Several years ago, my Grandma Ramey broke her hip. She was from the rural South, and by no stretch of the imagination was she “rich.” She had nothing but public programs to rely on. In the hospital, she went into a form of dementia. But within hours of her injury, she had a new hip. The horrible pain started to go away. She came out of the dementia. She lived for almost another decade – healthy, independent, and in her right mind. Our broken healthcare system in action.
In Canada or the UK, Grandma could have waited for weeks or months for a new hip – if she ever got one at all. In her condition, what would weeks of severe pain (and worse, total helplessness) have done to her? I am convinced the dementia would not have ended. She would have died in that hospital – in horrible pain, terrified, and unable to even recognize her family.
I’ve listened to President Obama. I don’t think that people on his side of the argument are in any way bad or stupid. But the program he’s pushing will mean waiting lists for everyone. It will also cripple medical & pharmaceutical R&D. The hip that kept my Grandma alive, the cancer treatments that give some hope to my family & friends who are fighting that disease, and the vaccine that would have prevented the cancer that killed my sister in her 40s – none of these things were developed in countries that have socialized their medical systems.
We can’t be like Canada. Most Canadians can drive to the US for medical care, if they don’t want to wait in line – and millions do just that. Almost every medical treatment used by Canadians were developed in whole or in large part with research dollars from American companies. When our government crowds private enterprise out of heath care, we will be stuck.