SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Despite all his rhetoric and the applause from his libertarian base, Sen. Rand Paul is just another top-down, autocratic, big-government Republican. (Photo: Jeff Malet/maletphoto.com)
'Do As I Say, Not As I Do:' Rand 'Socialized-Medicine-Is-Slavery' Paul Headed to Canada for Some Surgery
"When a 'libertarian' goes for some socialized medicine..."
Jan 13, 2019
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the most vocal libertarians in Congress, is reportedly headed to Canada later this year to receive hernia surgery and it's pretty clear that a lot people on Monday are going to be calling him out for this.
While building a career on promoting the libertarian myth of what Paul and others like to call the "free market," the "irony of it" was just too rich that he would travel to Canada, which enjoys a socialized, single-payer healthcare system, to have the procedure performed.
According to the Louisville Courier Journal:
He is scheduled to have the outpatient operation at the privately administered Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario during the week of Jan. 21, according to documents from Paul's civil lawsuit against Boucher filed in Warren Circuit Court.
[...]
Shouldice Hernia Hospital markets itself as "the global leader in non-mesh hernia repair," according to the clinic's website.
While Shouldice Hernia Hospital is privately owned -- like many Canadian hospitals -- it receives a majority of its funding from the Ontario government and accepts the Ontario's Hospital Insurance Plan.
"Do as I say, not as I do," said in Kat Brezler, co-founder of Organizing for Bernie and a public school teacher in the Bronx, in response to the news about Paul's surgery.
While Kelsey Cooper, a spokesperson for Paul, characterized the story as "fake news," the facts remain: Paul is headed to get surgery in a country that he has said should not be a model for Americans who seek a more rational approach to the current for-profit healthcare system.
In 2011, he also said this: "With regard to the idea whether or not you have a right to health care ... It means you believe in slavery. You are going to enslave not only me but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants, the nurses. ... You are basically saying you believe in slavery."
Paul Blest at Splinter News offered some great additional coverage and comment:
While Shouldice is a for-profit clinic, it's very much a part of the Canadian healthcare system. As the National Post wrote in 2012, the government of the province of Ontario "still pays for thousands of patients a year to get operations there at taxpayers' expense," and that it "receives yearly funding from the province, and medicare fees for services offered by its doctors."
Apart from this, however, the fact remains that Paul--an ophthalmologist by trade who once compared the right to healthcare to slavery--is going to another country where healthcare for everyone is guaranteed and funded by the government via a program called Medicare, in order to get better quality care than he would have here in the United States, which has a Frankenstein-like monstrosity of a healthcare system that still leaves tens of millions uninsured.
Turns out the invisible hand isn't as good at fixing hernias as a real one.
Watch Paul's infamous performance at a Senate hearing, as well as the response to his comments by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.):
Updated: This piece was updated from its original to add additional context and comment from Splinter News.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the most vocal libertarians in Congress, is reportedly headed to Canada later this year to receive hernia surgery and it's pretty clear that a lot people on Monday are going to be calling him out for this.
While building a career on promoting the libertarian myth of what Paul and others like to call the "free market," the "irony of it" was just too rich that he would travel to Canada, which enjoys a socialized, single-payer healthcare system, to have the procedure performed.
According to the Louisville Courier Journal:
He is scheduled to have the outpatient operation at the privately administered Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario during the week of Jan. 21, according to documents from Paul's civil lawsuit against Boucher filed in Warren Circuit Court.
[...]
Shouldice Hernia Hospital markets itself as "the global leader in non-mesh hernia repair," according to the clinic's website.
While Shouldice Hernia Hospital is privately owned -- like many Canadian hospitals -- it receives a majority of its funding from the Ontario government and accepts the Ontario's Hospital Insurance Plan.
"Do as I say, not as I do," said in Kat Brezler, co-founder of Organizing for Bernie and a public school teacher in the Bronx, in response to the news about Paul's surgery.
While Kelsey Cooper, a spokesperson for Paul, characterized the story as "fake news," the facts remain: Paul is headed to get surgery in a country that he has said should not be a model for Americans who seek a more rational approach to the current for-profit healthcare system.
In 2011, he also said this: "With regard to the idea whether or not you have a right to health care ... It means you believe in slavery. You are going to enslave not only me but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants, the nurses. ... You are basically saying you believe in slavery."
Paul Blest at Splinter News offered some great additional coverage and comment:
While Shouldice is a for-profit clinic, it's very much a part of the Canadian healthcare system. As the National Post wrote in 2012, the government of the province of Ontario "still pays for thousands of patients a year to get operations there at taxpayers' expense," and that it "receives yearly funding from the province, and medicare fees for services offered by its doctors."
Apart from this, however, the fact remains that Paul--an ophthalmologist by trade who once compared the right to healthcare to slavery--is going to another country where healthcare for everyone is guaranteed and funded by the government via a program called Medicare, in order to get better quality care than he would have here in the United States, which has a Frankenstein-like monstrosity of a healthcare system that still leaves tens of millions uninsured.
Turns out the invisible hand isn't as good at fixing hernias as a real one.
Watch Paul's infamous performance at a Senate hearing, as well as the response to his comments by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.):
Updated: This piece was updated from its original to add additional context and comment from Splinter News.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the most vocal libertarians in Congress, is reportedly headed to Canada later this year to receive hernia surgery and it's pretty clear that a lot people on Monday are going to be calling him out for this.
While building a career on promoting the libertarian myth of what Paul and others like to call the "free market," the "irony of it" was just too rich that he would travel to Canada, which enjoys a socialized, single-payer healthcare system, to have the procedure performed.
According to the Louisville Courier Journal:
He is scheduled to have the outpatient operation at the privately administered Shouldice Hernia Hospital in Thornhill, Ontario during the week of Jan. 21, according to documents from Paul's civil lawsuit against Boucher filed in Warren Circuit Court.
[...]
Shouldice Hernia Hospital markets itself as "the global leader in non-mesh hernia repair," according to the clinic's website.
While Shouldice Hernia Hospital is privately owned -- like many Canadian hospitals -- it receives a majority of its funding from the Ontario government and accepts the Ontario's Hospital Insurance Plan.
"Do as I say, not as I do," said in Kat Brezler, co-founder of Organizing for Bernie and a public school teacher in the Bronx, in response to the news about Paul's surgery.
While Kelsey Cooper, a spokesperson for Paul, characterized the story as "fake news," the facts remain: Paul is headed to get surgery in a country that he has said should not be a model for Americans who seek a more rational approach to the current for-profit healthcare system.
In 2011, he also said this: "With regard to the idea whether or not you have a right to health care ... It means you believe in slavery. You are going to enslave not only me but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants, the nurses. ... You are basically saying you believe in slavery."
Paul Blest at Splinter News offered some great additional coverage and comment:
While Shouldice is a for-profit clinic, it's very much a part of the Canadian healthcare system. As the National Post wrote in 2012, the government of the province of Ontario "still pays for thousands of patients a year to get operations there at taxpayers' expense," and that it "receives yearly funding from the province, and medicare fees for services offered by its doctors."
Apart from this, however, the fact remains that Paul--an ophthalmologist by trade who once compared the right to healthcare to slavery--is going to another country where healthcare for everyone is guaranteed and funded by the government via a program called Medicare, in order to get better quality care than he would have here in the United States, which has a Frankenstein-like monstrosity of a healthcare system that still leaves tens of millions uninsured.
Turns out the invisible hand isn't as good at fixing hernias as a real one.
Watch Paul's infamous performance at a Senate hearing, as well as the response to his comments by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.):
Updated: This piece was updated from its original to add additional context and comment from Splinter News.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.