One of the major characteristics of a socialized medicine system, where ALL of medical care is paid for by Government (in the US, Obama called it “Single Payer”), there is never enough care or money to go around. If something is “free” (no charge) people will always use more of it, sometimes unnecessarily. In Canada, they have a socialized medicine system, where private medical care is forbidden. If the government can’t provide a person with the care they need, they either wait for it to be available; they get sicker and die before they can get care; they get their care abroad (the US northern border states treat many Canadians on a cash basis); or, lately, the Canadian Government offers them the choice of euthanasia (Medical Assistance in Dying).
The case of a young woman, Jolene VanAlstine is in the news this week. Below is one headline.
The woman has a rare condition that requires the removal of what remains of her parathyroid gland, and the surgery is extremely tricky. Only a handful of surgeons in Canada are qualified to perform this surgery, and she was told that NONE of them would accept a new patient. She lives in Saskatchewan, the most rural province in Canada, and no one there is qualified. She now has a very uncomfortable choice to make, as the Canadian federal government has expended no effort to get her care within Canada. She can go elsewhere, or she can take the government up on its offer of MAiD. Doesn’t this sound horrible to you? “Sorry, we can’t provide the care you need, so we’ll just help you die.”
Well, thank God for Elon Musk’s X platform, where, as soon as her story was publicized, Americans stood up to help her. Here are some examples of what is going on right now, and some Canadian and American commentary on this unfortunate situation.
Glenn Beck, conservative commentator in America, put out the word on his page, and American doctors responded almost immediately. You need to read all the comments on the posts above, and below. once again, Americans prove to be the most generous, forthcoming people on Earth. If someone is being mistreated, Americans stand up and help, often at great cost to themselves.
It turns out that one of the world’s foremost surgeons has a clinic in Tampa, Florida, and they reached out to Glenn Beck with an offer of help. It doesn’t hurt that many Canadians spend the winter in the Southern US, and that clinic probably already has many Canadian patients.
I have stated many times on my blog and on X that, in any system of “socialized” medicine, each person’s life becomes a line item in the federal budget, to be minimized. Instead of being treated as a human being by their government, they are treated as a “health-care cost”, and since there is never enough money to cover all the people’s wants, it becomes easier for the government to just offer to eliminate them (from its books). So, socialized medicine starts out as a wonderful system, where no one has to worry about coming up with thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars for expensive medicine or treatments, and “no one goes bankrupt” over medical bills. However, once really under way, such a system must necessarily make decisions about which people deserve care, and which will be offered euthanasia. Instead of making people happier, it makes them more anxious, more worried, and, often, sicker or dead. You can bet that no one in the Canadian health system who is a high-ranking politician will have any trouble getting the care they need whenever they need it. It’s mostly the commoners out in the provinces who wait years for a joint replacement or hernia surgery, or are offered MAiD when the system can’t provide complicated surgery or expensive new drugs.
Thanks to the Conservative Influencer Glenn Beck, Jolene VanAlstine now has a chance for a better life after her surgery, performed by an American surgeon in a top-notch clinic. And you can bet that hundreds of ordinary Americans will contribute money so they don’t suffer with huge bills. I wonder if this will cause the VanAlstines to consider leaving Canada for America. That’s being done more and more often these days.
Calling-all-RushBabes 
According to Greg Brady, she could get the surgery in Canada if she could be referred for the operation in another province. It’s the same health care system in all provinces, right? This seems that because of a bureaucratic requirement and where she happens to live, her options are being artificially reduced. If she would have to travel to have an operation, she should be able to travel to see an endocrinologist in another province. The fact that this option is not being made available could be for multiple reasons. One could be policies that make persons that fit her specific profile unavailable for the procedure and the health care system just doesn’t want to advertise that. Another could be that because MAID exists as an option in her situation (by law in Canada), no further options need be offered. Suppose MAID was not an option, and she is no longer on any waitlist (?) because there is no doctor available. Wouldn’t a functional, responsive health care system offer to provide accomodations to seek to connect her with a doctor in another province? They ought to be doing this in any event even where MAID exists (which would only be a last option from the patient’s perspective). The fact that this is not done reflects a divergence in priority between the health care providers and the bureaucracy that marshalls the money from taxpayers to the healthcare providers.
I saw this– so glad they’ve made contact with Beck!
Hugs to you and the family!