Canadian Shona Holmes joins the great American healthcare debate and, in a number of TV ads and interviews, misleads the American public about both her own medical condition and the reality of the Canadian healthcare system.

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This piece originally appeared on the MikesAndDislikes site here and on the website of local Vancouver paper The Georgia Straight here.

You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that's winning

- Bob Dylan, "Positively 4th Street"

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 all the interviews she's been giving. 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 in The Ottawa Citizen.

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

Shona Holmes, it seems, is a fraud! And why she'd want to see nearly 50 million Americans left completely uninsured simply because she was unhappy with her treatment in Canada is beyond me.

Tellingly, if you listen to her talk she doesn't really seem to have much, or any, concern for the uninsured. Being wealthy enough to travel down to the Mayo Clinic for $97,000 private treatment, she seems to only be concerned with people like herself, those with money. The uninsured 50 million be damned.

Obama's Plan

Holmes' stated aim in appearing in these ads and interviews is to persuade Americans to stick with their current system and reject Obama's plan to cover everyone (a mighty flawed, non-single-payer system, I might add, but at least a noble attempt to finally cover everyone with some form of insurance).

This current system that Holmes so passionately wants America to retain is of course the very same horrifically unjust one - the only one in the industrialized world that doesn't cover all of its citizens - that the majority of Americans have wanted replaced for years.

Does Shona Holmes really think that millions of American children are better off with no medical insurance than with a system like that in Canada, no matter how much she may find it lacking?

Is she really that insensitive? Stupid? Self-absorbed?

Or does she, perhaps just like being on TV a lot?

Whatever the case, she sure comes across as a villain in all of this. A petty villain perhaps, but a villain nonetheless. Not so much to Canada and the Canadian healthcare system she's so intent on smearing with her less-than-honest tale of woe, but more so to the American public who she's hoping to condemn to the appalling status quo they presently call a healthcare system... and the rest of the world calls a joke.

Yes, yes, of course if you're wealthy and/or you're lucky enough to have an insurance policy that actually covers you when you most need it (rather than challenges your claim and/or denies you certain treatments) then you will undoubtedly get some good care. But, seriously, who wants to live in a system in which losing your job also means losing your healthcare, as so many Americans have been finding out over the past year? Nearly 50 million without any coverage whatsoever and tens of millions more with inadequate, partial and/or tentative coverage at best. You call that a modern just society?

"The Best System In The World"

Americans tend to want to believe that they are the best at everything in the world and when it comes to certain things perhaps they are, but when it comes to their healthcare system the fact is it's the laughing stock of the world.

The rest of the industrialized world long, long ago accepted the basic truth that any modern, just and civilized society unequivocally must provide two fundamental things to all of its citizens: universal primary and secondary education and universal healthcare. Yet some 60 years onward America is still attempting to claw its way into the 1950s. That is, 60 years after everyone else America is still attempting to give all of its citizens these two most basic and fundamental of human rights.

And if people like Shona Holmes have their wish they never will.

Check out Julie Mason's article here:

A reality check on a reality check: For years, Canadians have feared the American health care system; now Americans are being told to fear ours

And for another excellent article on healthcare reform in America try this quite personal recent piece by Ted Kennedy:

"The Cause of My Life"

Then there's this excellent piece by Roger J. Newell, an American who spent years living under both the "socialized" British and "free market" American systems and his take on both:

American health care: the view from expatriate who came home

Finally, check out this piece by David Sirota about how the wealthy in America (including certain Democrats who Sirota calls "Land Rover Liberals") are doing all they can to defeat universal healthcare, at least as long as it involves them having to pay even a few thousand dollars more in taxes each year from their hoard of millions and/or billions:

One Percenters Enjoy Unprecedented Protection

Let's just hope America ignores the scaremongering of the likes of Shona Holmes and the greed and selfishness of so many of its own ultra-wealthy and decides to finally join the ranks of truly civilized nations.

Mike Cowie

And here's an older piece on this topic, which also serves as a review of Michael Moore's great film Sicko:

The Tale of Two Sickos Rant 'n' Rave (Michael Moore, Grandpa and the Glorious Soapdown)

Authors Bio:
Mike Cowie is a 42-year-old freelance writer, who lives together with his wife and son just outside of Vancouver, B.C.

After spending 15 years living, travelling and working overseas Mike returned to live in Canada back in 2004. His final trip, together with his wife, was a three-year backpacking journey across Asia, from Hong Kong to Istanbul.

You can find more of Mike's writings on his website, MikesAndDislikes, as well as on the website of Vancouver's Georgia Straight newspaper.