As the United States once again suffers through the throws of a new round of debate over health care reform, the opponents of reform are resorting to their time honoured tactic of scaring the public away from acting in their own self interests.
This time the scare tactic goes by the name of Shona Holmes, a Canadian who has been appearing in ads on American television in which she describes her 'near death' experience which she blames Canadian government-run health care for.
But her claims bear a closer examination.
In the ad, Shona Holmes begins by saying: "I survived a brain tumour."
But did she? Ms. Holmes had been diagnosed with a rare disorder known as Rathke's cleft cist or RCC. The condition involves the growth of a fluid filled sac at the base of the brain, according to the description given by the Mayo Clinic at which Ms. Holmes received her diagnosis and treatment. The definition of such a sac is a cyst, not a tumor.
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary:
Cyst: An abnormal membranous sac containing a gaseous, liquid, or semisolid substance.
Tumor: An abnormal growth of tissue resulting from uncontrolled, progressive multiplication of cells and serving no physiological function; a neoplasm.
Holmes continues in the ad: "But, if I'd relied on my government for health care, I'd be dead."
Would she? Not according to neurosurgeon Michael Schwartz of Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital. Schwartz says he's never seen or heard of a death from a Rathke's cyst.
Holmes remarks further: "As my brain tumor got worse, my government told me I'd have to wait six months to see a specialist."
Besides for the erroneous characterization of her RCC cyst as a tumor, Holmes is making a claim that doesn't easily stand up to scrutiny. First of all. the government does not determine when you see a doctor in Canada, doctors do.
As a Canadian of 50 years of age, the father of two now adult children, the son of two now deceased parents who lived to be 78 and 80 years of age respectively, and the sibling of five middle aged men and a middle aged woman, I have never had to contact any government office to access health care of any kind, nor has any of my family or anyone else I've known. The government merely pays for the health care, they are not the entry point into health services. For that one contacts a doctor or goes to a hospital or walk in clinic.
It is also of dubious nature her claim that she would have been forced to wait six months to see a specialist.
The director of world famous Dr. Wilder Penfield brain tumour research centre at the Montreal Neurological Institute says he thinks that claim is "an exaggeration."
Dr. Rolando Del Maestro says the lesion Holmes was diagnosed with is benign, and usually slow-growing. It typically does not require urgent attention, he said.
"If it's a real emergency in the sense that the patient's visual function is getting substantially worse, the patients would be brought in immediately and would be operated on the next day," he said.
"In six months I would have died." Holmes claims, dramatically, in the ad.
However, given the dubious nature of her claim of having such a long wait imposed on her and the medical fact that no one is known to have died from an RCC cyst this claim seems to be mere hyperbole.
The voice-over in the Shona Holmes ad goes on to draw this dramatic conclusion: Government runs health care in Canada. Care is delayed or denied. Some patients wait a year for vital surgery, delays that can be deadly. Many drugs and treatments are not available because government says patients aren't worth it.
Is health care treatment delayed in Canada? Well, honestly, some of it is. There have been efforts in recent years to address those delays and there have been improvements. Vital surgery, however, is not unduly delayed in the normal course of Canadian health care provision. My own wife had heart surgery this year and her total time from first doctor's appointment to the day of the surgery was 23 days. The only drugs or treatments that are not available are those that have not been proven to be effective, safe treatments approved by Health Canada. This is also true in the USA and any other nations --- someone has to protect the public from dubious medical treatment claims or else we end up buying snake oil.
I suppose in a completely private health care system one can buy whatever treatment they want, whether it is known to be effective or not or even if it might kill them, and they will pay through the nose for it.
Shona Holmes final remark in the ad is as follows: "I'm here today because I was able to travel to the US where I received world class treatment. Government health care isn't the answer, and it sure isn't free."
Well, it seems entirely likely that Ms. Holmes would still be here if she had not flown down to the Mayo Clinic, where she likely did receive first class care for her cyst, and where her medical bills required her to put a second mortgage on her home and borrow money from friends. All for treatment she could likely have had with no out of pocket expenditure in Canada with very little wait time (probably all she had to do was go see another doctor, something any Canadian can do whenever they want to) to relieve a non-life threatening, albeit serious, disease.
She is right about one thing: Government run health care isn't free. But it is a darned sight less expensive than the costs Americans are now carrying under their private health care scheme. Health Care in America is more expensive than anywhere else in the world and leaves more people without coverage than in any other industrialized nation in the world.
The final voice-over contribution says: Now Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the US, but government should never come between your family and your doctor.
The reforms proposed in Washington will not exactly mirror any of the provincial health care systems in place in Canada, nor will it precisely mimic the many government sponsored health care systems in place in most of Europe. But it may take a giant step towards ending the current circumstance where the United States alone, amongst all wealthy industrialized nations on the Earth, does not ensure that all of their citizens have access to quality health care.
The government should never come between our families and their doctors, and here in Canada it doesn't. No bureaucrat has ever had a single word to say about any of the many health care services that I or any of my many family members have received.
Should a profit oriented business like an HMO or a private insurance company continue to come between your family and your doctor?
And don't Americans deserve a debate that doesn't resort to hyperbole and misinformation presented as fact.
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Comments: 226
For someone with great coverage there is likely no better service available anywhere in the world, including in Canada. But there are so many who are underinsured, have inadequate coverage or have no coverage and even those with great coverage must often worry about whether or not they will retain that coverage from year to year.
Obama wants Total Government Control. The single payer plan we have down here is a lot better than Obama's plan and would cost less but it is not total government control so Obama would probably veto it if it passes. Pelosi will do her best to prevent it from even being voted on by the House. That's my take on our situation down here.
Why do you keep insisting that his purpose in improving health care availability is a control issue?
I mean, does anybody ask who is paying for all these ads, what they intend to gain from that outlay of money and who is going to pay for those gains?
Rory, the Democratic party has been trying to get Socialized Medicine in this country since the 1930s and every time congress has rejecged it. If it had been approached in a simillar way as Mecicare is here we would have it but no, they want the kind of control they had in the USSR, not the single payer plan you have in Canada.
As of today, we have new insurance, but no information, no cards, no plan number, no contact ID, etc. He had to pay $100.00 today and now we have to wait for the info to get a reimbursment.
I, of course, was right. It's 5th disease, nothing you can do about it, have to wait for the rash to go away. And when *I* said it, it was FREE.
Day 1, 1620: NOBODY IS GOING TO TELL US how to worship.
Day 2: NO GOVERNMENT IS GOING TO TAX US WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.
OTher countries believe in doing something for the common good. In THIS country, that becomes a sin equivalent to Communism.
Col. G your namesake had a lot more interest in Federalization than you appear to find "American." His successor, Barack Obama has no interest in dominating health care: He has a true patriot's interest in creating a sustainable 21st Century system that will protect the long term viability of the American economy. You and yours are pawns of a system which provides poor service at exorbitant costs to the profit of a few. And you do so under the illusion of "choice" and "freedom." In fact, you're a patsy.
I have many Canadian friends and although we have never openly discussed medical treatment other than having to see a doctor I have not heard anyone complain about medical treatment or being denied medical treatment and if people are being treated bad by doctors they will get it out to the public.
I'm sure Canada must have some doctors that are not very ethical and you would have that everywhere, America probably has more doctors that are just looking for money any way they can get it than any country in the world. Taking an oath does not mean much in America these days.
Their doesn't seem to be any way to bring the public together on important issues like health care, but I wish I knew how to show people the truth of single payer health care vs the system of no health care we suffer from today.
I think we have lost our chance at real health care reform thanks to our political lobby system. I think America will get real health care one day but not until we have a major tragedy that we cannot recover from.
There are Canadians, like Holmes, who will go down to the USA to get faster treatment than they can get in Canada. They are Canadians with the resources to do so and with enough fear to feel it is necessary. They also get faster treatment than most Americans do because they are willing and able to pay out of pocket the high cost of queue jumping. Every system has wait times in it, it is impractical to have expensive, first class medical resources sitting idle waiting for the need to use them to arise.
It is not just unethical doctors but also incompetent ones that cause problems in the system, ours and yours.
Thanks, Jack.
Any foreigner can come to America and get a scholarship but they are denied to the people that provide the scholarship funding.
NOBODY.
I'm glad that you've had no problem with Canadian health care. That's certainly not true for everyone. I spent years in FL talking with snowbirds who hated their care and came to the US often when they couldn't get taken care of fast enough in Canada.
Yes, many other countries have some kind of nationalized/socialized care, and many are now looking at going back to incorporating some of what the US does...while we're looking at systems that are also not perfect.
I don't want the government sticking its nose into my care. They stick theirs into yours, you're just so used to it that you don't realize.
Of course government regulates. If they didn't we'd all be drinking raw sewage in our water, eating e. coli in our beef and buying elixers from flim flam men. Your government does it too, Marilyn. You can't let those with a profit interest set the rules of how trade in health products works. What do you think the FDA does?
I gain nothing and lose nothing either way. But I do hate to see 47 million Americans suffer without adequate health care in a country wealthy enough to ensure that they don't. One of those 47 million was my nephew who died of skin cancer in 2007 in Florida. His death was possibly preventable, certainly could have been postponed for some time and his suffering eased greatly had he lived in Canada instead.
And Rory, I don't know if you've seen all the recent information about how many are really without insurance because they can't afford it. It's not 47 million. Some of that 47 million are illegal immigrants. Some are people who could afford insurance if they wanted to buy it, but have chosen not to.
It has also recently come out that many of the uninsured could be covered under Medicaid now but either don't realize they qualify, have been turned down in the past and don't realize the rules have changed or that their circumstance changing means they're now covered, or they were turned down in error.
The real number of persons not covered by insurance who cannot afford it is very small. And, since the majority of citizens like the care they have, it makes no sense to chage the entire system. Adding these people to Medicaid makes more sense, since it now exists.
The proposed bills will not start until 2013, so relying on that makes little sense, when they could be added to Medicaid much quicker.
All I hear from Americans (and I know plenty and am related to a couple of dozen) is that their premiums are too high, their coverage keeps getting cut back and they are worried about losing coverage. That doesn't sound happy to me.
Rory, you're wrong. That number was proven to include illegal immigrants way back during the election campaign. It also includes people who are temporarily without insurance during job changes. And it includes people making over $75,000 that everyone admits could afford insurance if they chose to. It also includes - according to mainstream media in the last few days - people who actually qualify for Medicaid and don't realize that they are...probably because they believe the lies from liberals.
The only thing people might agree on is that some costs are too high, but most people are not willing to let the government have any say so about their medical care, even to reduce those costs.
The same website quotes a CBS News/New York Times poll that shows 49% think your health care system needs fundamental change and another 33% think it needs a complete rebuild. Only 16% thought minor changes would do it.
Not sure where you are finding 79 to 89% satisfied, because those numbers don't hold up in what I'm reading.
The results of the survey the largest poll this year to examine American attitudes toward healthcare reform and legislation were released during a National Press Club Newsmaker conference July 15 in Washington, D.C..
84 percent of those who are currently insured are satisfied with their health care. For those without insurance, only 46 percent had some level of satisfaction with their health care.
According to MedicalNews.com, it was the largest poll this year to examine American attitudes toward health care reform and legislation. It was released during a National Press Club Newsmaker conference July 15 in Washington, D.C.. I wonder why this wasn't on every nightly news. Oh, but it was....on Fox.
"Almost 80 percent agreed that rising healthcare costs are hurting American businesses. An expanded role for government in health care is opposed by 48 percent of Americans, while 44 percent support it. Forty-six percent of respondents agreed that a public plan is needed to "keep insurance companies honest.
Most believe that people with pre-existing conditions should be eligible for health insurance. They also endorse the idea of higher premiums for those who smoke and/or refuse vaccines and cancer screening."
This poll does NOT prove 86% are so satisfied they do not want change. The poll was taken for a direct response to the newly issued House health care proposal. This poll proves nothing and only represents vauge generaliZations at best and is subject to rapid change with the changing legislative process.
Gallup indicates a similar percentile of "satisfaction" among the insured but a 79% dissatisfaction with costs.
CDC reported 43 million unisured in 2006. It is certainly higher today.
This was not one of those times. You DID call Rory a liar. albeit politely. Or you just casually insulted him.
You live in that place right now, Marilyn; You live in a country where this occurs hundreds of times every day.
In the US, it is insurance company delays, health care companies refusal to approve procedures, review by companies hired to perform Utilization Review of claims that create many more delays than this fruadulent case from Canada.
Or else based solely on ability to pay, which is what you have now.
There is an even greater danger from the thousands of rightwing sloganeers who have nothing at all in their heads.
I would like to live in a country that is composed of well-informed and intelligent citizens. Sadly, big health care companies can always reach people like Marilyn.
Anyone who works in health care knows that an electronic medical record creates enormous cost-savings in efficiency and safety.
It has nothing to do with the debate on Health Care reform -except as an area of proposed cost-savings.
You know the opposition is running scared when they resort to emotional tactics.
That's why it must be debunked with vigour.
Canada & USA are sooooo different in basic character. The USA is still an "adult child" with all its character defects. Very hard for an adult child nation to make reasonable, healthy decisions. All it thinks it wants is TV, fad clothes, and junk food. Oh WELL!
The good news is that a portion of USA population recognizes the dysfunction and is moving itself into simplicity/serenity/maturity. It's only from that base of operations that truly helpful choices can be made for the common good.
Carolion, well said!
Sorry, Rory, nothing against you or your article! It's just all the arguing back and forth with each side...what an angry issue.
I'm also sure that this is one of the things the private health care lobby is counting on. They will not get tired of the issue and they pay their shills very well to ensure they don't either.
For democracy to work, to produce good results for its citizens, those citizens must be vigilant in the exercise of their duty to be informed consumers of government services.
Obama is not pushing a Canadian style healthcare system at all. He is pushing a system of Total Government Control. There will be a health Czar who will run it, and a committee to decide even what procedures can be used when and with whom. That committee will be politically appointed. Our only source of truthful information is the bill itself and it is changeing on a daily basiss with so many ammendments.
If that plan is so good why does it have to have so many changes?
I have no idea why they keep attacking Canada's system since the one proposed here is nothing like it.
Oh well -
You're a man, and a white male to boot, which means you've always been in a privileged position in patriarchal USA terms.
I'm a woman - mother of four - divorced - grandmother. The USA is notorious for its poor treatment of older women who've been mothers and who are divorced (translate that: trying to catch up for all the time they've devoted to raising children right and supporting husband by homemaking and NOT EARNING A [white man's] LIVING. Hmmmmmm.........
I think the USA can do better for the distaff 50% of We The People, and I'm certain that providing universal health care like the REAL first-world nations would be a major good for us and the whole of humanity.
Comparing Canada's plan and Obama's is like comparing apples and oranges. They are both fruit but thats as far as it goes. Obama has said he will not consider a single payer plan seperated from the government.
I mean I am not hearing you guys argue strongly in favour of that change, just against Obama's change. I hear more about sticking with the status quo from the right than any true championing of another plan.
All we need to do is to put the small percentage of people who are without care who cannot afford it on the already existing program of Medicaid and then see what we - THE PEOPLE, NOT THE GOVERNMENT - can do to help reduce the cost of medical care. It will go down if those individuals without care are covered by something. Right now it costs everyone more because some bills will never be paid.
We also need to look at how much we have been to blame for the rising costs. That won't change until we do. (I wrote about that this past week.)
Because he knows America is the greatest place for health care in the world. AKA, a complete hypocrite-phony.
By the way Rory how come our political employees in Washington including Dr. Obama made sure they opted out of whatever health plan these boobs pass- punish us with, why-Rory?. If it's soooo-great as you say-WHY? DO THESE POLS OPT-OUT.
I know why and the American people have figured out why- You can not add millions of people to a government program and then insult their intelligence by idiotically-saying {lying}to them that by adding millions will LOWER-COST.
Rory, if you want government run health care for you and your family fine-sign-up. But for me I stand with the Politicians and Dr. Barack H. Obama who say---No-Way, Were- OUT!!
And, Micky, I do have "government run health care" for me and my family and have had for more than 40 years. It's great.
How many Canadians are not subscribing to your health plan?
THAT'S exactly how our current insurance works. They call it a "pool" you get as many people in the pool as you can and use ALL of their premiums to pay for the people who actually use the care. I realize it seems counter-intuitive, but that IS the way insurance works, wether it's car, health, home, rental, etc.
Col, I am unaware of any Canadians who have opted out of our system.
it's not "throws"..... it should be "throes" Perhaps the Canadian edumaction system could stand a bit of tuning.
* throe
* Pronunciation: \ˈthrō\
* Function: noun
* Etymology: Middle English thrawe, throwe, from Old English thrawu, thrēa threat, pang; akin to Old High German drawa threat
* Date: 13th century
1 : pang, spasm
2 plural : a hard or painful struggle
But thanks for rallying round, anyway.
you know I meant no offense.... but I will suggest that a knee-jerk response is as much "brainwashing" as anything I have ever seen.. you and I sometimes disagree, sometimes politically, but in years I cannot remember a time were weren't able to do so as gentlemen.
Thank you for the "defence" (isn't that when you pull all the wire and poles up on the south forty???).
;)
There are different groups that exist to serve specific interests here in the United States. I'd suppose that groups also exist in Canada to serve their own interests.
Rory, do you have easy access to some general demographic data about ages of population groups in Canada?
How many Canadians are over 80 years of age? 60?
Perhaps, this is a game of three card monty. The goal is to keep the attention on these moving cards, but something else could be going on.
Thanks for sparking the conversation.
I would expect that Canada's age demographics are comparable to America's, since we both went through the same baby boom and immigration dynamics over the last several generations.
(2007/2008) 11.1
Current smokers
(2008) 21.4%
Death rate (per 1,000 population)
(2007/2008) 7.2
Has a doctor
(2008) 84.4%
Heavy drinkers
(2008) 16.7%
High blood pressure
(2008) 16.4%
Life expectancy - males
(2006) 78.4 years
Life expectancy - females
(2006) 83.0 years
Overweight or obese adults
(2008) 51.1%
Overweight or obese youth (12-17)
(2008) 19.3%
Physically active (leisure time)
(2008) 50.6%
Five years ago I blacked-out at work, my heart-rate dropped and i blacked-out. Long story short, I needed a De-fibula-tor- pacemaker implanted. In that hospital in America there were people of all colors on that cardiac floor who had no insurance or had Medicaid and they got the same treatment I did- no one in America can be turned away at a hospital if you show-up and require health care.
Rory, the American people will not put their lives in the hands of a bunch of lying- corrupt politicians and if these fools keep pushing this hideous plan on them they will
revolt against it. Americans will not stand in long lines to see a doctor, especially when they see none of these scummy politicians standing in line with them.
Rory, please, Dodd is having that surgery in my country-America, because he is no fool!
Remember this guy already opted out of any plan he forces on us PEONS!.
Rory, I enjoy your opinions forgive me for sometimes injecting a little Satire into my post, that's how I think and write. It's not personal- it's business. Life and Death business.
Gee, then why was I left screaming and vomiting in an ER bay for 8 hours and then refused treatment? (Yes, I actually do have insurance) 5 months, 4 GIs, countless ER visits in a DIFFERENT hospital later, and a final diagnosis of SOD (Sphincter of Oddi Dysfuntion) requiring a relatively simple procedure.
The ONLY thing that hospitals HAVE to do is stabalize you, they have to set a broken bone, they have to perform emergency surgery (like yours), they have to take care of you and your pregnancy in an emergency situation, but they do NOT have to treat a chronic disease or disorder, and, as shown above, they CAN refuse you treatment.
Rory wasn't talking about the QUALITYof healthcare, he was talking about the DELIVERY of said care, that's what EVERYONE is talking about. Trying to turn it into a discussion about QUALITY is silly at best, and disingenuous as worst.
It doesn't matter if you are at the Top Dog, All Time Greatest, Most Advanced hospital with the most Fantastic, Wonderful, Top Trained Doctors, if you don't have insurance, or can't pay for it, you ARE NOT going to get anything beyond STABALIZING care and MAYBE transfered to a different hospital.
I have not personally sat in an American hosptial awaiting care, but my own sister had to borrow money from a co-worker to pay for treatment of a foot that was turning gangrenous some years ago or she would have just had to wait until she got back to Canada and had it amputed by then. My nephew, as I said above, recently died of skin cancer in Florida and I know he was deprived health services until much too late in his illness to make any difference due to inability to pay.
You'd be surprised at the programs available - in Dallas, there was a grant available for medical care for anyone coming from my county (south of Houston) for training in the Dallas area who might end up in ER. How weird is that? But the grant was there and I paid nothing.
In Lake Jackson, there was a major chemical company that donated about $1 millon per year to help take care of people who had less than $12,000 in income and came to ER.
In FL, there was the medically needy program (which is in many states...but you have to know to ask about it) that decided that my ex and I would get state health assistance in any year that we had over $4000 in medical bills. When he had his stroke, they stepped in and paid most of the hospital bill because of that.
In another FL town, I listened as almost every person who went to the desk to talk about money said they had none, and each one was treated anyway.
The point is that every experience is different. None of us should think that what we experience - good or bad - is identical to what others have or will experience. It depends on the hospital and the area.
And yet on every arguement you constantly use your personal experiences as evidence to refute actual research, polls, and statistics...
It seems to me that when we act collectively in each other's best interests we make a better society. Kind of like a rural community all coming together for a barn raising.
10% of income for out of pocket medical expenses or a deductible 5% or more of income by definition is under insured and leads to bankruptcy.
The message should be simple. The system we have is passable and needs improvements. Insurance companies need to be held in check, medical lawsuits need to be as well. Just those two things can bring cost down. We don't need to change the whole system, increase taxes in order to insure 5 to 10 million people. At the end of the day, only 5 million don't have insurance and would like to have one. Let's take that number to 10. We are are talking about 2-5% of people. We don't have to insure illegal immigrants by God. Immigration reform first, if you want to cover everyone.
As for those who would call a single-payer system "socialized medicine" we already have "socialized" medicine for old people (Medicare) and poor people (Medicaid). Social Security itself is a form of "socialism," and I don't know of many who would turn down that retirement money for the sake of ideological purity.
And to those who like to spread tales of the "horrors" of the single-payer Canadian system, I say "Show me the dead Canadians!"