Klein proposes post-surgery wine

[CHIMO]

VANCOUVER - Patients recovering from surgery in Alberta hospitals could someday rent a comfortable hotel suite and order wine and room service, Premier Ralph Klein predicted Monday.


"I'm not backing down," he said. "We will forge ahead on health-care reform, with or without consensus.


The man told Klein that for an extra charge, the hospital provided him with a hotel-like suite. "He said, 'I had absolute comfort and quiet,' and he said, 'I could even order room service and a bottle of wine.' "


Klein said he is now asking whether that could be done in Alberta.


http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=FF6A86D8-1E21-4DD8-9BD6-4F18ACD4DBA2

And everyone thought that Kink R had kicked the habit.

[hlthe2b]

1. Yeah, that's the ticket... A bottle of wine as you are "burning off" that

anesthesia residue.... Nothing like a little post surgical nausea to inspire a big toast with "a flirty little zinfandel...!"

[CHIMO]

2. And a Cig

To go with that.

Seems like he has a limited time to bring in a two tier system before the money runs out from the South and the left gains a say in his rule.

[freeforall]

3. LOL, Klein is another right-wing lunatic!

I expect his "luxury hospital" idea will catch on here in conservative Alberta. He's been trying to push a system similar to the US one since he came into office.

Unlike you folks, whose leaders have term limits, we've been stuck with Klein for 3 terms, and it doesn't look like we'll get rid of him soon.

As for the post-surgery wine, depends on what they'll be serving, don'tcha think...?

[CHIMO]

4. Well

Maybe he will throw some $20 bills on the floor.

What do you think about a proposition that anyone who serves in government must only have medicare insurance. No special insurance for politicians!
What do you think of that.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. Not even in Alberta. Ralph is on his own on this one.

There's substantial opposition here already.

[DBoon]

5. And will those in HMOs

get two-buck chuck?

[CHIMO]

6. What Is

A two-buck chuck??

[DBoon]

7. A $2 bottle of wine

sold in the US at Trader Joe's.

A deeply discounted seriously mediocre product, and the butt of many jokes.

One cut above "wine in the box"

[CHIMO]

8. Thought You

Meant a chuck steak.
Anyway with the price of beef up here..
We can only afford Safe... specials that bring the ground beef from the South up here to help out the farmers. They didn't say which farmers they were helping out.

The way things are going it looks like the efficient way to handle things is the two-loonie chuck.

Appreciate your comment.

[iverglas]

9. just like in the UK

Ten years ago when I visited England, my London solicitor friend's partner was languishing in a brand new private West End hospital ... with its sun-filled atrium, private room, room-service menu ...

When my mother decided to dive head-first onto the paving stones in the Stoke-Newington (north London) neighbourhood where we were going for dinner and we rushed her to the nearest hospital, we ended up in an NHS emergency waiting room, on the other hand. Where we waited 5 hours to see a doctor without so much as ice to put on the enormous lump on her head. I had to bum change from the other less-fortunates in the waiting room to buy cold Coke from the dispensing machine for the purpose ... while dodging the blood that people had trailed onto the floor that wasn't cleaned up for all those hours.

When the resident we finally saw recommended going home and putting ice on the injury, I looked at the nurse who had had no ice (and no sympathy), and said "what a novel idea -- ice!" And he said "well that's what you get in a single-tier system." And that is exactly what will happen if the rich are permitted to disengage from the public system so that they no longer have any stake in it, and thus will obviously have no interest in having their tax dollars fund it.

And the funny thing is -- we have a single-tier system in Ontario, and we also have ice in hospitals. On the other hand, the UK has a two-tier system, where the rich get wine lists and the poor get to pay for cans of Coke to put on their head injuries.

There is actually no reason at all why public hospitals can't provide exactly those fancy services in the existing system -- if they're going to bring in revenue, why not? The public plan covers "medically necessary services", and it also allows for people to take out supplementary insurance, or pay cash, for services that are not medically necessary. Several years ago I spent 3 days in hospital and paid an extra $60 a night to get one of the rare private rooms (I won the room lottery that week) -- other people in private rooms had them paid for by their supplementary insurance. If a hospital could generate money by selling such services to patients, or contracting them out at a profit, why not do it?

But yeah, eh? For Ralph and his ilk, be sure to provide a detox unit for those about to be discharged, in the interests of any homeless people strolling by whom he might be feeling like haranguing after all that good food and wine. ;)

.