TransGriot: 10 Busted Myths About The Canadian Healthcare System

TransGriot Note: You know the conservaliars, the HMO's, the pharmaceutical companies, the AMA and their lobbyists are gearing up to kill President Obama's health care reform.They also hate Rep. John Conyers' HR 676, which would expand Medicare to cover all Americans by converting it into a single payer system.The conservaliars save special hateraid for the Canadian Health Care System and don't want to see it replicated on this side of the border.Thy are already slinging the 'socialized medicine' shade at any system that doesn't perpetuate the status quo where they make obscene amounts of money.It all adds up to the average American's health care plan being, 'Don't Get Sick.'Any moment now I expect them to go dig up or clone Ronald Reagan so they can trot him out to reprise his anti-Medicaid commercials from 1961.Well, as an American, I'm sick of this crappy system we have now. If little ole embargoed Cuba, Costa Rica and the world major industrialized nations can have universal healthcare for their citizens, what's wrong with the nation that put a man on the moon 40 years ago not being able to do so? Thanks to Physicians For A National Health Program here's a February 5, 2008 article by Sara Robinson of TomPaine.com busting the conservamyths about the Canadian healthcare system. Robinson is an American citizen who is a Canadian resident, so she is in an excellent position to compare and contrast the two. I'll just hit the highlights. The full article is here on the PNHP website.Here's Renee's Global Comment post as a beneficiary of that system tellin' it like it T-I-S is about her experiences with the Canadian system as well.***1. Canada’s health care system is “socialized medicine.”False. In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. In Canada (and many other countries with universal care), doctors run their own private practices, just like they do in the US. The only difference is that every doctor deals with one insurer, instead of 15...