Wow, it looks like there is more sanity within Canada's Judicial branch than under the present government of Paul Martin. Yesterday the Supreme Court of Canada stood up for individual freedom and the benefits of the free-market with its ruling to allow citizens of Canada the right to use private insurance to pay for their health-care. While this ruling up in Canada might not be news to the casual reader in America, it has a earth-shattering ruling in a nation that has a considerable amount of its citizenry and elites who have taken the socialistic boondoggle of nationalized medicine "hook, line and sinker." Luckily Dr. Jacques Chaouli stood up to this socialistic nonsense and decided to take on an Atlantean challenge on behalf of the Canadian people and their daily struggle with the Medicare system. As today's editorial in Canada's National Post (NP)noted:
But in a ruling released yesterday, Chaoulli v. Quebec, four Supreme Court justices shattered this stifling taboo. We now see why the court took a year to deliver its judgment: The opinions authored or joined by Justices Marie Deschamps, Beverley McLachlin, John C. Major and Michel Bastarache present a thorough and masterful takedown of the myths surrounding medicare.While the NP notes that the results of the judgment is only limited to the people of Quebec, it still gives heart to the people of Canada who have waited too long for treatment and surgeries even when they have the financial means to by health-insurance. (You'd think that a country that has people who can afford insurance would let them go private and keep Medicare for elderly and disabled persons.) I just hope this ruling can loosen up the socialistic herd mentality of a portion of Canada because there are too many people suffering and dying for a silly policy like socialized medicine. Maybe the Conservative Party of Canada will incorporate the Supreme Court's decision on private insurance and the freedom of choice in their party platform and future campaigns. (Could be good issue, its better than the scandals that the Libs have been pushing.) Whatever might occur, chalk one up for the free-marketeers of Canada. (I guess the members of the Supreme Court read some Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek or The National Post.)
The plaintiffs were a doctor and a patient who'd been unable to contract freely under Quebec's health laws. The experience of the patient, George Zeliotis, will be familiar to many Canadians: Crippled by pain, he desperately sought a hip replacement. But because our public health system is chronically overburdened, he was forced to wait more than a year for his surgery. In any other Western nation, he would have been able to arrange a speedier hip replacement through private health insurance. But not in Canada: That would be -- gasp -- "two-tier" care.
Beaten down by socialist propaganda, most Canadians have accepted such excruciating indignities as the price of being morally superior. But not Mr. Zeliotis, who along with Dr. Jacques Chaouli, took the Quebec government to court. Justice Deschamps, who wrote the case's controlling opinion, agreed that forbidding Mr. Zeliotis from contracting with a private insurer while making him suffer a lengthy wait in the public system violated the right to life and personal inviolability guaranteed under Quebec's Charter of human rights and freedoms. Then she went further: Not only were the plaintiffs' rights violated, but the violations were such that they could not be justified by the government's need to protect its public health system.
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