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Um, it's the second one.
So Ms. Holmes says this on FOX:
The first lie: She had cancerous tumour. Except, no, she didn't have cancer. Or even a tumour. According to the Mayo Clinic, where she was treated, she had a Rathke's Cleft cyst, which according to Saint John's Health Center are "not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts". I'm not saying her condition wasn't scary or didn't warrant attention, but it wasn't the dire emergency she's implying. Oh, wait, she's not implying. She's actually saying that. Granted, it's FOX who added the "cancer" blurb to its crawler, but Shona Holmes sure isn't jumping up and saying no, they're wrong, it wasn't cancer.
The second lie: Without the treatment, she'd be dead in six months. According to, well, everything I've read, there's no indication that Ms. Holmes' condition was life threatening. She says in an interview with CBC that a doctor told her this, but apparently he did so prior to doing any testing. I haven't found anything, anywhere, that says a Radke's Cleft Cyst is life-threatening.
...aaand, the third lie: This is actually relevant to the average American. Ms. Holmes' surgery cost $97,000. I don't know if that's in Canadian or US funds, but either way it's a whole lot of money. It's also what an uninsured American citizen would have to pay for the same treatment. I seriously doubt that most Americans with health insurance could afford this, let alone people who can't afford insurance in the first place.
Also, uninsured Americans don't have to worry about wait times, because for the most part, they can't get care at all.
Ms. Holmes is currently trying to get the Ontario government to reimburse her for costs. They're refusing on the grounds that she wasn't denied treatment. If I tried to do something like that with the Rhode Island government, they'd not only refuse, they'd laugh me out of New England. And it wouldn't be because they didn't deny me treatment but because they weren't required to treat me in the first place. And if I were one of the 47 million uninsured/underinsured in the US, I'd be SOL.
In an interview with CBC's As It Happens (interview is in the first part of the segment), Ms Holmes talks about her condition and her reasons for seeking healthcare in the US, and manages to plant her foot firmly in her mouth.
There's more in this short segment of NPR's On the Media, and more in-depth discussion in this episode of Talk of the Nation.
When I rant about US healthcare, I rarely, if ever, use Canada as a comparison, mostly because Canada's isn't the only national health system in the world (actually the inverse is true: the US is the only NATO country without a national health service), and Americans need to broaden their investigation a little (not that most of us are doing much investigating at all other than running around saying "OMG SOSHULIZED MEDDIZIN IZ EVIL OMG PLZ HALP MEEEE!).
No health care system is perfect, not Canada's or Norway's or fill-in-the-blank. But there's a difference between critical comparison and outright slander and IMNSHO that's what's obviously happening here. And since Canada seems to be the ONLY system being compared to ours these days, and because what's being said is IMO slanderous/libelous, I'm breaking my rule.
Canadians, please feel free to chime in here, since I'm only going by what I read (which is pretty extensive, but still), and as I've never used the system myself I'm definitely on the outside looking in.
So Ms. Holmes says this on FOX:
The first lie: She had cancerous tumour. Except, no, she didn't have cancer. Or even a tumour. According to the Mayo Clinic, where she was treated, she had a Rathke's Cleft cyst, which according to Saint John's Health Center are "not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts". I'm not saying her condition wasn't scary or didn't warrant attention, but it wasn't the dire emergency she's implying. Oh, wait, she's not implying. She's actually saying that. Granted, it's FOX who added the "cancer" blurb to its crawler, but Shona Holmes sure isn't jumping up and saying no, they're wrong, it wasn't cancer.
The second lie: Without the treatment, she'd be dead in six months. According to, well, everything I've read, there's no indication that Ms. Holmes' condition was life threatening. She says in an interview with CBC that a doctor told her this, but apparently he did so prior to doing any testing. I haven't found anything, anywhere, that says a Radke's Cleft Cyst is life-threatening.
...aaand, the third lie: This is actually relevant to the average American. Ms. Holmes' surgery cost $97,000. I don't know if that's in Canadian or US funds, but either way it's a whole lot of money. It's also what an uninsured American citizen would have to pay for the same treatment. I seriously doubt that most Americans with health insurance could afford this, let alone people who can't afford insurance in the first place.
Also, uninsured Americans don't have to worry about wait times, because for the most part, they can't get care at all.
Ms. Holmes is currently trying to get the Ontario government to reimburse her for costs. They're refusing on the grounds that she wasn't denied treatment. If I tried to do something like that with the Rhode Island government, they'd not only refuse, they'd laugh me out of New England. And it wouldn't be because they didn't deny me treatment but because they weren't required to treat me in the first place. And if I were one of the 47 million uninsured/underinsured in the US, I'd be SOL.
In an interview with CBC's As It Happens (interview is in the first part of the segment), Ms Holmes talks about her condition and her reasons for seeking healthcare in the US, and manages to plant her foot firmly in her mouth.
There's more in this short segment of NPR's On the Media, and more in-depth discussion in this episode of Talk of the Nation.
When I rant about US healthcare, I rarely, if ever, use Canada as a comparison, mostly because Canada's isn't the only national health system in the world (actually the inverse is true: the US is the only NATO country without a national health service), and Americans need to broaden their investigation a little (not that most of us are doing much investigating at all other than running around saying "OMG SOSHULIZED MEDDIZIN IZ EVIL OMG PLZ HALP MEEEE!).
No health care system is perfect, not Canada's or Norway's or fill-in-the-blank. But there's a difference between critical comparison and outright slander and IMNSHO that's what's obviously happening here. And since Canada seems to be the ONLY system being compared to ours these days, and because what's being said is IMO slanderous/libelous, I'm breaking my rule.
Canadians, please feel free to chime in here, since I'm only going by what I read (which is pretty extensive, but still), and as I've never used the system myself I'm definitely on the outside looking in.