Contempo Magazine Blog

Will the Canadian Horror Come to the U.S. Next?

As President Obama and his Democratic colleagues in the Congress are preparing to transform the American health care system to one that closely resembles that of our neighbor to the North, Canadians today are in a state of shock and horror. A much awaited report on the quality of health care given to Canadians in the eastern part of the country has determined that at least 400 women with a diagnosis of life-threatening breast cancer have been mistreated. The importance of controlling costs over patient care has led to a public scandal.

The Canadian health care system is a publicly-funded (government controlled) system which is fundamentally different then the U.S. but is a model for the reform by many U.S. progressives.  Although Canada spends almost as much as the U.S. per person there has always been issues of waiting times and appropriate use of resources. Many prominent political figures in Canada including Canadian Liberal Parliment Member Belinda Stronach have come to the United States for treatment of breast cancer in recent years.

The Canadian public is in an outrage calling for the removal of public officials. Although there has been suspicion of an ongoing problem it was not properly investigated until 7 months ago when finally Justice Margaret Cameron completed an intensive review. Her report says that from 1997 until 2005 quality was not existent in providing health care. She added that managers put a “far greater emphasis on financial management than on protecting the public interest.”

The report which is a scathing indictment of the Canadian Health System was released on a late Friday afternoon many are saying so that the Canadian public would not be so angered. She makes a dramatic statement that sums up what happens when there is a government run and controlled health care program “”A regional health authority does not produce widgets,” she wrote. “Its clients have no choice but to use its services; they cannot stop going to the hospital because the services received on the last visit were unsatisfactory.”

There was significant discussion that a problem existing from 2003 until 2005 by many involved, including patients and doctors, but the government was slow to act or maybe was even covering up the problem. According the CBC News the “The true extent of the ER/PR crisis, though, did not emerge until 2007, when documents filed in connection with a class action suit in Newfoundland Supreme Court showed that Eastern Health executives knew about 42 per cent of a large sample of tests produced wrong results. That figure is several times higher than error rates described during media briefings in December 2006.”

To fix the problem the head of the Eastern Health authority says will now cost $100 million. Not only did a number of patients die when they were wrongfully denied treatment but the correction of the problem will likely cost much more than if the proper treatment and diagnosis had been carried out in the first place.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams faced a hostile press saying that money is not the answer and complaining that the release of the report on a Friday was unfair to him. He seemed perturbed that the media would bother him about this.

The question for Americans is this foreshadowing of what will come in the United States with the Democratic health care plan of government run medicine?

Thanks for reading Contempo Magazine blog which discusses issues for McAllen, the Rio Grande Valley, and America from a conservative Hispanic point of view. Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, served as an officer in Army Reserve, and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. The co-founder of Contempo Magazine has participated in Valley business for over 20 years. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and also writes for the American Daily Review. Follow him on twitter http://twitter.com/contempomagazin

Copyright 2009, Dr. Tony Magana. Some rights reserved.
To reproduce or distribute, visit: drtonymagana.icopyright.com

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 16:05 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.