare. If you wanna wait for 17 weeks before you can see a doctor, that's fine by me, but I don't want to, so don't you dare try and force everyone else onto the same plan.

Oh yeah, too late, Obama's already trying. Well, I'll leave it up to the rest of you to decide how long you want to wait for a doctor.