You know that woman on the TV ads?
Jul. 26th, 2009 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
palsgraf_polkaThe one who is Canadian and said she had a life threatening brain tumor and was denied/delayed treatment under Canadian NHS and had to go to America to get "life saving treatment" and therefore we, as Americans should not have government run health care?
http://www.acreativerevolution.ca/node/1944
Yeah. Check this out. Admittedly, this is a blog post, but it's food for thought.
They link to a Huffington Post article that states:
"The Shona Holmes Health Care Hitjob
Case in point: Shona Holmes is the current poster girl for the liars slandering Canadian health care in an attempt to discredit reform. Ms. Holmes alleges she was horribly endangered by Canada's healthcare system:
Both CNN and McConnell made a big deal out of Shona Holmes, an Ontario woman who claims she was forced by Ontario's health system to go to the United States for life-saving surgery for a brain tumour. She claims that in 2005 delays in access to treatment at home made it necessary to go to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and pay $97,000 for her care.
Her story sounds bad, doesn't it? Except, of course, it's a lie:
On the Mayo Clinic's website, Shona Holmes is a success story. But it's somewhat different story than all the headlines might have implied. Holmes' "brain tumour" was actually a Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland. To quote an American source, the John Wayne Cancer Center, "Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts."
There's no doubt Holmes had a problem that needed treatment, and she was given appointments with the appropriate specialists in Ontario. She chose not to wait the few months to see them. But it's a far cry from the life-or-death picture portrayed by Holmes on the TV ads or by McConnell in his attacks.
In other words, her condition was not immediately life threatening, and it was prioritized accordingly. But Holmes didn't want to wait behind people who needed care more than she did, so she went the U.S. where she could pay out of pocket to jump to the head of the line."
http://www.acreativerevolution.ca/node/1944
Yeah. Check this out. Admittedly, this is a blog post, but it's food for thought.
They link to a Huffington Post article that states:
"The Shona Holmes Health Care Hitjob
Case in point: Shona Holmes is the current poster girl for the liars slandering Canadian health care in an attempt to discredit reform. Ms. Holmes alleges she was horribly endangered by Canada's healthcare system:
Both CNN and McConnell made a big deal out of Shona Holmes, an Ontario woman who claims she was forced by Ontario's health system to go to the United States for life-saving surgery for a brain tumour. She claims that in 2005 delays in access to treatment at home made it necessary to go to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and pay $97,000 for her care.
Her story sounds bad, doesn't it? Except, of course, it's a lie:
On the Mayo Clinic's website, Shona Holmes is a success story. But it's somewhat different story than all the headlines might have implied. Holmes' "brain tumour" was actually a Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland. To quote an American source, the John Wayne Cancer Center, "Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts."
There's no doubt Holmes had a problem that needed treatment, and she was given appointments with the appropriate specialists in Ontario. She chose not to wait the few months to see them. But it's a far cry from the life-or-death picture portrayed by Holmes on the TV ads or by McConnell in his attacks.
In other words, her condition was not immediately life threatening, and it was prioritized accordingly. But Holmes didn't want to wait behind people who needed care more than she did, so she went the U.S. where she could pay out of pocket to jump to the head of the line."
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 04:40 am (UTC)If our company starts doing it, I'm going to have harsh words with our CEO. So far (at least on the face of it), they've just been giving us talking points etc. to tell to our neighbours and Congresscritters (which I've mostly been ignoring, since I disagree with about half of them).
But if they start pulling the Canadian card, look out.