Cash For Clunker Healthcare

Friends of mine spent a week among Canadian families in July for a conference. They spent the week asking people about their experiences with the Canadian health care system. They got a smattering of the usual horror stories and this matter-of-fact assessment from most folks.

• If you're relatively young and fit and have a serious curable illness or accident, you'll receive immediate and excellent care. These Canadians are extremely worried at the prospect of the US moving toward a single-payer system, because the standard of care for their health service is set in the U.S. The only reason the Canadian system works at all in their view is because it's next door to the excellent U.S. system. Remove the U.S. standard and we all plummet together.
  
• And then the usual complaints: forget about timely treatment for less serious (but more common) needs. General medical service advice if you complain about having to wait weeks for an x-ray? (Bored DMV-style shrug) "If you want faster service pay for it yourself at a private clinic."
  
• If you are an infant, frail, handicapped, elderly, mentally ill or suffer from chronic or terminal illness, the state is unlikely to determine your care is worth its investment. (But aren't these precisely the conditions people worry about when we speak of a healthcare crisis? As I've noted before, we can just not treat for free: problem "solved.")

Meanwhile, Mr. W. notes that the simple, straightforward Cash for Clunkers program (buy a more fuel-efficent car, get a rebate) supposed to run for 4 months is hopelessly fouled and went bankrupt in days. Yet Congress thinks it can enact an enormously more complicated health care system and project costs out for 10 years?

Here, with the aid of hidden cameras, Steven Crowder takes Canadian friends to clinics for treatment of a broken wrist and to secure a simple blood test. Coming soon to your neighborhood: