Some notes on the Shona Holmes thing.

There is a bit....Bit?
There is a big backlash happening against Shona Holmes' lies, inconsistencies, and slandering of the Canadian Medical system. Many Canadians are rightly pissed off at being so falsely portrayed as some socialist gulag by the wingnut corporations and their PR departments.

First off, I would like to say that I find the comments about Ms Holmes weight to be nasty, unnecessary and completely tasteless. Anyone who makes cracks about someones weight in order to demean them, is only demeaning their own argument. That is Un-Canadian and more of a frat boy tactic. 

As odious as I find Ms Holmes and what she is doing, many are concentrating on certain points that in my opinion really do seem kind of trivial next to the big picture. A couple people do get it.

Do I think she is lying? You bet. Her story has changed many times, depending on who she is talking to.

That is her credibility factor, which we can place at zero.

But the big picture: She is being bankrolled to take her case to court, to challenge the Charter on her story, and that my friends is a needed step by the waiting US Health insurance companies and private clinics, in order to set a precedent for two tiered healthcare.

Two tier is where those who can pay, move to the head of the line.

Our healthcare is a great equalizer, no matter how wealthy or poor, it is the fact that you are a human being that is supposed to be first and foremost.  The Canadian Medical Association has tried to push two tiered medical care in the past, even though their own discussion papers say that it is only going to compound any issues that exist:

This very evidence was reviewed in the CMA's own 2006 discussion paper "It's
About Access!," which found that the introduction of parallel private insurance:

would not improve access to publicly insured services.

would not lower costs or improve quality of care.

could increase wait times for those who are not privately insured.

could exacerbate human resource shortages in the public system.

Indeed, the CMA's 2006 findings are in keeping with the recommendations of
the Romanow Commission and the Kirby Senate Report against parallel private
insurance, and with the experience of those few Western countries where it is actually permitted. Despite the repeated claims of incoming CMA president Brian Day, these countries do not include France and Germany. However, they do include the U.K., Australia and New Zealand, where experience has shown that parallel private insurance and dual practice reduces cost efficiency and increases wait times for patients in the public system. There is every reason to believe that this would also happen in Canada, particularly given our acute shortage of health professionals (which the CMA prominently and appropriately decries in "Medicare Plus").

Also see this Tyee Factcheck from 2007. Good stuff.

It would work fabulously for those in the top income brackets, fabulously for foreign interests waiting to move in on this market. Not so fabulously for those who are just average earners, and it would be detrimental to those in the lower income brackets. Canada still has a big ol' shameful problem with child poverty, is anyone under any misconceptions that this would improve?

Some European countries have experimented with Two tier; with private hospitals etc. The Award winning Tyee Covered this in a series back in 2006. This is an important read because it outlines the pitfalls so beautifully. Europe's Health Reforms: Hard Lessons

Shona Holmes wanted to jump the queue. I think most of us know that, and if she had the bucks to spend she is more than welcome to do so at any time. The fact that her husband has to work two jobs? If in fact that is true, that is truly how it already is in the US.How would dismantling our healthcare change that?

60% of US bankruptcies are due to medical costs, of those 80% had insurance.

It is the assumption, that we should all lose what we are mostly very happy with because she didn't want to wait that galls me.

I will also say that there is a lot of money bankrolling Ms Holmes as I pointed out here, so I think her case is less about her seeking some perverted form of Justice, and more about this group seizing an opportunity and using a willing/greedy/senseless twit to further their own financial agenda.

What we need to do here, is create a backlash so big, and so massive and so LOUD that these people realize they need to keep their grubby mitts OFF our healthcare.  Part of this is just pointing out the lies and gaping holes in this woman's story. The other part is pointing to those who are funding this media circus and their own financial rewards for pulling it off.

More later on that.

BTW. Shona's facebook page has a smiling picture of her in front of a bunch of cameras, the backdrop is the US House of reps. So patriotic eh? Too bad it's not Canada she feels allegiance to.

And lets please please stop the fat jokes? Cruelty and schoolyard taunts are for the other side. (Kathy Shaidle is exempt from this rule as always. She is the first one to dish it out.)