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Canadian healthcare is painful

By the Bluegrass Institute

While many Americans clamor for more government involvement in health care, some Canadian citizens want less.  

Reflecting that sentiment, Canada’s Supreme Court recently struck down a Quebec law banning private medical insurance on the grounds that the nation’s universal public health care system could not guarantee “reasonable” medical service.

Plaintiff George Zeliotis was told he would have to wait an entire year to have his painful hip replaced. When he attempted to step out of the welfare line and pay for his surgery privately, Zeliotis discovered that doing so would be a crime.

Rather than travel to America for treatment like many of his fellow Canadians, Zeliotis filed a lawsuit. With his victory, now only North Korea and Cuba deny their citizens the right to pay for private medical insurance.

Although Canada’s public health care itself was not found to be unconstitutional, the judges ruled that a “prohibition on obtaining private health insurance … is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services.”

Sally C. Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute reports that Canada’s healthcare system is plagued by “long lines, lack of access to technology and dwindling doctor supply … the Canadian system is not inexpensive, it is merely cheap.”

The plight of people like Mr. Zeliotis should serve to remind Kentuckians that more government involvement in healthcare will only provide us with more pain and suffering.

Sources:

"Unsocialized medicine" The Wall Street Journal

"Americans should heed Canadians' health woes" by Sally C. Pipes, Seattle-Post Intelligencer 

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