I have nine year old identical granddaughters. They are great kids. Born three months prematurely, they weighed 1.9 ounces and 2.1 pounds. They spent three months in neonatal intensive care at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The doctors and nurses there brought them through with flying colors. It was a most difficult time for my daughter and son-in-law and our entire family. We still worried until they were toddlers and we knew they were not only perfectly normal in all respects, but even exceptional.
They are good students, average in size with their age peer group, and very good athletes and sweet little girls. They have the twin thing going which only twins, parents of twins, and grandparents of twins can ever understand. They are and always will be each other’s best friend. What a treasure they are to all of us.
If my daughter and her husband were living in Canada, they would have died. The Canadian Universal Health Care system has basically eliminated neonatal intensive care. I have done extensive research on this and preemies in Canada get an instant death sentence. It’s far too expensive to save them. The bureaucrats who decide who lives and dies in the free health care world just can’t or won’t process the decisions fast enough to save them. If you are born too soon in Canada it’s just too bad. If you live too long in Canada, it’s just too bad.
My daughter had good insurance through her employer and I’m sure the bill for two babies in neonatal intensive care was well over a million dollars. In my visits to the neonatal unit to see the twins, I saw lots of babies in the unit whose parents did not have good insurance. I could be wrong, but I would bet a lot that many of those babies were there uninsured. But, Northwester Memorial cared for them. And, in most cases saved them. And, saved them without damage. I felt so strongly about the belief that they were treating uninsured babies that my wife and I made a substantial donation to Northwester to help them pay for those kids they treated.
The facts are facts. Mortality rates are higher in all types of illnesses in Canada. The numbers of doctors and nurses per capita are much lower in Canada than they are now in the US. The fewer doctors and nurses per capita cannot treat the entire population of Canada. It is illegal in Canada to buy health care. That would mover you ahead in line. Can’t do that. You have to come to the US to pay for health care if you can’t wait for treatment in Canada. The time to get an appointment with a doctor in Canada has tripled since Universal Health Care became law.
President Obama wants the government to run everything in your life. He wants the government to decide whether you get health care, the kind you get, and when you get the care. Too much demand and too few doctors and nurses, plus cost control, mandate bad health care. Free, but bad. In a move to include 46 million uninsured, Obama will destory our health care system, add cost, reduce doctor’s pay and caseloads, and give you or my twins a death sentence.
It has not worked anywhere, so why do it?
