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Recent Studies Show Canadian Healthcare is Far From Free and Not Getting Better

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Recent Studies Show Canadian Healthcare is Far From Free and Not Getting Better

Cost and long wait times are driving Canadians out of the country for medical care. As Alain Lambert, French-Canadian entrepreneur from Montreal, points out in the PragerU video below, they are coming primarily to the United States for timely treatment instead.

[youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/9M0xPn07T8w” controls=”no” rel=”no” theme=”light”]

The Venezuela Implosion

Meanwhile, collectivist leftists like Bernie Sanders continue to peddle the medicare-for -all Socialist dream as “the” solution. A solution that has imploded economically, and in every other way you can think of, in nations like Venezuela into tyranny. That doesn’t appear to faze the Bern. He still pushes his evidence-less illusory socialist dream.

After their recent election, criticized by the U.S. and neighboring nations as a sham, Maduro, now a virtual dictator, illegally jailed two major opposition leaders the day after the election results.

Shortly after that, as part of a decision involving the executive branch’s authority over oil ventures, the court declared that henceforth the judicial branch would execute all powers customarily reserved for the legislature.

As with all socialist schemes, they begin by selling idealistic dreams of an egalitarian society of equality to the masses. Over time, the vision of justice degenerates into the tyranny of a minority of selected elites. This minority then dominates the majority using the coercive force of authoritarian government.

Meanwhile, the supposed equal freedom for the people disappears in the mix. Tyranny and poverty replaces it.

Ignore Reality and Feel the Bern

That doesn’t stop dream peddlers like Bernie from pushing failed socialist dreams. He fails to acknowledge any failure of the socialist ideology, along with the rest of the power-hungry Democrat politicians. Instead, they continue to push failed dreams.

They are more interested in empowering the ruling political elite that socialist ideologies always produce, not the actual impact on the people whose interests socialism claims to represent. They practice selective awareness speaking about only that which complements their promises and nothing else.

Bernie and the Democrats call for single-payer health care as a solution for the failing Obamacare. As some have noted, this was the plan all along anyway. With the authoritarian class, more government is always the solution- NOT the problem which we know is a tragic denial of reality as medical costs under more government continue to soar even in our nation with its half or more socialist medical care.

[youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Y8vGuBkrk” controls=”no” rel=”no” theme=”light”]http://bit.ly/2ukACda[/youtube_advanced]

Reality in Single-Payer Canada

The 2019 Fraser Institute Report shows that rising costs in healthcare and inordinately long wait times are causing Canadians to seek healthcare elsewhere- mainly the U.S.

Over 63,000 Canadians left the country for medical care elsewhere
Services are rationed now.
The average surgical wait time for treatment is 20.9 weeks (5 months) 124% longer than in 1993 when it was just 9.3 weeks

It gets worse.

Free Can Be Quite Costly

The average cost for a family of 2 adults and two children is $13,311 annually ($13,208 with one child or $13,163 for two adults with no children)
In typical Marxist transfer the wealth fashion, if you are a top 10% earning family, you pay way more– $39,486 annually!

As one of the co-author’s of the study Bacchus Barua, senior economist with the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Health Policy Studies put it:

Health care in Canada isn’t free—Canadians actually pay a substantial amount for health care through their taxes, even if they don’t pay directly for medical services.

That’s what makes single-payer healthcare appear free– it’s costs are hidden in taxes. The government simply raises taxes and premiums for everyone. The more income you earn, the more the government sucks away without request. Those lower on the income scale see that as fair, of course.

Legalized Plunder Scheme

Frederic Bastiat in his 1850 publication, The Law, correctly described the coercive theft of earned income by the government from the citizens as “legalized plunder”.

The problem with that scheme arises from the sad reality once plunder becomes legal. All men seeking the most benefit from the least amount of work will freely endorse any system that will promise them more booty for no more work– if they are working at all.

So, it is no surprise that a younger generation, who accept authority over themselves as healthy, who are burdened with educational debt gratefully support a Marxist fool like Sanders who makes unrealistic promises of relief through the invisible arm of legalized plunder.

Sanders naturally, is popular among the younger generation who are looking for short-term relief and not thinking about the long-term consequences.

Single-payer healthcare is nothing more than yet another legalized plunder scheme. All of the single-payer plans, as Canadian healthcare is doing now, are destined to fail. It is merely a matter of time.

What About Our Healthcare?

Far from the claims of some, the U.S. is already mired in government-controlled healthcare. We are not even remotely close to having a free-market health care system.

Even before Obamacare, government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, (expanded under Obama to include more people, even those not considered inferior) were beginning to implode and continue to do so. Costs are continuing to grow as they have since the inception of Medicare and Medicaid.

Instead of taking lessons from Canada’s system, along with Britain, Cuba, Russia, North Korea, etc. Sanders and the Democrats continue to call for a better method of legalized plunder- medicare-for-all. Those who share his unproven idealism, or benefit the most from legalized plunder, heartily applaud them.

Why not merely get government out of our healthcare system? Repeal Obamacare without replacement.

The fact is government, as demonstrated historically, is a notoriously lousy alternative to private markets.

A Free-Market Alternative

In free-market healthcare, citizens would vote with their dollars for healthcare services. Options will expand with increased competition, even for the uninsured. Alternatives will naturally surface and remain if good or fade into obscurity, if not.

Innovation will also grow, as well. We see this in the relatively free market technology industry. Competition tends to give consumers get more bang for their buck and more choices to suit their needs.

We would not expect it to be an easy change, as no significant change ever is. The fact is that any time you remove bird feeders, the birds get angry, but it is the most effective way to reduce skyrocketing healthcare costs quickly while allowing services to expand.

The “birds”, however, either profiting from or directly benefitting from legalized plunder, won’t agree. They are, as always, seeking the most benefit from the least amount of effort.

Monopolies provide the most benefit to the provider with the least amount of effort.
Socialist schemes provide the most benefit to those who make the least contribution to society with the least amount of effort as well.

“Put the bird feeders back up and fill them with more seed!”, is a cry that will fill the media. Both factions will participate – the monopolist and the handout seeker. You can pretty much count on that.