A large segment of the American population is starting to point to Canada’s government-run healthcare a potential model for the new system that America sorely needs. However, despite what Michael Moore might have you think (and we all love Mike), Canada is not immune to healthcare scandals.
George Tilley, chief of the province of Newfoundland’s largest health board, resigned after a massive public outcry over faulty cancer diagnosis. The focal point of this healthcare scandal is based in a series of small communities in an area called Burin Peninsula. An incompetent radiologist had been practicing for more than a decade in this area and a string of faulty cancer diagnoses have resulted in an unprecedented backlash. After an extensive internal investigation, faults were found at the highest level.
The Wall Street Journal Health Blog contains some concrete details on the extent of this series of deadly mistakes. “At least 36 women in eastern Canada died of breast cancer after a common medical test produced the wrong result. And more than 300 women who are still alive also received the wrong result on the test, which measures whether a tumor is sensitive to hormones. The test is important because tumors that are hormone-sensitive can be treated by powerful drugs such as tamoxifen.”
The provincial government had formed an agreement with a company called Eastern Health to provide testing and diagnostic equipment in the Burin Peninsula area. The CEO of Eastern Health only announced his resignation after a massive public outcry erupted over Eastern Health’s public handling of the scandal.
The WSJ Health blog also reported that “news emerged that more than 1,000 of the tests performed between 1997 and 2005 may have been flawed. But it was not until this week that the government of Newfoundland and Labrador fully disclosed the toll taken by the errors, the Globe and Mail reports this morning.”
The Cancer Blog also reports that “George Tilley now faces class-action lawsuits from individuals that apparently received inaccurate breast cancer testing results.”
In an astonishing example of destruction of the system from within, a rogue employee of mega-conglomerate Capital BlueCross leaked a confidential internal memo about Michael Moore’s new film SiCKO directly to Mr. Moore himself. In an open letter to his readers (and seemingly the HMO’s as well) Moore says “The memo, which I am releasing publicly in this email, is a fascinating look at how one health care company views “Sicko” — and what it fears its larger impact will be on the public. The industry’s only hope, the memo seems to indicate, is if the movie flops.”
Capital BlueCross Vice President of Corporate Communications, Barclay Fitzpatrick, wrote a supposedly confidential internal memo to all staff in order to alert them to potential flak they could receive from customers after they saw this film. Moore revealed much of Fitzpatrick’s letter in his latest post.
Moore states, “he then assesses the film’s impact: “[T]he impact on small business decision makers, our members, the community, and our employees could be significant. Ignoring its impact might be a successful strategy only if it flops, but that has not been the history of Moore’s films … If popular, the movie will have a negative impact on our image in this community.”
Moore ends his letter to his fans by openly challenging the CEO of Capital BlueCross to a public debate. Tongue in proverbial cheek, Moore assures the corporations executive staff to not be intimated by him or his film. “But don’t be scared, and certainly don’t be ashamed to be a capitalist. Greed is good! Especially good for you. There’s nothing like having the pre-existing condition of being rich, should you ever get sick and need help.”
It is plain to see that Fox News had hit an all-time low in terms of ridiculousness. With their recent drop in ratings becoming all the more obvious, Fox News must be attempting to get people’s attention by being as ridiculously outlandish as possible. Their latest ploy has been a desperate attempt to piggyback on the success of Michael Moore’s SiCKO movie and equate the idea of a National Healthcare Service with radical Muslim terrorism.
I am not making any of this up. Here, have a look for yourself.
National Review Online Columnist Jerry Bowyer was the guest of honor and he explained his theory that Britain and France have experienced so many terror attacks is because they have socialized healthcare- a proven breeding ground for terrorism!
A post from The Carpetbagger pretty much summed it up when they quoted one of Bowyer’s most ridiculous comments, ““[I]f one of your guys is a jihadist, if one of your doctors is spending all the time online reading Osama bin Laden fatwas, someone’s going to notice that. But the National Health Service is more like the post office, you know there’s a lot of anonymity, it’s easy to hide in the bureaucracy.”
Ahh, of course, international terrorists are known for their love of bureaucracy. The posts author skewered Bowyer and Fox news with the closing comment, “so let this be a lesson to all of us. National health care may offer better care to more people for less money, but that won’t matter because your doctor will be an Al Qaeda mole.”
Thinkprogress’s post quoted Bowyer a bit further and noted his explanation for terrorists apparent infatuation with western-style bureaucracy, “A state run health care enterprise is bureaucratic, and I think the terrorists have shown over and over again, whether it’s dealing with INS or whether it’s dealing with airport security, they’re very good at gaming the system with bureaucracies. They’re very good at getting around bureaucracies.”
Wow.
Now, folks, Fox News is free to talk about whatever it wants as it is guaranteed to them by our countries constitution. However, it’s a fact that this type of commentary does a disservice to everybody by lowering the debate and essentially turning it into farce. How can we debate the merits and detriments of socialized healthcare when the so-called “conservative” standpoint is so blatantly ridiculous?
