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Do not pay until 2007! Everyone Must Go!

This Magazine Staff

Driving north the other weekend, I had a brief glimpse into one possible future for our famous socialized health care system, now famously under attack by private interests hoping to profit from illness. Hasn’t Ralph Klein been doing a roadshow talking up the benefits of free market diagnostics?

Nevermind the moral questions for Canadians, I’m more concerned about the assault on my psyche such a change would bring. Surely everyone has seen those ridiculous American pharmaceutical commercials where they can tell you the name of the pill and all its many and various unfortunate side-effects, but not what it can do to improve your life. A commercial that identifies something and then describes in detail how bad it is. This is a revolution in marketing only ad execs could sell as a good thing.

Well, the marketers have struck our health care system already. Driving by Barrie’s impressive Royal Victoria Hospital on Highway 400, you can’t help noticing the giant banner slung across the building’s main facade. I guess the Royal Vic is going through a fundraising campaign tied to their investment in cancer diagnosis and treatment.

The sign reads: YOUR FUTURE CANCER CENTRE

Does it really take a public inquiry to decide that the advertising world has a number of sketchy idiots in it?

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