Living & Damn near Dying with Socialized Medicine
August 26, 2009 by John Myers
“The reality is that from Canada to Cuba socialized health care’s record is appalling. It’s impossible to tally how many patients die…” Smart Money, July 16, 2007
You can ask me about universal health care. I’ve lived it. I’ve almost died it.
I’m a dual citizen and spent almost equal portions of my adult life in Canada and the United States. Canada has many things going for it and I moved back to Calgary to be where the action is in energy. But it’s a move that almost cost me my life.
I started getting flu-like symptoms on a Sunday last October. I was sluggish and pensive. I had reason to be. I have acute asthma.
As afternoon turned to evening I was having trouble catching my breath. By 7 p.m. I was struggling for air. My wife Angie ordered me to the car and raced me to one of Calgary’s emergency health clinics just down the road. We both knew I might be getting pneumonia, a potential killer for an asthmatic.
It had happened to me once before in Spokane, Wash., and Angie sped me to The Sacred Heart Medical Center. No sooner had I hit the door when two doctors threw me onto a crash cart and a team of five worked to restore my airways. I was then admitted to the hospital for five days. That was in 1992.
Seventeen years later and 500 miles to the north I knew that my chances of surviving weren’t so good.
The clinic I stumbled into last fall was brimming with three dozen patients; many waiting hours to see one doctor who had been at work since 8 that morning. Angie helped me walk to the reception desk and declared to a young woman that I was having trouble breathing.
“Take a number and I will call you when it is your turn,” she said in a cold voice.
Angie protested and said something about my condition being critical.
“Everybody here thinks their condition is critical,” said the girl.
Angie knew that I couldn’t sit and still breathe, so she propped me against a wall and strode into the examining area. Inside there were an assortment of people, some simply needing to get a refill on their prescription, others included junkies just wanting a fix. She had to physically force herself in front of someone entering one of the tiny examining rooms. The Russian doctor listened and helped her walk me to the examining table.
He laid me down and began to administer oxygen before he undertook a frantic search for Ventolin, an emergency drug for asthmatics that was apparently in short supply.
By now I was gasping for air. My bronchi were almost completely swollen shut. I felt myself losing consciousness.
Some time later my eyes opened and I managed a satisfactory breath after the over-wrought doctor slammed adrenaline into my vein. Two hours later, when he finally checked me out to go home (there were no hospital beds available in Calgary that night) he told me in broken English how he thought I was lucky to be alive.
Next month I will go back to that clinic. I will line up and wait two to four hours to get a flu shot; a vaccination that could save my life in a nation with Third World health care.
Canada offers many great things. But someday I will return to my home, the United States. I just hope it is the United States I left and not just another country that has sold out to the siren call of socialism and the mediocrity it brings.
The True Cost of Obamacare
I have no doubt from my own experiences that health care in the United States is better than in Canada. But of course the Obama administration’s single-minded approach to instituting universal health care is about money.
Last June in an ABC special Obama proclaimed, “The status quo is untenable… It is bankrupting families, bankrupting businesses and bankrupting our government at the state and federal level. So we know things are going to have to change.”
What Obama is really saying is that if the government runs things the quality of health care will be just as good as before and the cost of it will be a lot lower. But when was the last time you saw the federal government do a good job of managing anything? Consider that Washington has grown the national debt from $5 trillion in 1995 to almost $12 trillion this year while damn near reprising the Great Depression.
Health policy experts say guaranteeing coverage for all Americans may cost $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. That is more than double the $634 billion “down payment” the Democrats are trying to sell.
Meanwhile, America will be adding another huge bureaucracy, about the last thing the world’s largest indebted nation needs. If you don’t believe me consider what has happened in Britian.
According to the Aug. 13, 2009 Examiner.Com, “England’s health care program is the third largest employer in the world and their citizens are getting anything but health care.”
To read the entire story click here.
Debt, the Dollar and Your Financial Health
The United States is increasing its national debt at a dizzying pace. Socialized medicine will only accelerate this trend. That is exactly what happened to Canada when universal health care was introduced in 1968. Over the next decade Canada’s national debt soared. In time it had Canadian dollar investors rushing for the exits.
In 1968 the Canadian dollar stood at par with its U.S. counterpart. Fifteen years later the Canadian dollar had lost nearly a third of its value. This period coincided precisely with Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister (1968-1984), whose Liberal government shamelessly socialized Canada.
Yet many Canadians survived and even prospered during the Trudeau years by diversifying out of the Canadian dollar and buying physical gold. From 1971 to 1980 the price of gold in Canadian dollars rose C$35 per ounce to over C$1,000 per ounce!
Action to take: Watching the Obama administration is frighteningly reminiscent of the Trudeau years. And while I can only pray that America doesn’t revert to socialized medicine I can offer sound advice when it comes to your money. Given the current political and economic conditions I urge you to put at least 10 percent of your investible assets in physical gold. I recommend 1-ounce South African Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs or American Eagles. Call your local coin dealer or if you need one, we recommend Asset Strategies International in Rockville, Md., 800-831-0007 or 301-881-8600 or go to http://www.assetstrategies.com.
Yours for real wealth and good health,
John Myers
Myers’ Energy and Gold Report
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