A Conservative Says Canada Does Healthcare Better

Anyone watching "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" may have had to take a double take during the round table. It seems after trying to tout the new Bush health care tax break as a good thing, George Will showed accidental support for socialized medicine:

"There's a reason why it cost a thousand dollars more to manufacture a car in Michigan than it does across the river in Ontario, Canada and it is the healthcare component of this."

That's right, George, Canada doesn't have a healthcare crisis because Canada provides affordable healthcare to ALL its citizens and yes, that is why it cost a thousand dollars less to build a car there rather than here. But George, the Bush administration and your conservative colleagues are still not addressing the real issue. Let me give you an example my father just offered up to me this weekend.

A friend get a clot in his eyeball that caused his whole eye to turn blood red and him to have vision problems. The doctor charged that man $14,000 for a "specialized" procedure to fix the issue. The private insurance, offered through the company he works for, gets billed by the office $4,000 for the procedure. Exactly where does the $10,000 markup come from? And there in lies the problem.

Socialized medicine would not destroy healthcare in this country, it would simply destroy the healthcare business. Private insurance could still exist, and private practice could still thrive, but not in the current state where prices for medicine and healthcare fluctuate like the price of oil. But unlike the price of oil, the price of healthcare just keeps going up and up. By socializing medicine, offering it to all legal citizens, you provide a more balanced and reasonable approach to healthcare.

The healthcare industry should NOT be a huge cash cow. Vaccines should not be created for the profit of it, but for the good of all mankind. Sure, if someone wants a boob job or a tummy tuck, you're welcome to charge them any and all kinds of cash. But when a child is dying of cancer, the treatments shouldn't come with $100,000 strings attached to them. Not everything in this world, contrary to the capitalist's belief, is about making money.

So yes, George, Canada does make cars for less and its because they have medicine provided for all its citizens. And if the United States provided healthcare to all its citizens US companies would be able to make products for cheaper too. But until we start treating healthcare as a right as citizens, then you'll just have to keep watching our nation fall farther behind in business while the healthcare industry continues to suck dry the finances of this country.