Oh, That Superior Canadian Healthcare System!

Next time someone tells you America should have "free" healthcare for everybody like canada does, think about a canuck named Adolfo Flora.

--Adolfo Flora had a simple choice. He could either die of liver cancer within six months or spend $450,000 for treatment overseas.

Flora chose life and now an Ontario Divisional Court has ruled he will have to pay for that.

This week's ruling was a blow for the 57-year-old retired high school teacher, who contracted hepatitis C from a tainted blood transfusion and was diagnosed with liver cancer in 1999. He spent $450,000 for a transplant in England after being denied the life-saving help in Ontario.

The court argued Flora's Charter rights were not violated when he was forced to choose between death or costly overseas treatment. The ruling, by a panel of three judges, also quashed his appeal of an earlier decision that refused to order the province to reimburse him.--

Kind of an interesting story, and one that highlights some of the downsides of socialized medicine.

Big downside #1 is, "free" healthcare for everybody means everyone gets treated, but at a lower level of care. There's only a certain amount of money to go around, and so choices have to be made. If you want a procedure that's not covered, you're shit out of luck unless you can afford to pay for it yourself.

Big downside #2 would be, even if you can afford it, you have to travel out of canada and have it done somewhere else. Canadian doctors who participate in the "free" healthcare system are not allowed to also contract directly with the patients to perform medical care.

I guess that makes sense, because all three of the wealthy canadians that haven't immigrated to America would use their money to shorten their wait times, and that wouldn't be fair. But it is kinda human nature to want to get treatment in time to keep you from dying, and to not have to go across an ocean to do it.

(There's also big downside #3, which is that all this "free" medical care is putting some provinces in dire financial straits, but that's such an obvious outcome that I think it more comes under the category of "serves 'em right.")

But anyway, you can't blame Liver Guy for not liking the answer of, "Sorry, dude, but you gonna DIE!" Or for going to merry olde england to borrow a liver lobe from his brother. Or for then asking his own government to reimburse him for the operation.

And you certainly can't blame them for refusing to pay for it. They can't afford to pay for everything that everyone wants.

However, I'm sure it's crossed Liver Guy's mind that if he lived in America, he wouldn't have this problem. Anyone who can afford to fly to another country and foot the bill for a $450,000 medical procedure could have afforded top-of-the-line medical insurance here.

He also could have sued the shit out of the doctors and hospital who gave him the Hep C that caused his cancer, further off-setting his costs. He couldn't sue anyone in canada, because they don't allow lawsuits when something goes wrong with the "free" healthcare. (Hey, Liver Guy, ever hear the expression "you get what you pay for"?)

The lesson here is, there will always be a hierarchy of medical care in this country, and it will beat the hell out of canada's more egalitarian system every time.

Of course, I don't give a shit either way as long as someone pays for my trips to the large animal veterinarian when I contract a social disease. Can't have my monster moose-meat rotting off. What would I do with my free time then?