Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Saturday, August 18, 2007

The Wonders of Nationalized Health Care

In relation to some discussions in the comments here, I thought this bit of news was quite illuminating:
Canadian has rare identical quads

A Canadian woman has given birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets.

The four girls were born at a US hospital because there was no space available at Canadian neonatal intensive care units.

Karen Jepp and her husband JP, of Calgary, were taken to a Montana hospital where the girls were delivered two months early by Caesarean section.

Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia are in good condition at Benefis Hospital in Great Falls, Montana.
(Emphasis mine.)

Yup. Socialized medicine really works good, doesn't it?

UPDATE via Instapundit, Don Surber comments:
This is not to piss all over Canada. Nice nation. Great people. I'm sure most Canadians like their health system. Just remember, though, that Canada's backup system is in Montana. Americans spend 15% of their income on health care. That's why Great Falls has enough neo-natal units to handle quadruple births — and a "universal health" nation doesn't.

After all, they didn’t fly Mrs. Jepp to Cuba, did they?
Quoth Glenn: "OUCH!"

And, as one of Don's commenters noted, the Jepp quads are now Americans.

Also, from a link in Don's piece; Kate at Small Dead Animals relates her story about her mother's terminal illness treatment in Saskatchewan. Interesting quote:
After waiting 10 days on oxygen in an intensive care ward, where it was more likely that a knowledgable visitor would tend to a distressed patient or dysfunctioning equipment than any of the five nurses charged with holding down chairs, we began to wonder when the lung specialist planned to show up to discuss our mother's condition.
Anecdotes are not equal to data - until you collect enough of them.

UPDATE: And here's another, found via Clayton Cramer. According to this 8/17 Calgary Herald piece on the Jepp quadruplets:
Jepp was transported to Benefis hospital in Great Falls last Friday -- making her the fifth Alberta woman to be transferred south of the border this year because of neonatal shortages in Calgary.
(My emphasis.)

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