ObamaCare in Canada
by David Gratzer

Not long ago, I favored government expansion into health care. Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither.

My views changed in medical school. Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a "single payer" — the government. But Canadians must wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.

The problems were brought home when a relative had difficulty walking. He was in chronic pain. His doctor suggested a referral to a neurologist; an MRI would need to be done, then possibly a referral to another specialist. The wait would have stretched to roughly a year. If surgery was needed, the wait would be months more. Not wanting to stay confined to his house, he had the surgery done in the U.S., at the Mayo Clinic, and paid for it himself.

Such stories are common. For example, Sylvia de Vries, an Ontario woman, had a 40-pound fluid-filled tumor removed from her abdomen by an American surgeon in 2006. Her Michigan doctor estimated that she was within weeks of dying, but she was still on a wait list for a Canadian specialist.

People DIE waiting for care.

Indeed, Canada's provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery — described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as "broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain."

Only half of ER patients are treated in a timely manner by national and international standards, according to a government study. The physician shortage is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local doc.

In Canada, private-sector health care is growing. Dr. Day estimates that 50,000 people are seen at private clinics every year in British Columbia. According to the New York Times, a private clinic opens at a rate of about one a week across the country. Public-private partnerships, once a taboo topic, are embraced by provincial governments.

In the United Kingdom, where socialized medicine was established after World War II through the National Health Service, the present Labour government has introduced a choice in surgeries by allowing patients to choose among facilities, often including private ones. Even in Sweden, the government has turned over services to the private sector.

Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?

ObamaCare in Canada- WSJ

We don't have to wait until we have a Republican in the White House to rid this nation of the shackles of Obamacare.  We can do it next year if we win simple majorities in one or both houses of Congress.
   
The Obama health care bill was an authorization measure which established a program and set down its parameters.  But authorization bills are not appropriations.  Each year the Congress must act on appropriations for each department and agency in the government.  If no funds are appropriated, nothing can be spent.
   
So if Republicans take the House (where appropriations have to originate) – and especially if they also take the Senate – they will have the capacity to zero fund Obamacare, appropriating not a dime for it in their spending bills.  Indeed, they can and should include a specific amendment to their appropriations bills banning the expenditure of any of the funds on Obama's health care program.
   
In the wake of the passage of the health care bill, states are filing lawsuits and talk of repeal is in the air.  Both are useful efforts.  But litigation takes time and the key challenge – to the constitutionality of the requirement that everybody buy insurance – cannot even begin until it takes effect in 2014.  And repeal will obviously be impossible as long as Obama wields the veto from his Oval Office.  It would be impossible mathematically for the Republicans to get a two-thirds majority in the Senate and unlikely in the House, so an override is out of the question.  Repeal will have to wait until 2013, after Obama's defeat in 2012.
   
But zero funding can happen immediately after the Republicans take Congress.  All this makes the elections of 2010 critical.  If we can stop this bill from getting off the ground, it will be possible to repeal it when we take over the White House.  But if the Democrats keep their majorities, the program will be so entrenched by the time we defeat Obama that its repeal would be unlikely.

from  DickMorris.com

Wisteria Buds, 598/730 Year 2 of my Project

Businesses are not fond of Obamacare and the headlines tell us that three of the nation’s largest employers have reported the healthcare bill will cost their companies billions of dollars, while the level of care/coverage will decline.  Gee, who would have forseen that one?

AT&T, John Deer, and Caterpillar have expressed their dismay and dissatisfaction with the plan. This has left Henry Waxman scratching his head – he and the Marxists who believe spreading the wealth actually works can't understand why companies will suffer.

So now the Big Govt rep Henry Waxman demands (with foot-stomping no doubt) that the CEOs appear in DC to be shown the error of their ways.  Kinda like the "re-education camps" of the old USSR which were, in reality, a stint in Siberia.  WASHWIRE STORY

That's not all…. because hidden…. purposely hidden in this same bill is the nationalization of the student loan industry. President Obama has said he's 'eliminated the middle man' in college student loans, making government the primary holder (translation: CONTROLLER) of student loans.  Read all about it.

And the CBO warns of crushing debt.  A Twenty Trillion figure is mentioned.  No one is listening.