The American Spectator

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11.22.02 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 4)

Doctors, similar to water and money, will seek the lowest level.

Returning from Oceania in 1993, shortly after takeoff, the flag-carrier airline made an appeal. All the doctors had left the country (and moved to America, they said) due to its government's policy of equal pay for all (under socialized medicine, doctors are just another government employee and paid and treated as such). They
asked for all of our pocket change to hire them back.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, Hillarycare was explaining how doctors would be sent to jail for receiving payment from non-Hillarycare patients ...

If the USA adopts Medigore, where will the socialized medicine countries' citizens go for health care?
-- James Tyler

The answer to the following is easy....

"As things stand now, Canadians can crow about their egalitarian system while counting on U.S. health care to bail them out in a pinch. But one wonders where they would go if Al Gore ever became president."

The Canadians and Americans both will find that Castro's Cuba may well be the answer. It would not surprise me to see several "For Profit" health care facilities built there to accommodate those who do not wish to avail themselves of their country's socialized medicine. This would provide substantial employment prospects for Cubans and also a good source of revenue for the Cuban government. I just wonder how much venture capital could be raised in a hurry if an ultra-socialist Democrat were elected and a single payer system were being implemented?
-- Tom Pendleton

Jeremy Lott refers to the Canadian system as "jury-rigged." I believe the phrase actually is "Jerry rigged".

It developed during the desert campaigns of WWll by Brit soldiers who marveled at the German capacity to repair virtually anything using whatever was at hand. It has now become a derisive phrase but, I think, the Brits meant it as a compliment to German ingenuity.
-- Bruce Karlson
Navarre, FL

Jeremy Lott replies:
I can see how Bruce Karlson would think that I accidentally substituted one phrase for another, but when I called the Canadian pharmaceutical industry jury-rigged, I meant that the prices are fixed in advance, by government fiat, and are not determined by anything approaching a free market. If a similar system was adopted in the U.S., it would likely crowd out spending on research for new miracle drugs.

I could get into a statistical argument with Mr. "Ed" but since the letter writer proffers no evidence for his claim that the "average Canadian" has better health care than his American counterpart, an anecdote should do. The late Robert Bourassa, long-time premier of Quebec, went not to Canadian hospitals for his cancer treatment but to the United States. Apparently he didn't trust "some of the best Cancer Treatment Centers in the world" when it was his life on the line.

As I tried to explain in the piece, the theoretical basket of medical goods and services available to Canadians is substantial. But since it is the same basket that they all draw from, access is rationed and what happens is based more on the whims of bureaucrats and medical professionals than on the desires of those whose lives the decisions affect: the patients.

NOT ENOUGH ALREADY
Re: Jed Babbin's What Do You Mean 'We,' Kemo Sabe?":

For a "Loose Cannon" Mr. Babbin hits the bull's-eye more often than not. If this country were really serious about airline security -- we would already have guns in the cockpits -- have airline baggage handlers who are already security screened and would have already borrowed some safety equipment from
our friends at El Al.

The SA-7 Russian heat-seeking surface-to-air missile has been in the Communist Bloc inventory for quite a number of years. Other MANPADS (man portable air defense systems) such as the U.S. made Stinger have also found their way into Arab/Muslim government and terrorist hands. U.S. Navy has found Stingers in Boghammer/Zodiac paramilitary small (fast) boats used by both Iran and Iraq in attempts to engage U.S. Navy ships -- Vincennes incident (Iran) and the Gulf War (Iraq). These missiles are probably orphans the CIA lost track of in Afghanistan in the late 80's (but nobody's talking).

Letter to the Editor

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