Whenever I have a colonoscopy, I think of Serge.
I had my first colonoscopy about fifteen years ago. I met with the doctor who was going to do it and shortly after I was lying on the table being examined. And since then I’ve had another one every five years.
My last colonoscopy was late last year. I called about a year in advance to schedule an appointment. I wanted the same doctor to do it again, but I was told he was retired. Anyway, I was told the scheduling process had changed. I would have to schedule an appointment with the nurse first, who would then schedule my colonoscopy. And the doctor who was doing colonoscopies that day would do my colonoscopy. I could no longer just schedule a specific doctor.
The earliest I could get an appointment with the nurse was four months from now, so I took it. And the earliest the nurse could get me an appointment for a colonoscopy was nine months from now, so I took it. It was good that I wasn’t dying.
When the day of my colonoscopy finally arrived, the doctor who was going to perform it introduced himself to me as I lay on the table, all prepped and ready to go. He asked if I had any questions. I said no. Then the anesthesiologist put me under anesthesia. When I came to, someone else told me to come back in five years.
Now you’re probably wondering, “Who is Serge and what does he have to do with all this?” Well, I’ll tell you. Serge is a guy I met who lives in Montreal. Whenever I meet someone who comes from a country with public health insurance, I ask them what they think. This may be unbearable, but I do it anyway because I’m curious about public health insurance. I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all. Even if we had a public health insurance system in this country, we would have many of the same complaints about the government that we now have about private insurance companies. But I also believe that most of our problems with health care can be solved by removing the profit motive from care.
Serge said he loves the affordability and availability of healthcare in Canada, but sometimes you can’t get an appointment for several months. That’s the most common complaint I’ve heard about social medicine, and the only thing I’ve heard that made me feel like we have an advantage in our Laissez-faire System. But as I’ve felt more and more like I was on an impersonal assembly line during my colonoscopies and doctor’s appointments in general over the years, I no longer feel this advantage.
So anyone who believes that we would be better off without state health insurance needs to come up with another example.
