Success: Toronto Star Publishes HRC Rebuttal Countering Dubious Napalm Charge

Success: Toronto Star Publishes HRC Rebuttal Countering Dubious Napalm Charge       View this Article Online and Discuss on Headlines and Deadlines September 9, 2009   Dear HonestReporting Canada Subscriber, Slanderous and unsubstantiated allegations are par for the course for anti-Israel protagonists. Be it an odious blood libel by Sweden's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, which claimed that Israel was stealing Palestinian body parts, Hamas' allegations that Israel supplies "aphrodisiac" gum to corrupt the Palestinian youth, or recent accusations claiming that Israelis trained snakes to attack Palestinian farmers. No matter how big the lie, there seems to be no shortage of these outrageous accusations. Sometimes Western media outlets give these baseless allegations credibility by giving them a platform, instead of doing necessary due diligence by fact checking these claims ahead of time to confirm or deny the veracity of the charges before publication. Recently, on August 27, the Toronto Star gave letter writer Orest Slepokura a platform to issue his own baseless allegations. Responding to a column written by Rabbi Dow Marmur on August 24 about proposed Israel boycott resolutions tabled at the United Church of Canada's national meeting, Mr. Slepokura wrote the following:            His allegation that Israel, during the Six-Day War had "napalmed fleeing Palestinian refugees that included children" is malicious and unsubstantiated. It's true that Mr. Slepokura is just merely citing the work of A.C. Forrest, the one-time editor of the United Church Observer; however his book ("The Unholy War" available online by clicking here) cannot be viewed as a credible source considering his problematic past as an anti-Israel activist. (Please see Haim Genzi's book "The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches," pages 109-169 and David Taras' and David Goldberg's book "The Domestic Battleground: Canada and the Arab-Israeli Conflict" beginning on page 86 for more information). HonestReporting Canada brought our concerns to the attention of senior editors at the Toronto Star who agreed to publish our rebuttal to counter Mr. Slepokura's dubious napalm charge. Yesterday, the following letter submitted by HRC's Executive Director was published on the Star's website:            We appreciate the opportunity that the Toronto Star gave us to properly refute this egregious allegation. We also trust that Star editors will think twice before publishing similar missives in the future. If history is a proper indicator, there's no question that there will be more attempts by anti-Israel proponents to accuse Israel of fictional atrocities. Palestinian officials will lie, photos will be staged, newscasts will be fabricated, and the media will rush to report the "stories." Please keep your eye out for the next Big Lie and join HonestReporting Canada's efforts in countering them. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________             Toronto Office: P.O. Box 6, Station Q Toronto, Ontario M4T 2L7 Montreal Office: P.O. Box 42508, Succursale Snowdon Montreal, Quebec H3W 3H7 Office: (416) 915-9157 E-mail: info@honestreporting.ca Web: www.honestreporting.ca

 

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Re: life expectancy

[This was written in response to a local American broadcaster who obviously had incorrect facts about the Canadian Health System.]

Our system is not free. But when paid through a group as you know, in this case the group is ALL residents of Ontario, those who are healthy pay just the same as those who are not. Therefore lowering the individual cost.

And it would be interesting to compare tax rates in New York state to Ontario. Unfortunately right now we have had a Liberal Premier who was never going to raise taxes [sound familiar?] and immediately upon election said that "things were MUCH worse than we thought, so we have to raise taxes BUT ONLY ....] Does that sound familiar?

[She said that our health costs are 13% of our GDP.] Now as regard to 13%, where did that figure come from?

From this wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada I see this:

"Health care spending in Canada is projected to reach $160 billion, or 10.6% of GDP, in 2007. This is slightly above the average for OECD countries, and substantially below the 15.2% of GDP taken up by healthcare in the United States as of 2005.^[4]"


"Canada's healthcare spending is expected to reach $171.9 billion, or $5,170 per person, in 2008. Health expenditures are expected to be 10.7% of the gross domestic product"

"Canada has a federally sponsored, publicly funded Medicare system, with most services provided by the private sector. Each province may opt out, though none currently do. "

Hospitals account for the largest segment in spending at $48.1 billion, however, this amount is declining. According to the OECD, spending was second amongst other countries, less than United States and more than Norway, Switzerland and Luxembourg.^[6]

Considerable attention^[who?] has been focused on two issues: wait times and health human resources. There is also a debate about the appropriate 'public-private mix' for both financing and delivering services.

With our former Liberal government, it was taboo to even speak of a public-private mix. We already have that to some degree since we choose our own doctors. However that needs to be extended I believe to private clinics which can specialize in one area and become very good at it. To me this would seem to alleviate wait times since some would opt to go to the specialized private clinic for their particular specialty leaving fewer to wait.

Regarding sleep apnea, I got into a specialist in a short period of time. I cannot remember how long but it did not seem inordinate. The equipment was 75% paid for. I paid $250 for my CPAP machine. However I noticed that in Amazon, I could have bought a cheap unit for that outright or pay a bit more and get a deluxe. I think this shows that there is some padding of the price so that the paramed companies can make a higher profit.

"Canada, like its North American neighbour the United States, has a level of practising physicians that is well below the OECD average ^[21] but a level of practicing nurses that is higher than either the U.S. or the OECD average"

"Although life threatening cases are dealt with immediately, some services needed are non urgent and patients are seen at the next available appointment in their local chosen facility."

"Some, especially in the US, see waiting as a form of government rationing. Canadians, however, see it as a fairer form of allocation of available resources than the system in place before Medicare, when lack of buying power meant there were people who were effectively waiting indefinitely for access but could not get it due to insufficient insurance or other available funds. These people were never counted in any official way and their waiting time was never measured. The queuing system is seen as both fair and transparent."

"The Fraser Institute, a conservative think tank, claims to do its own research and found that treatment time from initial referral by a GP through consultation with a specialist to final treatment, across all specialties and all procedures (emergency, non-urgent, and elective), averaged 17.7 weeks in 2005.^[43][44] However, the Fraser Institute's report is greatly at odds with the Canadian government's own 2007 report and must therefore be treated wth great caution as it is a fierce critic of socialization of health care in Canada."

K......... This is where some of the gross distortions that you or other conservatives in the U.S, get their stats. But you can see what the problem is with those stats by reading the example below.

"Canadian pysychiatrist Dr David Gratzer who is also employed by the libertarian Cato Institute was once asked by congressman Dennis Kucinich if he knew what the wait time for diagnostic imaging procedures such as CT scans and MRIs was across Canada. Gratzer began his reply "I can tell you what the Ontario government said it was for cancer and..." when Kucinich cut him short and gave him the true figure of 3 weeks, just as Gratzer was uttering the answer of "six months" to his preferred question. ^[46]Distortions of this kind and worse are often found on the internet."

K...., have you ever seen this before?

The number of Canadians seeking health care in the U.S. is very small compared to Americans seeking health care abroad. The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions reported that approximately 1.5 million Americans sought health care abroad in 2008. UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research reported a study by Wallace, et al, in which an estimated 952,000 California adults annually sought medical care in Mexico. Of these, 488,000 were Mexican immigrants.<sup>[60]

and</sup>

A 2002 study by Katz, Cardiff, et al, reported the number of Canadians using U.S. services to be "barely detectible relative to the use of care by Canadians at home" and that the results "do not support the widespread perception that Canadian residents seek care extensively in the United States." [7]

"The Canadian health care system is often compared to the US system. The US system spends the most in the world per capita, and was ranked 37th in the world by the World Health Organization in 2000, while Canada's health system was ranked 30th. The relativly low Canadian WHO ranking has been criticized by some for its choice of ranking criteria and statistical methods, and the WHO is currently revising its methodology and withholding new rankings until the issues are addressed.^[64][65]"

According to the OECD Canadians have a longer life expectancy than Americans.
Canada - average life expectancy is 80.4 and the U.S. is 77.8.

I certainly know that the stress associated with ability to pay for medical care, is totally eliminated as a Canadian because I know if I need it, it will be done and paid for.

So you are welcome anytime K. to talk to your husband and come to Canada for a few years as a diagnostic test of our system. Then you may feel qualified to write a book correcting the myths about Canadian health care. (:-)

By the way in reading that wiki I discovered that some provinces also include drug and dental as part of the care given.

With respect,
Charles G. Pedley
905-228-2161
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