Last fall, Jim Carey, the well-known comedian, spoke on Real Time with Bill Maher about Canadian single payer medical care:

“I grew up in Canada, OK? We have socialized medicine.

I’m here to tell you this bulls**t line you get on all the political shows from people is that it’s a failure. ‘The system is a failure in Canada.’

It is not a failure in Canada.”

Carey used an old term for the mascot of Canadian exceptionalism. Twenty years ago, socialism was dead. People avoided calling anything socialized, especially Canada’s crown jewel of post-war welfarism.

Even today, people still prefer to talk about single-payer healthcare. It ranks between 5- and 25-times more common than socialized medicine on Google trends since 2004.

Celebrities love to defend socialized medicine. That should not surprise us. But their comfort with the term ‘socialized’ is worth noting. As the New Yorker published this spring, socialism is back.

A Glorious Beginning

Socialized medicine started in the late 1960s with a promise: care regardless of ability to pay. Doctors and nurses could keep doing what they had always done. And government would pay. Who could argue with that?

The glory days of socialized medicine ended soon. Continue reading “Socialized Medicine: What’s in a name?”

I wrote this article for The Epoch Times and wanted to share it with you. Enjoy!

With a health care system in desperate need of innovation, every election candidate competes to avoid saying anything new.

Overall, 37% of Canadian voters rank health care as their top issue going into the election. But only 5.8% of voters say that health care will change their vote. That number would increase if candidates actually said something unique about health care.

But no one does.They all wrap themselves in the flag of medicare and pledge allegiance to our national icon.

Since health care won’t win more votes, it ends up as a the most important non-issue in every election. Voters learn nothing new and hear more of the same or nothing at all.

Health care is Canada’s third rail in politics: “If you touch it, you get electrocuted”.  Candidates have everything to lose, when addressing health care. Their only gain lies in promising more of what got us here in the first place. Continue reading “Health Care: The biggest non-issue this election”

From the outside, The Canadian Medical Association looks like a monarchy. It presides over the major ceremonies at provincial and territorial associations. But the CMA has grown tired and a bit embarrassed by old formalities.

After 152 years, the CMA has almost transformed into a New Thing.

Reform started some time ago with reorganization and throwing out robes and royal parades.

Committees followed.

Then motions. And board members.

The CMA almost succeeded in throwing out general council.

By every indication, the CMA wants to throw out the medical profession too.

Crisis at OMA Council

On May 5th at OMA spring council in Ottawa, Dr. Gigi Osler, CMA President, gave her annual address.

At first, no one came up to ask questions. Almost three hundred people sat in silence: a rare event in medical politics. Continue reading “The Secret of CMA Credibility & How to Win It Back”