Ladies and gentlemen, you probably don't get told enough how fortunate you are to be living in this country. In these relatively uncertain times, with all sorts of predictions of the national unemployment situation deepening and possibly the recession deepening, you may not be feeling terribly lucky just to be a Canadian citizen. Last night while watching CBS's 60 Minutes, I had one of those proud moments and I am sure every Canadian watching had one of those “Geez…are we ever lucky to be living in Canada” moments.
Here's what was said last night to lead into a very damning report on what's happening to some Americans, some thousands of Americans in Nevada alone who aren't rich enough to get the care they need and they aren't impoverished enough to get the same aid welfare recipients receive. They are people in the middle, many of whom have been laid off recently and lost their health insurance.
“In the economic crisis, public hospitals are needed now more than ever. If you're down on your luck without insurance, the county hospital can be your last resort.
But recently thousands of letters went out across Las Vegas telling cancer patients that the only public hospital in the state was closing its outpatient clinic for chemotherapy.
It's the next thing in the recession - communities cutting back on services like schools or cops or public hospitals, because tax revenues have fallen with the economy.
One of the charity patients who got that letter in Las Vegas is Helen Sharp, who didn't realize how a crash on Wall Street might threaten her life."
So Americans are now told that services like dialysis, oncology, pre-natal care and mammography are simply not going to be available for goodness how long and so thousands of folks have nowhere to go. This isn't Canada where health care is a right, this is the wealthiest country in the world, the USA, where at the best of times health care can be - to use Las Vegas terms - a bit of a crapshoot and since these are not the best of times, since these are very tough times, especially in Vegas and other parts of Nevada where tourism is down and unemployment is up and foreclosures are through the roof, well health care becomes a one-armed bandit that is taking not just your money, but your life.
The services that are no longer being offered at that county hospital, that public or what some call a charity hospital, are still offered at private hospitals. So those without insurance are told to try calling them and begging them for help.
Folks, in the U.S.A. you hear lots of rhetoric from people on the right who say the last thing they want is a Canadian-style health care system, and of course, they are talking about some of the issues that we have with waiting lists and some other irritants that all Canadians complain about, but no amount of Republican right-of-centre talking points are going to help the people in this story and they represent a small handful of those who are slipping through the cracks in a recession which is biting some, much more than it is biting others. It is biting people in this country as well, but at least we have access to care and for the most part we are not on the phone begging for chemo, begging for dialysis, begging for pre-natal care, begging for mammographies. A nation of beggars is not my Canada, thank goodness.
I'm Charles Adler on the Corus Radio Network.
