from Amazon
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The greatest Canadian of all time
Non-sports post.
Five years ago, in a nationwide poll conducted by the TV network CBC, the viewers selected Tommy Douglas. This is ahead of Terry Fox, the amputee who ran daily marathons in an attempt to run coast-to-coast. Ahead of the first prime minister. Ahead of Alexander Graham Bell. Even ahead of Wayne Gretzky. Who is Tommy Douglas?
He is the father of universal medicare (isn’t “medicare for all” a better slogan than “public option”?):
Tommy Douglas’s legacy as a social policy innovator lives on. Social welfare, universal Medicare, old age pensions and mothers’ allowances—Douglas helped keep these ideas, and many more, watching as more established political parties eventually came to accept these once-radical ideas as their own.
Sarah Palin:
Canada needs to dismantle its public health-care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit.
I love it that she lays it out so plainly. The “efficiency” of the private enterprises in “competition” with each other to keep costs low while still turning a profit (the American way) against the inefficiency of one insurance company (the government) paying whatever the government says the price should be. Those are the two theories.
In practice? Canadians end up paying less on healthcare than Americans. And, Canada doesn’t have 15% of its citizens without reasonable access. It has 0%.
Yes, in theory, it would seem that the traditional American way should work. But, why settle for theory, when we have reality staring at us?
Homer Simpson:
Marge: I really think this is a bad idea.
Homer: Marge, I agree with you—in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory.
-- Pros and cons of keeping the elephant, “Bart Gets an Elephant”
Homer and Palin both spout off theories. Yes, it should work. But, humans being what they are, it doesn’t and can’t.
“Medicare for all”. As opposed to “Medicare-equivalent for all those who can afford it”.
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