Category Archives: Politics: US: Healthcare

I can't decide if this is smart politics or an invitation to thousands of horrible intrusions on the private lives of innocent people.

Call a Canadian : Effect Measure

Back in the days when Quebec was a referendum in the Province on whether to secede from the rest of Canada, there was a campaign from outside to call a Quebecois to tell them that Quebec was a valued part of the country. People dialed their own phone number but with a Quebec area code. Mr. Link suggests that Americans start a similar campaign to Call a Canadian:

Want to know what universal single-payer health care is really like? Do people die on gurneys waiting for operations? Would you pay through the nose in taxes? Is it really worry free? Instead of listening to “experts” from the health insurance industry, lobbyists, the government, or even Michael Moore, why not call an average Canadian and find out for yourself?

Substitute your area code for a Canadian one listed below and call your own phone number. Introduce yourself and ask the person at the end of the line what they think about their health care system. Ask about their own experience. The service, the price, the choice, whatever.

Then make up your mind if single-payer universal health care is a good idea for the USA.

Canadian Area Codes:

• 709 Atlantic Time plus a half hour
• 506 and 902 Atlantic Time
• 819, 418, 581, 450, 613, 514, 438, 343, 416, 647, 905, 289, 705, 519, 226, 807 Eastern Time
• 204, 306 Central Time
• 867, 780, 587, 403, 587 Mountain Time
• 250, 778, 604 Pacific Time

Somehow, I just can't shake the idea that most foreigners would just as soon not find a strange American on the line quizzing them about health care (or anything else for that matter).

Sen. Ron Wyden's office is sending out email touting this video, Senator Ron Wyden | Stand Tall for Health Care Reform.

They offer reviews such as “Ron Wyden Makes Health Care Reform Funny… [a] truly funny and risky political ad” and “The most entertaining political advertisement I've seen in a long time”.

So, judge for yourself.

I didn't like it at all. But I do like the slogan: “Are you ready for universal health care that can never be taken away?”

Paul Krugman blogs on healthcare:

I'm amazed at the way “government health care” is still a scare-term, when 90 million Americans already get insurance from Medicare, Medicaid, or other government programs including [federal employees] and the V.A. system — and most of them find their care just fine. Actually, government insurance is already bigger in dollar terms than private insurance (private spending is 55 percent of health spending, but a substantial fraction of that is out of pocket.) And somehow nobody notices.