More Healthcare truthiness...

The free market ideologues like to point decisively to Sweden, 'Look,' they say, 'The bastion of Scandinavian socialism has embraced the free-market in healthcare delivery, and yea, there is great rejoicing!'

Except it turns out the Swedes have tried the healthcare privatization experiments, and at the first opportunity swept out the right wing regional governments that started them and then almost completely reversed them.

Well there's always Britain right? Margeret Thatcher, one of the neo-con's patron saints, right up there with Ronnie began the private sector take-over of public healthcare and Tony Blair has continued to almost out-Thatcher Thatcher. How about those lovingly praised public/private partnerships that right-wing politicians claim will solve every funding ill? Well...

Then there's Australia. Also often pointed to as a leader in 'innovative application' of the private sector. The results have been cost increases.

These are all experiments in private care. The largest and oldest private healthcare experiment is of course this one. Here's how it stacks up to the Canadian system.

Premier Ralph Klein, Premier Gordon Campbell, and Prime Minister Harper are all on record saying it would be in Canadian's interests to move towards this kind of cash and carry non-system and all three are actively trying to push us there.

We are being taken like the pigeon in a three-card monty game.