Now I'm really mad.

[velvetpage]

http://www.acreativerevolution.ca/node/1944

http://bouquetsofgray.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-on-shona-holmes.html

Thanks siobhan63 for the links.

The woman in that commercial who is trashing Ontario's health care, saying she would have been dead in six months if she'd had to wait that long, so she mortgaged her house and went to the States?

She's lying about that. She didn't have a tumour. She had a cyst. Her vision may have been threatened, though there's only her word on a previous testimonial for that. Her life was not in significant danger from this cyst.

Furthermore, she's not suing the Ontario government to get her money back. She's suing with the backing of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a registered charity (i.e. donations are tax deductible, so taxpayers are funding this) dedicated to challenging all aspects of Canada's socialist system, in particular single-tier health care.

That is, she's trying to take away other Ontarians' access to single-payer health care, and she's using tax money to do it.

I think it's time for another letter to the editor to point this out. Not only is she lying to Americans about what happened, not only is she trashing a system without having actually gone through it, she's using a taxpayer-funded charity to try to destroy the system for everyone else.

I'm incensed.

Edit: Please, go ahead and link, either to me or to the articles I listed. Spread this far and wide. She's going to slander our system, she's going to be exposed as the fraud she is.

EDIT #2: A link to the cached page from the Mayo Clinic. They took down the original version a few days ago when Daily Kos linked to it, but it was cached first.

Comments

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

Two older gentleman were talking in the library yesterday about Canadian health care... Positively. I was shocked.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

Age will do that to you.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

In America, she wouldn't have had to wait six months and that's a fact. She would've been denied outright. The process would've probably taken a week.

One of these days, I shall have to visit the lovely continent of Canada.

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

I hate to sound like a crazy person here, but I wonder how much american money is involved in this.

I hate sounding like one of those people who is looking for the GOP boogey-man in everything, but the timing on this is too good. Most americans' experience with socialized healthcare comes from anecdotes from canada, and a lot of it is incorrect at best.

Even if this is one single case that involves a total asshole, I know that every talk radio host is going to (or already has) jump on this as evidence that socialized healthcare of any sort is a failure and a sham.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but there's no small amount of academic fraud figuring into this as well. I recently picked up a book on Economics aimed at the general public. I figured it would be good to complement the books I had on the subject that were filled with math. This book, however, was filled with accounts like this woman's. When you checked the sources, you found that the author had cited opinion articles from very pro Free Market magazines and news papers. The whole thrust the his point was the government healthcare systems are inherently capricious and that unregulated free markets correct for fraud and abuse automatically. The supporting evidence was pure crap, but I'm professional Librarian and know how to do citation chasing. The layperson does not. Anyway, there's a fair amount of this type of thing going on. The authors are usually fairly respected professors who also hold positions at think tanks like the Cato Institute and American Enterprise Foundation. When they submit things for peer review, their work doesn't have much politics, but when they write for a popular audience, or write textbooks, their political opinions are passed off as facts.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I have no doubt that her round of talk shows and her appearance in the commercial are paying for that extra mortgage she took out, and possibly a lot more than paying for it. I want to know how much she's being paid and by whom. I wouldn't begrudge her that money if she were telling the truth, complete with the disclaimers that, though the system failed her, it succeeds for many people. I absolutely do begrudge it when she's lying to get it.

[thebitterguy]

You may want to Twitter this, as that can be hashtagged and retweeted.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Good idea. Do you know what hashtag is being used for American health care?

[thebitterguy]

I see #HCR (I guess that stands for Healthcare reform?), #USAHealthcare too.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

It looks like there's some attempt to get a #ShonaHolmes tag going as well.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Has anyone been linking this to Facebook?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm aware of.

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

I'm going to start. There's been chatter about healthcare over there today

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

There's this: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=121164321440&ref=nf#/group.php?gid=121164321440

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

Joined!

[saltedshambhala.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

The Daily Kos posted this yesterd (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/22/756451/-Shona-Holmes:-Charity-funded-in-her-quest-to-take-away-Canadian-health-care)ay, it pretty much lists all the players involved.

[saltedshambhala.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

Sorry about the formatting, I'll try that again: The Daily Kos posted this yesterday, it pretty much lists all the players involved.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/22/756451/-Shona-Holmes:-Charity-funded-in-her-quest-to-take-away-Canadian-health-care

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I saw that on Twitter a few minutes ago. The only thing DailyKos got wrong was the location - much as it pains me to slander my own city, I can't in good conscience blame Shona Holmes on Toronto. She's from Waterdown, a suburb of Hamilton, about 60 km outside of Toronto proper.

[thebitterguy]

Yeah, but you can't expect Yanks to know more than two cities in another country.

[thexphial.livejournal.com]

This tears it, I think we should be friends, I've been thinking so for a while, but you're always smart and sensible and I know two people who I care about a lot trust you. So, wanna be friends?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Sure! Welcome!