Why do people vote for Hilary and Obama?

[stof]

My god. On the one hand the vast majority of the posts in this thread frighten me immensely. On the other hand, I know that jumping in won't do much good.

Instead, I'll just illustrate one reason why I, as a Canadian, am thankful for public health care.

My father passed away this August after a nine year battle with prostate cancer. Those years saw many ups and downs, with surgery, hormones, radiation, drug test groups and chemotherapy. These procedures were all covered under the public system. Had they not been, we'd have had to sell our house.

During the final 2 months, my father had to be hospitalized during one of his chemo treatments. His pain became unbearable. Within an hour he'd received an MRI and was given a bed in a semi private room. The MRI revealed that a tumor was pinching his spine, leaving him unable to use his legs. He spent the next 22 days in a private room, and an ambulance transfer was organized to take him to a different hospital for one final, major radiation shot.

Those 22 days, as trying and difficult as they were for all of us, didn't cost us a single penny aside from parking.

After 22 days of round the clock care, we were confident that my mother and I could care for Dad at home. We were set up with a home care case worker. A hospital bed was sent to our house and assembled for us, an occupational therapist came out to show us how to use the equipment and Ontario Patient transfer transported my father to the house.

For the next 5 weeks we saw daily visits from a home care worker who bathed him and even offered to do our laundry and keep him company while we left the house (we declined the latter two options), every other day saw visits from nurses to monitor his condition, bi-weekly visits from a physio therapist to ensure proper breathing and help him perform his exercises , weekly visits from the occupational therapist to ensure his equipment worked fine and deliveries as needed from the pharmacy.

Aside from the pharmacutical supplies and the patient transfer. Every thing was provided for us by the health care system. The bed, the workers, all of it, including the house call from the doctor when we knew that my dad was dying.

As it stands, this has been the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. But were it not for our public health care system, I know that I wouldn't have been able to deal with it at all. My father lived a longer, more dignified life because of it, and my mother and I, though in mourning, aren't bankrupt.

That is all, you can return to your political theorizing.