"American snow is like American health care: sporadic, unreliable and distributed unevenly...."

[marmar]

from the Toronto Star:



We stand on guard for health care
Jul 13, 2009 04:30 AM

Dow Marmur


I've now lived longer in Canada than in any other country. But whereas in my almost 26 years in England I never sought British citizenship, I got a Canadian passport as soon as I was able to do so. Not having felt that I belonged in Poland where I was born, or Sweden where I grew up, I came to feel at home in Canada.

For here I wasn't more of an outsider than the next person. Neither my religion nor my minority status was regarded as an impediment. This is the main reason that keeps my wife and me here, even though our children and grandchildren live elsewhere.

On Canada Day this year, the New York Times asked a number of Canadian-Americans to describe what they miss most about home. In addition to the culinary and the scenic that recall tastes and sights of childhood, two of the respondents wrote about health care, which epitomizes so much of what's good about Canada.

David Rakoff, the writer, put health care on top of his list. Writing from New York, he admitted that "just thinking about it, and its absence here, can send me into complete despair."

Tim Long, writing from sunny California, remembered the snow in Canada and observed that "to my Canadian eye, American snow is like American health care: sporadic, unreliable and distributed unevenly among the population."

Long also described a walk home in a blizzard when he was 8 years old, his hair covered in powder, his eyelashes frozen together and screaming, "Why do we live here?" His mother took his face in her warm hands and answered: "Because it's where people love you." Our health-care system, with all its flaws, is a manifestation of love and responsibility for all who need it. And sooner or later, virtually everybody comes to need it.

Perhaps it's this that attracts so many newcomers to become doctors, nurses and other health professionals. One of the many opportunities that Canada offers to immigrants and refugees is access to higher education, usually too late for themselves but in time for their children. Consciously or not, many descendants of immigrants choose helping professions that enable them to give back some of what they've received. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/664425

[Horse with no Name]

1. K&R

and for the life of me, I cannot see why this was un-recc'd.

[marmar]

2. The immediate un-rec'ing of posts is just bizarre.....

Either there really are Health care industry trolls patrolling the board, there are some Canadaphobes hanging around or someone who hates my guts is online tonite.

:)

[Horse with no Name]

3. I would go with the former

Seriesly.

[strategery blunder]

4. I gave it a rec

to offset one health care industry troll--and this is the first rec I've given in months. I hate pharma trolls. :(

[kenfrequed]

6. Hmm

I suggested that something akin to that was easily possible if a PR company had a cyberpatrol department. It would be easy for a dozen people with some kind of split up IP set up to professionally post on a hundred or so websites. The unrec option just made it a hell of a lot easier.

I observed the same sudden negative in the first half hour of a lot of posts the first day they started the un-rec experiment.

For pointing out not just the possibility of this I was called tin foil or some such nonsense.

There really has to be a way that proof can be collected on this stuff.

[slipslidingaway]

5. #6 n/t

[kenfrequed]

7. A decent analogy

It is sad but true. The peaks of Aspen get a lions share of fluffy cool beautiful snow, while the bottoms of louisiana and the ruins of New Orleans see little. Snow or healthcare.