Canada has a pure single-payer health care system. That means that Canadians are taxed (average family pays $12,057 per year), and then the government decides who will get health care. As you might expect, when health care is free, the demand for it goes up. In order to cut costs, Canada decided to stop treating the elderly.

Here’s an article from Canada’s far-left Maclean’s magazine.

Excerpt:

Canadians were asked in 2016 to accept what is now called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) as standard practice in the health-care system. But as the second anniversary of the federal law sanctioning assisted suicide passes this month, ambiguities embedded in the new regulatory regime are turning end-of-life care into a troubling leap of faith for doctors and patients alike.

Even the Collège des Médicins in Quebec, which sped ahead with its own statute in advance of Ottawa’s Bill C-14, has sounded a strong warning note about patients “choosing” medical assistance in dying purely because their preference for palliative care isn’t available.

That’s Quebec, but there’s more patient-killing going on at the other end of the country in British Columbia:

At the other end of the country in British Columbia, an active proponent of MAiD, acknowledges that she, too, struggled to adapt to the vagueness of the federal law. Dr. Ellen Wiebe says she ultimately concluded she would have to rely on her personal best judgment about whether or not to administer death.

Although there is a shortage of funding for palliative care in Canada, there’s lots of money available for abortions, sex changes, IVF, etc.

I was able to find out about Dr. Wiebe’s worldview from another earlier 2016 article in the far-left Maclean’s magazine:

Much of Wiebe’s 40-year career as a family physician she has spent doing abortions, including at Vancouver’s first abortion clinic, as well as patient advocacy and pioneering abortion drug research.

[…]She was raised in a Mennonite family in Abbotsford, B.C., and Wiebe says,“I know my Bible pretty well. I could quote it, no problem.” Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a teacher who worked for the Canadian International Development Agency, which meant Wiebe and her three siblings spent parts of their childhood in Asia and Africa with them. They were “wonderful people who loved life,” says Wiebe of her parents, and their Christian beliefs were an “important part of their lives for everything and anything.” But as Wiebe moved through adolescence—precociously so, finishing high school at 15—she abandoned her faith. “I lost all my religiosity by the age of 17,” says Wiebe. “It was just part of being in university, questioning and wondering and learning who you are.”

Looks like her parents were more focused on doing good things for the poor in foreign countries, than on teaching their own child apologetics. Abbotsford is a very conservative and beautiful part of Canada. She must have had an ideal childhood.

The Heritage Foundation notes that in the Netherlands, voluntary euthanasia has already turned into involuntary euthanasia:

For example, euthana­sia is often promoted by its champions as a last resort to alleviate suffering, but the Netherlands already has moved “from assisted suicide to eutha­nasia, from euthanasia for the terminally ill to euthanasia for the chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress and from voluntary euthanasia to nonvol­untary and involuntary euthanasia.” Such “ter­mination without request or consent” has been applied to Dutch infants as well. The concern has been that public health system rationing may exert pressure not just to limit spending on certain indi­viduals, but also, either subtly or overtly, to coerce them to be euthanized.

And I’ve already blogged about how the UK’s government-run NHS system pays hospitals bounties for putting patient on an end-of-life track. The new guidelines are even worse, as the UK Telegraph reports:

New NHS guidelines on “end of life” care are worse than the Liverpool Care Pathway and could push more patients to an early grave, a leading doctor has warned.

Prof Patrick Pullicino, one of the first medics to raise concerns over the pathway, said the national proposals would encourage hospital staff to guess who was dying, in the absence of any clear evidence, and to take steps which could hasten patients’ death.

The Liverpool Care Pathway – which meant fluids and treatment could be withdrawn, and sedation given to the dying – was officially phased out last year, on the orders of ministers.
It followed concern that under the protocols, thirsty patients had been denied water and left desperately sucking at sponges.

There’s government run health care for you.

I’m writing about this patient-killing issue today because I think it’s interesting to think about what health care is like in a country that is basically run by atheists, like Canada is. I personally would not like to be forced to pay taxes to pay the salary of a someone like Wiebe, and let her be in charge of my life.

What sort of health care can you expect in a system where you pay mandatory taxes to government bureaucrats whose primary purpose is to buy votes in order to win re-election? Can these bureaucrats be trusted to give you the health care that you’ve paid for?

Well, in Canada, health care is paid for by mandatory collection of taxes from those who work. You don’t pay for what you use, you just pay based on what you earn. The more you work, the more you pay in taxes. But paying more in taxes doesn’t mean that you will get treatment. In Canada, you’ll get behind people who don’t pay a dime into the system. You’ll wait for months. And you’ll be waiting in line behind people who want IVF, abortions, sex changes, and free heroine injections. Because in Canada, health care is just vote buying. The healthiest hardest working people pay and don’t use. The laziest and most irresponsible people don’t pay and use too much.

But there is one thing that the Canadian government will do for you – they’ll offer to murder you in order to keep you from draining health care dollars away from the people whose votes need to be bought.

Evolution News explains:

[…][A] Canadian man with serious disabilities has been refused coverage for independent-living services — but offered payment by Canadian Medicare for the costs of obtaining a lethal jab. From the CTV News story:

[Roger] Foley’s request to the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto (CILT), where he was directed to apply, was denied last year. Foley asked for a review of that decision, but his lawsuit alleges that the review process has been delayed multiple times as the CILT defaulted on deadlines.

So he hired lawyer Ken Berger.

“We don’t really understand why it’s not being solved and why we’ve had to file this lawsuit for Roger,” Berger, who specializes in health law, told CTV News. “We really didn’t want to reach this stage, but we were left with no alternative.”

According to Foley’s statement of claim, the only two options offered to him have been a “forced discharge” from the hospital “to work with contracted agencies that have failed him” or medically assisted death. Refusing to leave the hospital and unwilling to die by a doctor’s hand, Foley claims he has been threatened with a $1,800 per day hospital bill, which is roughly the non-OHIP daily rate for a hospital stay.

Can you imagine the screaming if a private health-insurance company were alleged to have forced these alternatives on a man with disabilities wanting assistance for independent living? The screaming would be heard in China.

But this is socialized single-payer socialism. So, expect a much more muted response.

Coercion to “choose” assisted suicide or euthanasia will come in many guises. This is one of them. Those with eyes to see, let them see.

Let me tell you something very important. You cannot demand quality from a service or product provider if you have already paid them. The time to ask for a lower price or higher quality is when you have your money in your pocket. That is why we are so happy to buy things from Amazon.com, but not so happy with the Postal Service or the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Where there is competition, there is higher quality at a lower price. The free market works better than a government monopoly.