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(NOW UPDATED) JUST NOW: Obama blithely misinforms Americans at townhall re Canadian “health” system

Warning: It’s a SCARE-QUOTE FEST! 

Obama is all about “correcting” the supposed “misinformation” that “the mobs” of “the right-wing” are “spreading” about Obama’s “health care” system.  So much so, that his office instructed Americans to inform on those who are “spreading misinformation” by literally forwarding emails containing such “misinformation”, or “advising them” of web sites in which “misinformation” is occurring,  to a special White House email address ([email protected]) for further “action” on the part of the “benevolent”, not-at-all Orwellian government.  Sure this merely “sounds like” the totalitarian Soviet Russia or North Korea, but that’s not the point (that he wants you to think about).
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In this “town hall” forum, which I’m still listening to as I type, Obama misinformed the folks and America at large.  Here was the “totally spontaneous” question asked of him by someone who “just happens” to be suffering under the current system because she lost her coverage for some reason:

QUESTIONER: ”…Can you tell us what you if you um kind of looked at Canada or the England system, and sort of can you pick and choose from those systems that work that we see there’s some success rate and apply that what you’re trying to push through right now.”

PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Well let me tell you what happens in other industrialized countries … most other countries have some form of single-payer system.  There are differences:  Canada and England have more of what’s called a, what people I guess would call a socialized system, in the sense that government, uh, owns the hospitals, directly hires doctors, but there are a whole bunch o’ countries like the Netherlands where what they do is it’s a single-payer system only in the sense that government pays the bill, but it’s all private ins, uh, pe, private folks out there, private doctors, private facilities.  So there are a bunch o’ different ways o’ doin’ it.  …  So I’m not in favor of a Canadian system…”

That’s “misinformation”.  In Canada’s decrepit North Korean-style healthcare system which is a failure, doctors actually work for themselves in their own private offices, which they set up and run themselves as a private business;  and they are not “hired by the government”;  and they simply bill the government, just like President Obama says they do in the Netherlands.  To be sure, it’s illegal for Canadians to pay for their own basic health care and that of their families with their own money, just like it is in (and only in) North Korea.

And hospitals aren’t, by any sort of policy or definition “owned by the government”, as Obama says (although some are).  They’re often built by and owned by Christian or Jewish-related organizations, and were all but taken over by the government when the Liberal government created their socialist system back in the day.  Others like the one in my own community were built by the people of the community itself, and contract their services to the government.  They and the services they provide are certainly funded by the government (again, it’s illegal for citizens to decide what they want and spend their own money), and so they carry with them the draconian rationing inherent in the Canadian and any other socialist system as, for example, this article from today’s newspaper “explains”:

(Note that the “Fraser Health Authority” is a local government division or “authority”, to use their Orwellian, big-government word, of the state-run health system, and which makes all the healthcare decisions for its citizens)

Fraser Health Authority confirms cutbacks to surgeries, services
‘Sorry is not good enough,’ says senior facing cuts

By David Karp, Vancouver Sun
August 14, 2009

The Fraser Health Authority confirmed Thursday it intends to cut surgeries, seniors’ programs and services for the mentally ill to help deal with a budget shortfall of up to $160 million…

…The authority will reduce capacity at residential care facilities, save $550,000 by ending 12 contracts for seniors’ services, close two daycare programs for seniors and reduce services at six others…

… Fraser Health says it faces a $130-million to $160-million shortfall in 2009-10 despite a $96-million increase in base funding from the provincial government this year.

So apparently Obama doesn’t have a clue about the Canadian system.  He probably should inform himself a bit better before preaching to Americans about health systems, and spreading misinformation.  Perhaps he should report himself to “[email protected]”.

President Obama also went on to spread another rampant bit of very troubling misinformation that all liberals and leftists perpetuate all day long, these days:  which is that “preventative” medicine, which would stop people from getting sick in the first place, and thus the system won’t have to treat or cure them, would save money for taxpayers in the end, under his socialist plan.  This is really nothing short of a lie or a betrayal of utter ignorance at best.  If only President Obama would read the science on the subject.  Read this excellent column written just today by the brilliant columnist (and doctor) Charles Krauthammer, called “The “Preventive Care” Myth”, as a good starting point. 

Again, the President should report himself to [email protected] so that the misinformation will stop. 

UPDATE 2:26 PM PDT
I noticed that USA Today picked up a link to my blog entry very quickly after I posted it, as they often do, God bless ‘em (while no Canadian media ever does).  Lovely!  Hi USA Today readers!

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I also noticed how, in juxtaposition to my “coverage” of the Obama had a town hall meetin’ news, the headline they grabbed from the esteemed CBS News, was a little different than mine.  And I’m sure this is how it will be reported tonight by Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News … i.e. Today in Obamanews, it was nuttin’ but more sweetness and light!…. let’s all sing a happy, happy tune!  ….Obama is a champ, doo-dee-dooo!

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Unfortunately, I also noticed that the first article “FROM THE WEB” that they listed was one from that news-y website called “whitehouse.gov”, and it’s really a little off-topic, possibly by design.  They really should just leave the news reporting to CBS and the others. At least the biased reporting uses more colorful language.

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Joel Johannesen
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