U.S. senator’s Canadian prescription

MARNI SOUPCOFF

Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul is coming to Canada for hernia surgery.

The charges that this is hypocritical of Sen. Paul, who is a vocal critic of socialized medicine, are ridiculous; he’s being treated in a private clinic and will be paying for his care out of his own pocket.

One could understand the fuss more if Sen. Paul were heading to one of this country’s public hospitals. But even in that case, calling Sen. Paul out for not practicing what he preaches would show a lack of intelligence since he’d still be footing his own bill. And the high quality of care at many Canadian public hospitals (most of which are owned by non-profit organizations, not by government as is often assumed) has as much to do with private charitable donations as with government spending.

In Toronto, Sinai Health System’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is an impressive, state-of-the-art facility … thanks to a $5-million donation from the Newton Glassman Charitable Foundation. Mr. Glassman had previously criticized the Ontario government’s handling of the health-care file, noting that in his estimation, the NICU at Toronto’s Sickkids’ hospital “looks like a 1970s Russian Gulag.”

It’s frustrating how illogical so many people, of all political stripes, are about health-care policy. But it’s especially frustrating how little sense proponents of specialized medicine make when they get angry about an individual paying for his own care.

Sen. Paul choosing to have surgery at the Toronto-area Shouldice Hernia Hospital is not an indication that he secretly endorses or believes in universal government health coverage. Nor does Sen. Paul’s choice in any way hurt or disadvantage Canadians who have that universal coverage.

I do, however, see Sen. Paul’s decision as highlighting an advantage that he enjoys by virtue of being non-canadian: he can easily and legally seek out, select, and pay for his own care in this country. It’s next to impossible for most Canadians to do the same, even if they have the financial means, because of provincial laws preventing doctors from taking private money for services already covered by government.

Sen. Paul’s selection of Shouldice also highlights that for all the jockeying about which country does health care better, neither Canada nor the United States has a great health-care system given what wealthy and developed nations they are. That’s why the best care for hernia surgery in North America comes not from a traditional American or traditional Canadian hospital, but from a clinic that is in the unusual situation of both being private and receiving a lot of non-government and non-insurance money. So-situated, the clinic has an incentive to bill appropriately and offer excellent quality to its patients, many of whom are paying their own tabs.

These observations notwithstanding, Sen. Paul coming to Canada for a medical procedure isn’t much of a story. The fact that so many reporters treated it as one betrays either a lack of common sense, or a deliberate attempt to mislead readers for clicks and influence.

For example, Newsweek Tweeted: “Rand Paul, who calls universal health care ‘slavery,’ will have surgery in Canada but insists hospital is private.”

Yes, it would be ironic and newsworthy if Sen. Paul had to flee from the United States to Canada because he desperately needed our Medicare. He’s been socialized medicine’s biggest critic! But, that’s not what happened, and it’s not a good sign that journalists strongly implying otherwise either didn’t know it; or didn’t care. (Kudos to the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale — no libertarian himself — for trying to set

IT’S FRUSTRATING HOW ILLOGICAL SO MANY PEOPLE ... ARE ABOUT HEALTH-CARE POLICY.

the record straight on Twitter by explaining to Americans that Shouldice is indeed a private, for-profit hospital, a Canadian anomaly.)

What did happen was Sen. Paul choosing, as he put it himself, “capitalistic medicine”: Treatment from a private hospital that will welcome any patient from any country so long as he or she has the cash. This is nothing but in keeping with Sen. Paul’s libertarian ideology. It also demonstrates why The Hill’s media reporter concluded that “Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) announcement that he will be travelling to Canada for hernia surgery is one that should be taught in journalism classes (about) how not to cover a story.”

For over 70 years, the Shouldice clinic has been performing hernia operations and only hernia operations. It has some of the lowest complication rates in the world (perhaps because of its specialization) and it is located in a very pleasant setting that happens to be less than a 90-minute flight away from Washington, D.C. No wonder Sen. Paul chose it for his surgery. The real story would have been if he hadn’t.