Questions on Danny Williams’s health care trip

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams in an October, 2008 file photo. | Andrew Vaughan / CP

The Canadian Press has announced—surprise!—that American bloggers have taken notice of Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams’s trip states-side for heart surgery.

Let’s leave aside the non-news concept of the piece, that is, regurgitating reactions from RedState and Politico commenters with little context and no criticism. There are some questions that need answering before we can really judge what’s going on.

Did Williams go to the US for specialized treatment he can’t get in Canada? If so, I can’t imagine why anyone would have a problem with that, and with his province picking up the tab as they would with anyone else on their health insurance system. This probably would not reflect poorly on Canadian health care, but show how special and complicated the situation is. Nothing wrong with the premier finding the few experts best able to treat him.
Did Williams go to the US for treatment he could have gotten in Canada? That would be a different story. Did he do this to skip the queue? Did he think he would get better treatment in America? Did he think he would better be able to avoid public scrutiny if he left the country? Did he have a long-term relationship with a particular US expert whom he trusted most, and whose hand he’d rather have cutting him open and fixing his ticker?
If Williams thought he could get the same care in the US but better—and this is important for the facts-impaired people at RedState—did he actually get better care in the US, or did he just get ripped off?
Who paid—wealthy Williams, or N&L taxpayers?

The idea of wealthy people, Canadian or American, getting treatment at a top-notch private facility in the United States just because they can afford what they think is better treatment is nothing new. In fact, it’s probably one of the forces behind American health care inflation, and one good reason against having tiered health care systems where the rich skip queues and get more expensive treatment, but not necessarily better care.

My money is on one of two eventualities: Either there is no need for controversy (Williams needed a specialist he couldn’t get in Canada or wanted the specialist with which he had a long history in America) or Danny Williams has wasted a whole lot of money out of stupidity or misguided political machinations. In both cases, health care Neanderthals keep dragging their knuckles. End.