Thankfully, Mr. Williams has enough money that he can fly off to wherever the best care exists. I wouldn't resent him using the money he has earned to buy better care or faster care. I wish him a full and speedy recovery. But why don't the rest of us have the option of escaping socialized medicine, too?
What I resent is the way premiers and prime ministers won't free you or me to buy insurance that would enable us to procure first-class care in times of need. What I resent is the way many limousine liberals lash us to the mast of the good ship Medicare, then run off to the United States when it's their lives or their families' on the line. They are like public school trustees who send their kids to private school.
I don't care whether Mr. Williams gets treatment in St. John's or Cleveland or Timbuktu. But then he and his fellow politicians have to stop caring where I get treatment. They have to stop limiting my health care options just to win political points.
In its 2005 decision in the Chaoulli case, the Supreme court ruled that if Canadian governments could not provide timely heath care they had to permit Canadians to buy insurance for private treatment, whether inside the country or out. It's time governments lived up to that decision -- so that perhaps the next time Danny Williams needs his heart fixed, he doesn't have go to the United States.