Following is the comment I left for the article 'Canada pledges $400M more for Haiti' on the CBC website (628 comments made, for this article). But what I am really writing about for my blog today is Canada's health care, and in particularly in response to the article, 'The problem of saying no to the sick' (in Globe and Mail).
April 1, 10:40 am - my comment re Canada's Haiti donation
I gather this will come out of Canadian taxpayers money, in the long run. What would have been nice would have been to have a choice, between donating to Haiti or spending money to improve the quality of health care for Canadians. There could have been a question on the income tax form: Which cause do you want the extra taxes you are paying to go to? [added at bottom - website address of the Michael Bliss article]
Readers often don't respond (or even read) comments others' make. But from the tone of the comments, there would seem to be many unhappy citizens of Canada, at the generosity of the government towards Haiti. This must make our governor-general Michaelle Jean glad at heart, but it doesn't do a thing for mine, not when I continue to read the kind of article as Michael Bliss has, in the Globe and Mail, that focus only on the money aspect of needing health-care in Canada.
March 30, 10:49 pm - my comment on the G&M website re health care for Canada's sick
Michael Bliss fails to acknowledge that we live in a society in which what matters most is money, and that people who have money are looked up to, while people who don't, generally are not. I imagine he is one of the former, one of those with money, and so he is actually writing this article about the other category of individuals - the have-nots.
He [ Bliss] starts off by making an assumption, that the wealthy are more important than those without, and thus they deserve to have more opportunity to receive better health-care, based on the fact that they have the money to pay for it. If access to health-care were based on some other factor, such as how many husbands or wives one has had in their lifetime, or how many cities one had lived in, then the entire story might be turned around, with different people struggling for access to health-care, not just those without money. More reasonably, one might suggest that those who had contributed something worthwhile to society might be given extra time to live, but on the other hand, it also makes sense to ask those people who have had such good fortune it they wouldn't mnd packing it in and letting other people have more opportunities before their time comes.
Others have attempted to address the problem more creatively. Here is a book about aging (not read): 'The quest for immortality: science at the frontiers of aging,' by Stuart Jay Olshansky, Bruce A. Carnes. http://books.google.ca/books?id=oC3NaSKysA8C&dq=science+fiction+writers+on+ageing&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=K0SpS8-cB4y0tgfp8pCKAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12&ved=0CDQQ6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=&f=false .
Also, The Social Consequences of an Extended Lifespan
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5f59n9wc&chunk.id=d0e1955&toc.depth=100&toc.id=d0e1900&brand=ucpress
And finally, Kurt Vonnegut wrote a short story called "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow," about living in a medical-technology-enhanced society.
Last comment, Mar 31, 9:29 am, about the Michael Bliss article
How about saying No to the Minister of Education, who is spending 245 million dollars to start up full-day kindergarten.
If people like Michael Bliss really believe this is a time when priorities need to be set (rather than simply saying No to the sick), then now is the time to speak up. So stop with these nonsense articles about there not being enough money to treat members of society who don't have as much to spend on health care as people like, well, Michael Bliss.
I would like to end on the note I started from, the point I wanted to make. Why cannot Canadians have a choice what they are willing to spend their taxes on - to give to Haiti, or to improved health-care in Canada, or full-day kindergarten? There may be others to add to this list, but these happened to jump out in the newspapers in the last week or so.
The problem of saying no to the sick
by Michael Bliss
Globe and Mail
Friday, Mar. 26, 2010
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-problem-of-saying-no-to-the-sick/article1512418/ .
Canada pledges $400M more for Haiti
March 31, 2010
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/03/31/haiti-donor-meeting.html
Ont. pledges $245-million ahead of next phase of full-day kindergarten
by Kate Hammer
Globe and Mail
Mar. 30, 2010
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/ont-pledges-245-million-ahead-of-next-phase-of-full-day-kindergarten/article1517125/
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