Canada Ping!
Posted on 11/30/2013 2:37:16 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
As best as I can judge from monitoring Twitter for about 20 hours out of every 24, which is my habit these days, few of this country’s big-time journalists are keeping a close eye on the Obamacare crisis in the United States. We are all caught, like flies in a spiderweb, in the evolving stories of Rob Ford and the Senate multi-scandal. Both are news files quite unusual in Canada, delivering little bomblets of fresh weirdness for months on end and on a basis that could be characterized as “daily, gusting to hourly.”
Or maybe these stories aren’t unusual; maybe it is just a matter of social media turning our existences as pundits into a sweaty, crowded hearth in which we all sit in a big circle and echo each other all day. I quite enjoy it, but a mind-pummelling stream of “FordSenateFordFordSenateFordNigelWrightFordFord” may not be healthy.
Is anyone, for example, looking for the international or even the Canadian angle on Obamacare? It is a disaster of such magnitude that it is easy to imagine it influencing politics in countries that take cues from America, which, the last time I checked, was about all of them, bar North Korea. It is one of Canada’s major national afflictions that most of us remain blazingly ignorant of health care policy and provision in any country but the U.S. Already one senses that the appetite for reform of physician care and health budgets in Canada has dwindled since, say, the 1990s.
Obamacare isn’t going to make major systemic change in either direction look more appetizing to Canadians. That’s an important Canadian angle right there. Not long ago it looked as though national pharmacare was likely to become an election issue here, quarterbacked by the NDP and perhaps the Liberals, too. The concept has plenty of support among economists and other health policy experts—the same class of kindly boffins that, in the U.S., lined up almost unanimously behind the Affordable Care Act.
For better or worse, nationalizing prescription-drug insurance seems likely to be a much tougher sell here in the immediate future. Any large, complex health care experiment will be. The more wise heads support it, the easier it will be for supporters of the status quo to shout, “Unintended consequences! Ivory-tower tomfoolery!” Indeed, political strategists may already be saying it to themselves.
American commentators are already starting to wonder if Obamacare’s difficult start and increasingly troubled prospects may end up as a victory for small-government conservatism. The problems for the program do not end with the calamitous state of the federal insurance-exchange website, or even with the nasty surprises handed to the self-employed and freelancers in the “individual market” who were falsely promised: “If you like your plan you can keep your plan.” Some Obamacare buyers are finding themselves shut out from their preferred doctors and hospitals; employers are junking non-compliant health plans; and many in the middle class who liked the Obamacare concept are facing sticker shock.
The U.S. is having some success in slowing the growth in its health spending thanks to some “cost-curve bending” measures already undertaken. (Penalizing hospitals under Medicare for repeat patient visits is a big one.) And Obamacare may end up being good for the country’s solvency even as it leaves millions angry. But the damage done to the prestige of “evidence-based” social engineering may already be permanent, especially given the impression of a calculated bait-and-switch on the part of planners.
The redistributive aspects of Obamacare were undersold, and possible pitfalls obviously not foreseen. The neoliberal Democrat Walter Russell Mead put it neatly the other day: “President Obama may be the Democrat who ends up convincing millions of American millennials that Ronald Reagan was right, and that the progressive administrative state is neither honest nor competent enough to solve the problems of the American people.” If that is the case, the effects cannot be confined to the U.S.
Barack Obama is a charismatic president who lacked executive experience but was, partly for reasons related to his ancestry, an attractive blank slate onto which young voters could project their dreams. He compensated for his shortcomings in political dues-paying by building a team of high-profile brainiacs like Steven Chu, Peter Orszag, and Austan Goolsbee. Am I wrong to detect resemblances with the Liberals’ Justin Trudeau victory plan? If Obama goes down as a failure, someone who peddled Hope and got in over his head, will our millennials think twice about casting a feel-good vote for an unknown quantity who fast-forwarded past the usual leadership training?
Canada Ping!
He does overlook the little angle that CGI is a Canadian company that welcomed ValJar’s daughter and son-in-law as employees. I wonder, if our media somehow fails to explore that cozy bit of cronyism, does that mean theirs has to as well?
The Romanians could tell you what to do with an Obama government.
If Obama goes down as a failure, someone who peddled Hope and got in over his head, will our millennials think twice about casting a feel-good vote for an unknown quantity who fast-forwarded past the usual leadership training?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Millenials had better reject Justin Trudeau, Canada is just barely recovering economically after the Trudeau years of Pierre, and the subsequent generation of liberal machinations which ruined Canada economically.
The impact of ObamaCare will be fatal to Canada’s health care system.
The United States health care system subsidizes the costs of the Canadian system because AMerica provides a high compensation system for drugs , medical supplies and care which allows Canada to mandate very low price structures for their system below cost of the US market.
Once the lucrative American market is driven into the ground by ObamaCare, the Canadians will have to pay a much higher price for their medical system because the US system will not even be able support itself, much less subsidize Canada’s health care system
In some continuities, Brainiac was even more or less directly responsible for Krypton’s destruction.
Another OUCH!
When OsamaObamaCare kicks in and *we* start waiting six months for heart surgery Canadians should understand that US hospitals will be essentially closed off to them,thus making their system even *worse* than it is today.
Did 0bamaCare kill off that nice looking young woman who used to live there?
Maybe Americans will start going to Canada for medical care?
If I had the resources I’d start a medical tourism travel agency. That’s going to be HUGE!
ObamaCare is likely to shake Democrat/liberals faith to their very core.
Oh, come on now. Williams went to Florida to have his surgery , not because of any lacking facility or expertise in Canada , rather his condo happened to be 6 blocks from Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. Where would you like to recover from having surgery in February., Florida or Newfoundland ?
I hope all LIBs/DIMs choke on their Clown Prince nobama sh** sandwich. Choke, you smug LIB/DIM clowns.
ObamaCare is likely to shake Democrat/liberals faith to their very core.
Quite embarrassing, and requiring immediate action, but what? Change their whole world-view or just slump into political apathy? Whatever shall they do?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.