My political awakening, meaning the moment I realized what politics in a communist country actually means, happened around the time I was maybe 12-13 years old.
The idea of communism, meaning collective decision making, always had a tendency to degrade into a dysfunctional epistocracy in which the appointed experts were trying to solve problems in the spirit of communism. We had debates about various public concerns. Housing, shortages, prices, absenteeism, you name it. There were television panel discussions and newspaper back-and-forths trying to solve the problems. Continue reading →
Tag Archives: Health care
The Pan(ic)demic trolley problem
“Eleven is more than three” was the title of a radio drama that made a strong impression on me when I listened to it in my early teens. Continue reading →
Control and intelligence
A few years back, while I was working for a large IT outsourcing company, I told to my boss that “there are two ways to handle security: intelligence and control.” He started laughing. At first I was puzzled, then I realized that he misunderstood me. A few days prior, we had another conversation about intelligence. Continue reading →
Healthy Thoughts
My Heartfelt wishes
In my previous post, I hope I managed to express my views of the ‘system’ as an unmitigated disaster.
What makes it a disaster, is government intervention and control.
A heartfelt Analysis
At the end of the second post of this series, I ‘absolved’ my doctors from responsibility. How arrogant of me! How do I dare to imply that they were responsible to begin with? Didn’t they just save my life? But if they are not responsible, then who is? I called my doctors the product of the system, but what does that mean? What is the system? What defines it as a ‘system’? Continue reading →
A heartfelt story
Let me start with telling you just the story. Please bear with me, it will have some lessons in the end.
It is just another one of those personal to political, particular to general stories that – properly formulated – I believe all of our stories are.
Health care for the simple minded
Health care would be a perfect example to illustrate the points I made in my previous post.
If asked, the majority of Canadians would say that we have an excellent health care system.
If you then ask “What makes it excellent?” the answer will not be that clear.
Continue reading →
Let’s be careful what we wish for
On the 8th of March 2015 there was a panel discussion on CBC about a bill moving through the house concerning transgender rights.
Much of the discussion on CBC was about OHIP coverage for sex change operations. Continue reading →
One more on health care
I have a new health care problem. My toe-nail is about to fall off.
I must have kicked something a while back, half of my nail turned black but nothing else happened.
As I was breaking in my new ski-boots my nail/toe got a really bad infection.
By the time I got to my family doctor, after three days of treating it with first anti-bacterial then with prescription antibiotic cream, it was on the mend.
Health care confusion
It seems that my comments on the Rasouli case hit some nerves. Off-blog, unfortunately, one nasty commenter was missing not only the ability to understand my point but also the balls to do it in public. Maybe it was my fault, so let me try again so that even leftists can comprehend it.
The triage of money – the cost of free
American Democrats, Canadian liberals and socialists all over the world like to get righteously indignant when conservatives of any stripe use the expression “Death panels.” Yet, in Canada today there is a case in front of the Supreme Court about just that. They will decide who can decide over matters of life and death. Relatives, doctors or ‘independent’ (i.e.: government) organizations such as the “Consent and Capacity Board” of Ontario. All you leftists please note, that this is NOT a death panel. This is absolutely clear from the fact that it is not called that way.
What the Supreme Court will have to make a decision about is whether the doctors or the CCB can have the power to overrule the wishes of the patient or their representatives.
The harm government services cause
The following is a reply to this comment that just grew too long. (Chris is a Canadian ex-pat living in the US)
Chris,
I love this conversation. We very quickly got to the heart of the big libertarian question. I do not think that I will be able to answer it for you in this comment, but I hope I will get there at some point.
All I can do here and now is answering the easy questions and asking some difficult ones.
Our scary future
Just watched a segment on “The Source” discussing the brilliance of the Bloomberg Big Gulp ban idea. Continue reading →