A bit of enlightenment on health care
Had an epiphany the other day listening to Rutherford.
He had one of those health care advocates on his show pontificating on the dangers of evil american style two tier "wipe-out-your-life-savings" health care . She kept referring to doctors leaving one system for another and a thought occurred to me.
The health care debate is not and never has been about systems, its about money.
To be specific, its about billing, and whether we are going to maintain a system through a limitation on billing or if we will allow the practioners to bill to multiple venues.
Right now doctors cannot bill for services covered under OHIP to anyone but OHIP.
What became evident during the radio interview was that the guest went out of her way to avoid talking about how doctors pay their expenses.
This to me would seem like an important part of the issue. Her big scare was that we didn't want to lose doctors to another system, but she didn't want to expand on why. Its quite fundamental that if I want to get paid more and the guy that signs my paycheque says he can't I have two choices, suck it up or move on.
Another piece of the debate the anti-americans tend to gloss over is that this debate is also about a government run insurance program.
We have private insurance in this country, heck if you have a look at most if not all of the collective agreements the CAW had a hand in, they all have a benefit covered by one of them i.e.: Green Shield.
So what is the diff between private insurance and government run insurance?
Private:
Collects fees from members, pays out for benefits, invests the rest as a buffer
Government run:
Collects taxes, directs that to bureacrats who then distribute to the providers, if the "system" needs more money hits the taxpayer up for more.
The next time you find yourself in the middle of the healthcare debate, kindly remind the provacators, its not about providers, its about who pays, how often, and for what.
Pull that out when they start ranting about proceedures that "should be" covered like sex-changes, and abortion clinics.
Classic drive by or Karma?
An interesting thing happened on the way to the liberal convention
What pray tell you ask?
Somebody got whacked by media bias.
Warren Kinsella's take on the drive-by is like a bully seeing one of his buddies (in this case Gerard Kennedy) get taken down a peg by a bigger tougher bully (that of the Globe and Mail).
However, still making hay out of this issue a full three days after the fact would be breaking one of Warren's cardinal rules, that of changing the channel when bad news hits the papers. All Warren, TDH, Calgarygrit and the rest of the "Progressive" bloggers are doing is drawing attention to the snub, which only gives it more substance. The story won't necessarily add anything to the liberal race for Stornoway but it won't improve an already lacklustre contest of two maybe three front runners and some also rans, losing media attention to more interesting news. Like the latest AG's report on liberal conspiracies to coverup the true cost of the long gun registry.
Now if the liberals could only stop nattering about vast US style republican right-wing conspiracies, and start coming up with reasons to trust them the next time around.
Naw, didn't think so.
Who knows best how to raise a child?
Better yet the statement should read;
Who is better equiped to decide what is best for a child?
Is it the state? The liberals and the NDP think so.
But if this was true wouldn't it be natural that our young be abandoned at the moment of birth?
Don't be absurd?
Too true. Its due to that thing called a nurturing instinct that makes a parent come to the aid of its young rather than let the chips fall where they may.
Purely academic stuff really.
But if the parent is best equiped to raise the child, what role does the state have in this?
I'll jump past the collary and hit the nerve.
What right does the state have to raise any child?
The truth is no state has that right. Make that, the state has no charter right.
You know, that charter the liberals like to refer to as Trudeau's Charter?
The same charter that gives the court the authority to read things into law rather than let mere mortals in the elected House of Commons create legislation.
Get that. Parents have a charter right to raise their child without the intervention of the state.
The only reasonable limit is if the state can prove the child will come to harm if the parent gets its hands on them. It unfortunately happens in this world that some people do bad things.
But by and large, parents are good people that can and do take good care of their kids.
That after all is the crux of the issue. The state not only has no place in the bedroom, it has no place in the nursery either.
Jack Layton...mainstream?
I watched a bit of QP rerun tonight and observed some of the attacks (the theatrics actually) of the opposition.
Frankly what I see is the liberals using the old "ratpack" playbook they used against Mulroney. The problem for this worn out tactic is that this isn't the second term of a conservative government and the PM isn't Mulroney.
This "beer and popcorn" ad hom from one of the contenders for the race for leader of the opposition is just the latest example (there will be more).
The individual in question thought it would be very witty no doubt to contend that because the liberal child indoctrination program (which they like to call a national childcare program) got axed by the present government, she thought it was wise that more jails where going to be built because there will be more crime now.
So lets get this straight, a previous liberal government is well the previous government, meaning they don't set the agenda anymore. So logically the government in power now, that would be the conservative one, has cancelled the plan, which to be intellectually honest, that was what Harper campaigned on.
So what does this have to do with todays question period?
I alluded to the liberals "rat pack" style attack against the Harper government and why it won't work. Here's the crux of it. It won't stick, because unlike Mulroney Harper doesn't have a pathological desire to be loved. That and the liberals are shooting themselves when they attack Harper for a broken promise they made and there's the reason you'll be treated to the b&p commentary, they still believe they have the divine right to rule and by extension the right to define Canadian.
During their leadership race It won't matter what big ideas they can manage to co-opt from another party, or if they can fabricate a leadership messiah, or find enough "mania" to create some juggernaut that will bring them "the biggest majority ever". Its about arrogance folks, and if there is one thing Canadians won't cotton to it's a bunch of elitist know-it-alls that believe only they have all the answers.
This attitude comes across that as far as they are concerned:
Parents can't raise their own kids.
Parents can't handle $100 a month.
Health care is a very complex issue.
Legitimate gun owners are unable to secure their own weapons.
Natives can't make it out in the real world on their own.
Drug addicts need safe injection sites.
If marijana was decriminalized drugs wouldn't be a problem.
Street gangs need basketball courts.
Prostitutes need trade unions and safe place to ply their "trade".
Global warming won't go away unless we buy some hot air credits from countries that are polluting.
"People can't help themselves, they need our (liberal) guidance."
Its like they forgot what the concept of free will actually means.
Now here's a shock for any so-called liberals that happened to get lost in a late night web browse and found yourself here. The majority of Canadians are folks that go to work and make a fair wage for a fair days work, then they go home to their families and they sit down to dinner together. Heck some of them even say grace. Then afterwards, unlike the minority of us political watcher types, they might watch some TV, but not if the weather is good. They go outside and meet with friends. On Sunday some of them go to church, or not. You see these people around you all the time. But where you don't see them is at a protest march or being a rent a mob for the cause of the moment.
Here's another shock for you, about 99.9 % are not into alternative lifestyles.
The majority are Joe and Jane Sixpack. Ordinary folks, with ordinary lives.
Maybe their kid needs braces, or plays on the little league team. They might be a two income family, they might not. For that matter the wages they make are pretty average, not six figure, but they manage what they have, and if the government would quit coming up with "social programs" to advance the latest cause du jour they may just be able to hang on to a little bit more of it. I guarantee you that if the government doesn't have a national program to babysit their pre-school kids they would still muddle through. People do that, they encounter difficulties in life, they overcome them, or they adjust and adapt to the new reality.
Nobody said life was suppose to be easy...except liberals.
But I digress.
The liberal party better start channelling something else besides Trudeau's spirit before they completely lose any capacity to connect to canadians. This "we know whats best for you" isn't it.
Here's a clue.
Whats the one city Canadian's love to hate?
Now, how many of the liberal leadership contenders are from somewhere other than Toronto?
About three...that leaves 8 from the center of the universe.
Get the picture.
Because as long as they are stuck on trying to accuse Harper of either not following through on their promises, or that he has some "secret agenda", they better get used to not only sitting in opposition for a long while, they should also get prepared for a future seeing JacK Layton stand up when the speaker recognizes the leader of the opposition.
Stephen Harper has seemed to grasp this reality quite well....thats why he's the Prime Minister now and Paul Martin isn't.
