I love the lying right wing..look mom no brain tumor

Just saw a woman on a TV adv claiming that she would had die if she had to have depended on the Canadian health care system and warning all of the US not to allow such a system in the US.

A few minutes of research was all that was needed to find out it was nonsense see below.

Love the right wing and the damn health insurance companies.
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The Great Anti-Canadian-Healthcare Fraudster Joins The Great American Healthcare Debate

http://www.mikesanddislikes.com/politics_america_the_great_anti_canadian_healthcare_fraudster_joins_the_great_american_healthcare_debate

By now you've all probably heard of Shona Holmes, the Canadian woman featured in those TV ads that have been running all over American TV in recent weeks, the ones slamming Canada's healthcare system as some sort of nightmarish system from hell.

Well, the truth is now out and the fact is Shona Holmes never actually had a life-threatening brain tumor, as she's been claiming in those ads and interviews on American TV. Instead, according to the Mayo Clinic where she was treated, her "brain tumor" was actually a Rathke's Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland and "Rathke's Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts."

The real story, it seems, is that she was on a waiting list for treatment here in Canada for her non-life-threatening benign cyst, but didn't want to wait and therefore went to the States and paid for her own treatment instead. Quite a different story from the one presented in those ads: a story about how the Canadian system was going to just let her die because it's such a flawed, awful, dangerous system.

All this is from a great article by Julie Mason that appeared earlier this week in The Ottawa Citizen.



Sadly, CBC's main news program, "The National", covered this story a couple of nights ago, but somehow failed to mention (or perhaps even research enough to find out?) that Shona Holmes never actually had any life-threatening brain tumor - obviously the most important part of her story.

A Right-Wing Ad Campaign

Watch the ad here and listen as Holmes states that "I survived a brain tumor, but if I relied on my government for healthcare I'd be dead". This is simply not true. And Holmes, it should be noted, is not just some naive flake being used by a right-wing group to help spread their anti-healthcare reform message, she's actually an activist herself, one who has been all over the American media airwaves giving interviews and spreading lies, half-truths and slander about Canada's healthcare system.

Now there's no doubt that the wait times in this country can be unacceptable (and, since her cyst was starting to cause vision problems, Holmes definitely should not have had to wait months to see a specialist), but if someone wants to criticize our system they should do it without lying. The simple truth is that if a person has a life-threatening tumor in Canada they will be treated and not, as Holmes states, left to die.

A Fraud