the healthcare debate
The healthcare debate in the United States has risen to comical proportions. Ideology has been trampled by common sense like a narc at a biker rally. With each passing day the right-wing moves into ever-widening cicles of rhetorical hell as it seeks to discredit “socialized medicine” (which is read as: communism, euthenasia, and unpatriotic).
Now, as the beneficiary of Canada’s federally-administered healthcare system (which we unrepentent and disengenuous socialists prefer to call a single-payer system), I can only shake my head in disbelief as the simple facts of the various forms of healthcare are all but forgotten.
What if I were to tell you that Canadians spend far less for their healthcare than Americans do, and that Canadians enjoy a higher life expectancy and a lower rate of infant mortality, and that all Canadians have a relatively equal degree of healthcare coverage? [see here for a basic summary]
We have reached a point in human evolution where the very simple facts of any social or political matter are no longer allowed to mean a fucking thing. The facts are seens as incidental to the issue at hand, and by no means should we allow reason to set the terms of the debate.
I am hopeful that my neighbours to the south will get the healthcare system that all of their citizens deserve, and I hope that this happens within the next decade. That said, I am highly skeptical that this will ever happen.
