The Pendragon's Hall

Having visited a health care facility in Canada over the weekend, I come away more amused than ever by the naivety of liberals. We've listened to Ted Kennedy and company ramble on for years as to how America must move "to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors" and their chief plan for doing this is to nationalize the health care industry the way our neighbor to the north has. One would almost picture cars lining up for miles at the Canadian border with old people fleeing north to buy prescription drugs. Yet this silver lining has a storm cloud attached that we don't often hear about and that's the waiting lists our Canadian friends are subjected to. In the entire capital city of Ottawa, a city of some one million people, there is a single MRI clinic. So you can imagine how long it takes to get to use it. My fiancee told me about her friend's father who was kept waiting for two years to find out what was wrong with him. He had cancer. Yeah, he was dead long before he was to have been checked out. While I was there, a woman came in to schedule an x-ray and was told she could come in "bright and early" on November 28th...this on October 13th! The poor lady protested, "That's a long time. I could be dead by then." Upstairs in the waiting room, lines stretched out the door with patients waiting to tell their doctor they were there for their checkup while the receptionist was on the phone apparently getting the whole lifestory from another potential customer. My fiancee's appointment was at 10:45...it was nearer noon when she actually got in! A Canadian snidely told me, "In Canada, our doctor's visits are free." My response: "In America, they're on time."