Socialized Medicine on Life Support
GRATZER, DAVID
Socialized Medicine on Life Support The Supreme Court of Canada finally gets one right. BY DAVID GRATZER GOVERNMENT HEALTH-care enthusiasts in the United States have long looked to Canada as a...
...The Supreme Court of Canada is arguably the most liberal high court in the Western world, having recently endorsed the constitutionality of gay marriage and medical marijuana...
...Even in Sweden, patients choose among public and private hospitals...
...In Norwood, Ontario, for example, one family doctor serves the entire town, and he can only take 50 new patients a year...
...A former chemical salesman with a bad hip, the patient agreed...
...The decision isn't simply a surprise, David Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute...
...Goran's, the largest hospital in Stockholm, is privately run and managed...
...American legislators—such as those in the California Senate who approved a single-payer plan this month—should take note...
...No wonder that, a few years back, more than 80 percent of Canadians rated the system "in crisis...
...Tim Evans of the influential think tank Centre for the New Europe observes: "There is no ideological debate about who provides the care [in continental Europe...
...According to Statistics Canada, approximately 1.2 million Canadians lack a family doctor and are looking for one...
...BY DAVID GRATZER GOVERNMENT HEALTH-care enthusiasts in the United States have long looked to Canada as a leading light of health care fairness and equity...
...Across the Channel, private medicine flourishes...
...Undeterred, he sought the help of various organizations to support his efforts...
...And yet, in the United States, legislators continue to flirt with socialized medicine...
...British prime minister Tony Blair recently won reelection on a platform that called for tripling the number of surgeries contracted out to private firms...
...Canadians wait for practically any diagnostic test, surgical procedure, or specialist consultation...
...This outcome would not have been possible without the persistence of one man: Jacques Chaoulli...
...American companies now routinely advertise in major Canadian dailies, offering timely health care—in the United States...
...Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice John Major wrote: "The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care...
...Others seek more urgent care...
...Toronto was shaken recently when the media reported that a retired hockey legend was forced to wait more than a month for life-saving chemotherapy because of a bed shortage at the largest cancer hospital in the country...
...The woes of Chaoulli's patient are all too common...
...On June 9, the Supreme Court of Canada called the system dangerous and deadly, striking down key laws and turning the country's vaunted health care system on its head...
...Involving a man who waited almost a year for a hip replacement, the bench decided that the province of Quebec has no right to restrict the freedom of a person to purchase health care or health insurance...
...Moreover, it's not alone in tiring of the shortcomings of socialized medicine...
...Their argument was simple: Quebec's ban on private insurance caused unnecessary suffering since waiting lists have grown so long for basic care...
...These policymakers should realize that U.S...
...He asked one of his patients for help...
...Many can't even arrange general care...
...Indeed, even the Supreme Court of Canada recognizes that socialism for health care is a prescription for an early grave...
...And now the Supreme Court of Canada agrees...
...What would drive the bench to such a profound ruling...
...In doing so, they struck down two Quebec laws, overturning a 30-year ban on private medicine in the province...
...Most legal scholars expressed surprise that the justices even agreed to hear this appeal of a health care case twice dismissed by lower courts...
...After a month, he gave up and decided that only the courts could help his fight...
...Up close, the story is quite different...
...health care may have its woes, but the siren song of socialized medicine offers no solution...
...None would...
...The wording of the ruling, though, has implications beyond Quebec, and could be used to scrap other major parts of Canada's federal health care legislation...
...The town holds an annual lottery to choose the lucky 50...
...But Chaoulli was not completely alone...
...The ruling aptly symbolizes the declining enthusiasm for socialized medicine even in socialist nations...
...With an eye on a legal challenge, Chaoulli tried his hand at law school— but flunked out after a semester...
...There are only good hospitals and bad hospitals, not public and private ones...
...it's an earthquake—as if a Soviet court had ruled that not only could a Russian entrepreneur open a chain of restaurants, but he could issue stock to finance the scheme...
...In recent months, those in California, Maine, and Vermont have voted for some type of single-payer system...
...From a distance, Canada may seem to have it all: modern medicine and universal insurance...
...A Montreal physician, Chaoulli was so angered when a government bureaucrat shut down his private family practice that he went on a hunger strike...
...His legal fight, costing more than a half million dollars, was funded largely by his Japanese father-in-law...
...Throughout Europe, the story is one of a slow but steady abandonment of public health care...
...He decided to proceed anyway, choosing to represent himself...
Vol. 10 • June 2005 • No. 39
