When it comes to health care, our right-wingers are just a lot more doctrinaire, less practical, and less humane than many right-wingers elsewhere. Case in point – in an attempt to show the superiority of America’s absurd and inefficient system, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) decided to diss Ontario. And he got an angry response from Conservative senator Hugh Segal of Kingston, Ontario.
In a blistering statement this week before the Canadian Senate, Mr. Segal took on the U.S. Republican Senate Leader who is leading the charge against government-funded health care in his country.
Senator Mitch McConnell from Kentucky made the mistake of suggesting that the residents of Mr. Segal’s hometown of Kingston, Ont., are provided with health care that is inferior to what is available in the United States.
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“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average lifespan in Kentucky is 75.2 years and according to Statistics Canada, that number is 80.4 years in Ontario, 78.3 years in Kingston,” [Segal] told the Canadian Senate after discounting Mr. McConnell’s numbers.
“Furthermore, according to a Fraser Institute study, in 2006, the U.S. spent $6,714 per capita versus $3,678 in Canada.”
Mr. Segal said in a telephone interview yesterday that the statistics indicate that Canadians are actually doing a better job at health care than their southern neighbours.
Mr. Segal is a Conservative, both with a small c and a capital one. He is not a “socialist.” But unlike conservatives in the United States, Canadian cons seem willing to confront access to health care as a serious issue, rather than an opportunity to express their mindless loyalty to the concept of private insurance and their reactionary hatred of anything that resembles single-payer health coverage. And, as Matthew Yglesias points out, the Conservative Party of Canada, in its statement of founding principles, includes the concept that “all Canadians should have reasonable access to quality health care regardless of their ability to pay.”