Musings —06.03.2010 10:41 PM
—Coyne vs. Kinsella: the health care debate
The Munk Debate guys asked Andrew and I to debate whether Canadian politicians were afraid to debate the health care system. Always being one unafraid to have my keester kicked by a superior mind, I said sure. The bloody results can be eyeballed here.
Great stuff.
But Warren, are some pharmacists being “reasonable” in their “debating” style when they seek to oust Liberal MPPs who vote for voting to cut the cost of generics?
DL
You let him off easy by not challenging his Whiggish claim that the Americans _did_ have a mature debate about health care: from what I heard, the Republicans were all parroting the Fox networks histrionic characterizations of how the sky would fall & the elderly would be sent out to ice floes if they did anything approaching our Satanic, socialistic, single universal payer system
I thought Coyne was a bit patronizing, and I don’t trust what he says. It feels like manipulating. I hear the sound of doors slamming when he speaks, and of things decided behind closed doors. No thank you.
It’s hard to put into words the way a public health system like Canada’s feels. It’s the openness of it that’s great; it’s like public school, where everyone is accepted, as opposed to private school, where the administration picks and chooses who’s going to get an education, and it doesn’t benefit the whole country.
I gave thumbs up to Warren, and I’m sort of a fan of Coyne’s.
Sorry – I found what WK had to say was honest and as complete as possible, and he knows his stuff.
Andrew Coyne’s comment on the growth of health care budgets is a false simplification of health care costs and one of the key myths constantly pushed by the right. A quick overview of health care myths is found in a recent column by Robert G. Evans, University Killam Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of British Columbia.
http://www.thestar.com:80/opinion/editorialopinion/article/817249–public-health-care-as-sustainable-as-we-want-it-to-be
Today’s Tyee on Jeffrey Simpson’s misleading arguments re Health Care spending out of control. BC data contradict Simpson’s argument.
“The Truth about BC Health Spending, Made Easy
It’s static and under control. So why do so many, like The Globe’s Jeffrey Simpson, spout the opposite?” By Will McMartin, Today, TheTyee.ca
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/06/07/BCHealthMadeEasy/
Golly gee. Andrew Coyne and Jeffrey Simpson using the same myth? Could it be?