National Health Care Kills

A recent Canadian Supreme Court decision holds that the government cannot monopolize health care.

The court's decision strikes down a Quebec law banning private medical insurance and is bound to upend similar laws in other provinces. <snip> "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," wrote Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin for the 4-3 Court last week. Canadians wait an average of 17.9 weeks for surgery and other therapeutic treatments, according the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute. <snip> [The ruling] does say in effect: Deliver better care or permit the development of a private system. "The prohibition on obtaining private health insurance might be constitutional in circumstances where health-care services are reasonable as to both quality and timeliness," the ruling reads, but it "is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services." The Justices who sit on Canada's Supreme Court, by the way, aren't a bunch of Scalias of the North. This is the same court that last year unanimously declared gay marriage constitutional.

OK, now the folks who tell me the Canadian health care system is wonderful and that I'm all wet can offer their rebuttals to the Supreme Court of Canada.