There’s No Free Lunch – or Health Care

The whining about health care in America has reached such proportions it’s become almost a national shriek. The last time I checked nobody was turned away from emergency rooms. I also rarely hear of insured or self insured Americans waiting months for life saving medical care. If you have a physician you don’t like you’re free to find a new doctor.

Once we’re all enrolled in nationalized health care, things are going to change. We don’t even need to look as far as Europe to see what socialized medicine looks like. All we need to do is look to our neighbors to the north.

Canadians often wait months or even years for necessary care. For some, the status quo has become so dire that they have turned to the courts for recourse. Several cases currently before provincial courts provide studies in what Americans could expect from government-run health insurance.

In Ontario, Lindsay McCreith was suffering from headaches and seizures yet faced a four and a half month wait for an MRI scan in January of 2006. Deciding that the wait was untenable, Mr. McCreith did what a lot of Canadians do: He went south, and paid for an MRI scan across the border in Buffalo. The MRI revealed a malignant brain tumor.

Ontario’s government system still refused to provide timely treatment, offering instead a months-long wait for surgery. In the end, Mr. McCreith returned to Buffalo and paid for surgery that may have saved his life. He’s challenging Ontario’s government-run monopoly health-insurance system, claiming it violates the right to life and security of the person guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Read full story.

At least now Canadians have the ability to travel to the US for treatment, if they can afford it. Where will we go when the government starts denying or delaying our life saving treatments? Canada? Mexico?