Friday, May 08, 2009

Brian Day VS Universal Healthcare

The Canadian Medical Association has moved on from a dubious flirtation with healthcare privatization and two successive private clinic entrepreneurs as President. Incoming President Jeff Turnbull is a fierce defender of wholly public, universal care. But the ghosts of hacks for corporate care past live on.

Former CMA President Brian Day shows his true colours, doing a hit job on Canadian Care for a right wing anti-public healthcare group in the States. A group headed by the disgraced former head of a private clinic chain that paid over a billion dollars in fines for defrauding the government.

Unsurprisingly Day's factually weak context free attacks on public care are part of his ongoing pattern of 'truthiness'.
OTTAWA, May 8 /CNW Telbec/ - In a tough open letter to President Barack Obama, the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC) is taking on Dr. Brian Day, current past president of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), and an American conservative group running TV ads against health care reform.
"We are urging President Obama to listen to the overwhelming number of Canadians who value and depend on our public health care, not to Brian Day and his for-profit friends," said Michael McBane, national coordinator of the Canadian Health Coalition. "Medicare has been good to Canadians since the 1960s when we parted from the American model."
Dr. Day, whose private surgical clinic in British Columbia is currently under investigation by the B.C. government for illegal billing practices, appears in an ad running on American TV for Conservatives for Patient's Rights (CPR). (http://www.cpractionfund.org/) The ad is part of a million dollar campaign attacking President Obama's plan to overhaul the nation's health care system. In the ad, Dr. Day - a strong proponent of privatizing Canada's public health system - sides with those who would privatize the system, sharing horror stories of government-run health care programs.

4 comments:

Alison said...

I just read this story and of course rushed over here to tell you about it. Nice rep you got, Rusty ;-).

I can't say I'm at all up on this subject but I'm always amazed at stories in these articles of people waiting two years for heart tests. Does service vary that widely across the country? I went into Emergency one night and got a cat scan the next morning; six months later when I needed an MRI, the doctor was very apologetic that I would have to wait a week - and this for an MRI for a non-life threatening ailment.

I contrast this with people I met in the states who lost their homes paying for their children's medical bills. Working people. with sick children. homeless.

Cliff said...

Thanks Alison, in fact high wait times correspond with increased private care. Folks like Day are trying to make hay out of an over-hyped problem they're helping contribute to.

Alison said...

"The campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry"with guest appearances from our old buddy Frank Luntz and Grover Norquist.
Washington Post

Cliff said...

It just gets better and better; turns out part of what allows Rick Scott to bankroll this organized campaign to keep Americans firmly in the clutches of the insurance companies was the money he earned helping Iran and Saudi Arabia supress dissent by their citizens.

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