AN OPTION WE CAN'T REFUSE

The People's Democratic Party has again proven that they are not really a party of the people. On Oct. 13, the Senate Finance Committee approved a health-care plan that is slated to cost $900 billion over 10 years. Of course, the tax increases begin almost immediately, the benefits are delayed, and after 10 years the costs increase dramatically. All of this as Medicare and Medicaid are circling the event horizon of a black hole into which they will disappear in 2018.

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HOW LONG, OH LORD? ABOUT 16 WEEKS

Canadian conservative think-tank, The Fraser Institute, has just released its annual report on wait times for Canadians in search of surgery. This is a calculation of how long it takes a patient to move from the initial appointment with the family doctor, to the appointment with the specialist, to the appointment for the diagnostic testing, to the receipt of the results of the diagnosis, to the day of being wheeled into the operating room.

Salient points:

(a) the median wait-time for the entire country is just over 16 weeks, ranging from Ontario (lucky me, 12.5) to Newfoundland (unlucky me at the family cottage, 27.3)

(b) despite having substantially increased the amount of money being poured into the national health care system over the same number of years, wait times have not substantially changed since the Institute's report of 2001.

Read 'em & weep.

SWINE FLU PANIC IN PERSPECTIVE

I usually see about twenty patients in my office, and at least a few patients in the hospital, daily. Over the past several months, my patient load has increased by one third. Almost all of the increase is due to fears about H1N1 influenza. (Click on title to read more)

WHAT'S WRONG WITH OBAMA'S BRAIN?

Yes, we know he does not understand economics and cannot do simple math. He is supposed to be a constitutional scholar, but seems not to understand the constitution. His proposals and positions show a complete lack of comprehension of the obvious. Or do they?

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HEALTHCARE REFORM? THINK TRAFFIC COPS AND FOOTBALL

Many very intelligent and perceptive conservatives have advocated free market steps       that would "bend the curve" of healthcare costs downward. However, I believe that with   intelligent reform based upon tried and true principles we can do better than that. We can start a whole new curve!  (Click on title to read full article)

MR. OBAMA NEEDS A TIMEOUT

I tried to understand our president. Really I did. When he was elected, I sent an email to my conservative friends and the staff of Oregon Right to Life, the text of which appears below.

“I am of course frustrated and disappointed. However, we need to look ahead. We must make very drastic changes and recapture the conservative values we lost. Many felt it was better to elect a liberal who is really a liberal than a conservative who is really a liberal. Authenticity counts. (Click on title to read full article)

OBAMACARE: POINT AND COUNTERPOINT #3

This article is the third of a point / counterpoint series on Mr. Obama's healthcare plan.
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THE TRUTH ABOUT HEALTHCARE REFORM

Power Point presentation given to groups. Takes a minute to load.

OBAMACARE: THE CULMINATION OF LIBERAL INCREMENTALISM

The opening words of H.R. 3200, Mr. Obama's solution to the manufactured health care "crisis" in the United States reads: "A Bill to provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and...
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MORE TALES FROM SINGLE-PAYER HELL

It's just anecdotal. But it's rich. Learned over the weekend from the local [rural Newfoundland] anaesthetist:

A certain town in southern Newfoundland is home to one of the handful of good small regional hospitals in the province. However, the nearest CT scanner is in St. John's, at the province's only major-league hospital -- a four-hour drive away. So you come to the regional hospital with chest pains, and the attending physician wants to give you a CT scan to check out your heart. You'll have to get an appointment in St. John's, and then travel. If they send you home from the hospital to wait your turn, you'll wait three weeks or more. But if you've been admitted to the hospital, the wait is only a matter of days. So what should the doctor do?

Of course: the doctor admits the patient, for no other reason than to move him ahead in the queue. He spends the better part of a week trundling aimlessly up and down the hospital hallways in his bathrobe, taking up a bed and using hospital supplies and services on the public dollar -- all to game the system into cutting down his wait-time for a necessary diagnostic procedure.

But hey -- it's FREE!

Not long ago, over at the Mother Blog, I sounded off about medical care in Canada, to this effect:

MY TWO-CENTS' WORTH ON HEALTH CARE:

There are many comments and criticisms one could make about any single-payer [government] health insurance system, such as Canada's. But on that subject, I am fond of making this factual (not critical) observation:

The Canadian Health Care System is a gift from the American taxpayer and their national military.

Why? Because if Canada invested in its own defense to the extent required to genuinely protect its people and territory without dependence upon the United States, the country wouldn't have a hope in Hades of affording socialized medicine.

The U.S. military is 2,300,000 strong (regular plus reserves), with plans for another 750,000 to be added within the next three years.

The Canadian military is less than 100,000 strong (regular plus reserves), with no plans for increase. The number has already increased from its nadir in 2001 [having fallen by one third in the decade since 1991].

Canada's population is approximately one tenth [10%] that of the U.S., and its land mass is larger.

Canada's military population is less than one half of 1% [.043] of that of the U.S. [Feel free to help me with the math if I've screwed this up.]

Canada is essentially defended at the expense of the United States, with Canadians secure in their knowledge that the U.S. would never permit any military threat to their northern neighbour, because it's just too close to home and would leave America vulnerable.

So Canada's far (FAR) from perfect health care system is even more expensive than anybody is letting on. In at least one sense, it has cost Canadians their sovereignty.

I would only amend these remarks by emphasizing, because it needs to be said, that in the Good Old Days before Trudeaupia infected the land, Canada had a proud tradition of punching WAY above its weight in joining the community of nations for the preservation of the civilized world.

Proportionately to its population, Canada's military contribution to both World Wars was substantial -- almost staggering. KIA's ran at 10%, if memory serves. Another member of the British Commonwealth, the then-independent mini-country of Newfoundland, made an even larger proportional contribution: for example, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in the Great War, Newfoundland casualties came to 90% -- but they stayed in, kept joining up, and felt themselves born as a nation.

Today's Canadian Forces, ridiculously undersupplied and undersupported, and ever at the mercy of political winds, has acquitted itself with honour in Afghanistan, its ranks still heavily populated with the sons and daughters of the Maritime provinces -- as well as Québèc, amazingly enough [their storied Royal 22nd Regiment called "The Vandoos", for vingt-deux].

Historically, Canadian support for the military cratered in an inverse ratio to the rise of the statism and universal entitlements of Trudeaupian socialism (under which the military branches were forcibly amalgamated in 1968, into the generic "forces", sporting a dull airline-pilot-style service dress). The numerical nadir of the forces was reached around 2001, but has crept upward since then (with distinctive uniform restoration too).

As a percentage of GDP, Canada's military budget ranks one-hundred-and-eleventh in the world.

So, despite their valiant character and record, today's Canadian Forces lack sufficient numbers [IMHO] to single-handedly beat back a serious invasion of even their youngest province [that would be Newfoundland], much less the whole country [the second largest national land-mass in the world].

But it's a small price to pay for universal health-care.

Right?