HEALTH CARE ON THE ROPES

They are cutting funds for libraries.

And they have told every ministry in the government to cut 15% from their spending.

"They" are the minions of Gordon Campbell.

And now we learn the full force of (Or do we? Perhaps much more is to come.) their cuts to health care and medical services.

"The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is planning to shut down nearly one-quarter of its operating rooms and cancel thousands of elective surgeries between Sept. 1 and March 31 in a bid to bridge a $90-million budget gap, NDP health critic Adrian Dix charged yesterday.?

Among the targeted procedures...wait for it...coronary bypasses.

That's right, heart bypasses.

This is "elective" surgery?

Open heart surgery is the same as putting collagen in your lips?

But, wait. This gets better.

Let's make a connection that at first blush seems unlikely, nay, impossible.

"Last month, health authority officials announced plans to save about $600,000 by postponing one-third of scheduled surgeries during the 2010 Olympics and this year's extended two-week spring break.

Likewise, the Fraser Health Authority, facing a $130-million deficit, announced it will “postpone” 2,000 elective surgeries over a four-week period during the Olympics."

Am I understanding this correctly?

We are making medical decisions based on somethingorother about the Olympic Games???

I emphasize the word Games.

A show of some kind is going on downtown so you stop providing health care? Huh?

In the old tradition that "all things are political," we learn as well that "the government ordered health authorities to withhold their 2009-10 service plans until May 13, the day after the provincial election."

Nice.

And yet...and yet...this administration, with its clear and present priorities - Games over Care - this gang was re-elected to office.

Please try to stay awake and pay attention, folks.

It may be you or your mom who needs that coronary bypass during the luge run-offs.

Maybe one of the OR nurses could hold the Flame aloft to shine some light on the matter.

ONLY IN AMERICA

The Excited States of America is in full Gong Show mode.

Night and day people are attending "town hall" meetings and behaving very badly.

The subject appears simple enough.

Close to 50 million U.S. citizens have NO health care coverage. They hover one sneeze away from financial calamity. They lose their homes paying for their child's operation. This is not a fantasy or a fable. It is the ugly reality of Life min the Greatest Snow on Earth.

President Barack Obama is trying, like many presidents before him, to right this ship, to end this inequity. He is trying to get passed into legislation some form of health care reform.

What could possibly be wrong with that?

Apparently almost everything.

Sarah Palin has talked about Obama's "death squads." She is both completely nuts and downright destructive, not to mention being a bald-faced liar.

But Palin has nothing on America's most Evil Bastard, the radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh.

"Shock jock Rush Limbaugh compares the White House's health office logo to a swastika and President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler."

"In what may mark a new low in political discourse, conservatives leaders, including some Republicans, are urging voters to pack town halls to show their displeasure with the Democrats' plan to reform America's broken health care-system. Others are spamming the Internet with distortions and outright lies.

In the process, they may have successfully wrested control of the debate over health care away from the Democrats, turning a narrative about expanding coverage while controlling costs into one about a socialistic undermining of core American values."

Those quotes are from John Ibbitson's piece in the morning Globe.

But wait.

You don't have to actually read anything to get the full aroma of this heap.

Turn on CNN right now.

You'll be treated to live coverage of alleged citizens completely out of control, yelling and screaming at public meetings that are supposed to be venues for reasonable discussions about an important matter of public policy. You can follow the frazzled eyes of the constabulary trying to decide whom to shove first.

Let's help our fellow Americans have health care coverage.

Sounds simple enough.

But no.

Let's call anyone who supports this outrageous notion a Hitler.

And the Republican view of Canadian health care is truly hysterical. We are, of course, communists, socialists and murderers.

Did I leave out fornicators?

Obama believes that, in the fall, tempers, along with temperatures, will cool and he will pass his legislation.

I hope he is right.