First, The Real News does an excellent job (as does Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the man who should have been president) of debunking those who claim Canadians are suffering under “state-mandated wait times”:
Now, a little something courtesy of Public Values:If a doctor can’t even take a patient’s pulse correctly, is that not grounds for him to lose his medical licence? If not, I don’t know what is.Maybe Canadians need to be allowed to vote for who gets to head the CMA, too.A new poll conducted by Nanos Research points to overwhelming support (86.2 percent) for strengthening public health care rather than expanding for-profit services. “With more than eight in ten Canadians supporting public solutions to make public healthcare stronger, there is compelling evidence that Canadians across all demographics would prefer a public over a for-profit healthcare system,” said Nik Nanos, President of Nanos Research. Nanos Research was commissioned on behalf of the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) to conduct a random telephone survey of 1001 Canadians between April 25th and May 3rd. The margin of accuracy for a sample of 1,001 is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.As well, the federal government just released its report: Healthy Canadians – A Federal Report on Comparable Health Indicators 2008. Its findings identically mirrored the CHC polling results. In that report, a leading indicator pointed to the fact that, “Most Canadians (85.2 percent) aged 15 years and older reported being ‘very satisfied’ or ‘somewhat satisfied’ with the way overall health care services were provided, unchanged from 2005.”“Throughout our campaign, Canadians have told us they want to keep our health care system public and to improve it with made-in-Canada solutions. They also have told us they flat-out reject Dr Ouellet’s proposal to provide us with American-style two-tier medicine. This poll certainly underlines that for us. Eighty-six percent is a significant portion of the population,” said Michael McBane, National Coordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition. “It is striking that Dr Ouellet could be so out-of-touch with the pulse of most Canadians.”
