An Interesting Weekend

As my daughter and I flew up to Washington, D.C. to be a part of history and attend the Restoring Honor rally, we met some very interesting people. As I usually do when travelling with a companion, I like to choose aisle seats for both of us, so we sit across from each other. The gentleman behind me was a retired university philosophy professor from Canada, and actually a Jewish immigrant from Hungary. He had been visiting his uncle in Tampa, who was in a very expensive nursing home, paying $7,000.00 per month. He wanted to understand our health care system, and why it would cost so much for this end of life care. His uncle is apparently lucid but bedridden and has only a few weeks or so to live. The gentleman sitting next to my daughter was a physician flying up to D.C. with his wife to attend a medical conference, one of the very few on the plane that was not going to the rally. I explained to the nephew that if the nursing home had told him that medicare had run out, as he had told me, that means that there is no more that can be done medically to help him. The physician next to my daughter told him that the physician at the nursing home is probably taking advantage of him, and that he should be contacting Hospice, which would provide end of life care at home, which was his uncle's wish.

So this gentleman from Canada was wondering what was so great about our health care that we were so against nationalized health care. I asked him several questions. He had paid over the years approximately 45% of his income to the state for social services such as health care, and the V.A.T. (consumption) tax is 15%. He told me he had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer years ago and the medical system worked just fine. But as he explained it to me, when he was diagnosed he was told it would be 3 months until he could be scheduled for surgery. Apparently he did not like the whole waiting thing, so he contacted his "private" insurer, to which he had been paying premiums along with his employer, the university. They could do the surgery in 2 weeks, so he went out of the state program and was treated through his private company. And he was very happy with that! I did not ask him how much he paid for this private insurance, but I find it interesting that a professor of philosophy could not see the facts staring him right in the face. HE was lucky to be in a position where he could access outside medical care when he needed it. How many Canadians are not, and how many Americans will not be so fortunate once the health care reform policies roll out?

The gentleman behind my daughter was flying up for the rally, and he gave the man a booklet entitled Essential Liberty, documents essential to American Liberty, including the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. All in all it was an enlightening adventure and I invite you to visit Patriot Post and see what fellow patriots are writing about in the movement to preserve this great country and restore it to the shining city on the hill we know it to be.