Letter to the Editor: Editorial makes unfounded claims
In her October 13, 2020 Editorial in “Your West Central Voice” titled “Party Platforms are Important” Joan Janzen makes numerous broad stroke highly biased and unfounded claims and assertions about the platform of the Democratic Party. Consider just one of these claims, where she mislabels the Democratic Party as socialist, while the Republican party is capitalist. She then avers that:
“Socialism curtails individual freedom.”
To begin this discussion, let us consider how the Oxford English Dictionary defines socialism. It is defined as “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”
We live in a country, and in a province in particular, that in many aspects fit this definition. SaskPower, SaskEnergy, SaskWater and SaskTel represent public ownership of the means to produce and deliver their essential services to all of us. SaskHealth owns or regulates how the whole community receives health services.
Let us consider just one small example of the impact of socialism vs. capitalism that has occurred to friends of ours who live in northwest Ohio. Their fourteen year old son recently suffered a brain aneurysm and was life-flighted from their community a distance of 110 kilometers to a teaching hospital in Ann Arbor Michigan, where he received first rate care, and is now recovering at home. Our friends just received a bill from the life flight service for $27,588.19. They filed a claim with her health insurance provider for what is supposed to be a covered service but have had the claim denied so far. They are pursuing the claim, since it is allegedly covered under their insurance policy, but face perhaps months of uncertainty until this is resolved.
We got a bit nervous when we saw this bit of news and checked what we might be responsible for if we needed a similar service. For most Saskatchewan residents who are citizens or landed immigrants, there would be a one time flat charge of $475 for a life flight from anywhere in Saskatchewan to a major Saskatchewan center that could deal with their health issue. For seniors, the charge is $275.
To this reader, individual freedom includes freedom from fear that a random illness or accident could bankrupt us or our families.
Our public health system vastly outperforms the disorganized unfettered capitalistic healthcare chaos south of the border and gives all of us the freedom to live our lives with the ability to pursue our dreams and aspirations without having to concern ourselves if we can financially take care of the health needs of ourselves or our family members.
I am free.