Shona Holmes on the Michael Coren Show

The other day a friend of mine alerted me to the fact that Shona Holmes was going to be making an appearance on the Michael Coren Show, and despite the fact that I tried to view it with an open mind, I can honestly say that it had very little impact on my overall impressions of the woman and her mission.

Ms. Holmes insists that her life was indeed threatened by her condition, explaining that an abridged version of her “complex medical issues” appeared on the Mayo Clinic website because of some kind of restriction on what could be written there. She offered some convoluted explanation of what she continues to assert was a brain tumour encapsulated within a cyst. While I am at least now willing to grant the possibility of her having had a more serious condition than was indicated on the Clinic website, I feel no more kindly disposed to her ‘mission’ than I did from the outset for a number of reasons.

First, she deplored the fact that a polarization occurs whenever Canadian and American healthcare systems are compared. Insisting that the American ad she made has succeeded in generating debate, she is being either disingenuous or obtuse in refusing to recognize that her ad increases that polarization, speaking, as it does, in absolutes, (e.g., “Government healthcare is not the answer, and it certainly isn’t free”) abetted by the voiceover advising viewers of the great suffering that ensues in Canada where people must wait an unconscionable length of time “for vital surgeries.” When asked by the host whether she felt that the ad was unfair to our system, she insisted that it wasn’t, and would do it again “in a heartbeat.”

In response to Coren’s question about the possibility that she was one of those few people who might have ‘fallen through the cracks” and that our system works pretty well, she declaimed that untold thousands were experiencing similar treatment, and that her efforts in suing the government and trying to force in private insurance are not for herself, but for her neighbours, grandchildren, and fellow citizens. I was disappointed that Mr. Coren did not ask her for statistical evidence to support her claims. Without that support, I cannot escape the notion that her efforts spring more from self-interest than any kind of altruism.

As well, while agreeing with the host that the American system needs reform, she went on to suggest that the majority of Americans are happy with their health insurance, again without statistical support, and questioned the actual number of Americans without insurance, dismissing the majority as illegal immigrants and young people who choose not to have any because they don’t think they need it. Hmm, I wonder if the exorbitant costs of acquiring insurance could be a factor in their decision?

Ms. Holmes also seems to lack insight into why the Canadian people are so furious with her, expressing her disappointment in the discovery that one can’t hold an opposing opinion without being reviled, threatened, etc. What she fails to understand is that people are so upset by her utter arrogance in assuming the role of spokesperson for a healthcare system that all polls suggest enjoys the unqualified support of over 87% of Canadians.

Until Ms. Holmes can begin to see herself as others see her, I suspect she can look forward to continued expressions of ill-will from her fellow Canadians.

More on U.S. Healthcare

The Hamilton Spectator had a well-considered article in yesterday's edition written by a Canadian resident who has lived in the United States and experienced their healthcare system. His comparison between our system and the American one makes for some fascinating reading:

Beware the right in health-care fight

Is movement to privatize Ontario's system behind Holmes' battle?

August 19, 2009
John Kneeland

THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
(Aug 19, 2009)

In 1996, through my employer in Sarasota, Fla., I had medical insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield. Doctors on my short list seemed capable, but I saw them only for basic medical procedures.

Wondering what personal health insurance would cost me now in Florida, I applied online for a quote from Blue Cross Blue Shield. For a man my age (58), the monthly premium was $418.

Copayments for office visits were $20 to $40, with 20 per cent co-insurance (my share of treatment costs for major medical procedures), and a $500 deductible. Perusing the list of exclusions, I noticed a 24-month wait for treatment involving pre-existing conditions.

I called the company and told the insurance specialist I had received laser treatment in Canada for a minor prostate cancer. "Oh," he said, "You'll be declined. There's a 10-year block on any form of cancer." This is a predicament Americans are well acquainted with; more than half of the bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical expenses.

In Ontario in the past year, I have received -- besides cancer treatment -- MRIs, blood tests, dermatological treatments and my biennial checkup. I paid for one PSA test. Wait times were insignificant.

In fact, wait times, which were actually worsened in the past by Conservative-inspired tax cuts, have improved in recent years in both Ontario and Quebec. In a 2008 Health Canada study, patients' self-reported median wait times for MRIs and CAT scans were two weeks. Median wait time for a specialist or surgery was a little over four weeks. Most patients waited a maximum of three months.

Currently in the news is Shona Holmes' lawsuit against the Ontario government, which states, "Wait times in the government monopoly health care system are unreasonable and unacceptable by ... medical standards of practice." The suit claims this is a violation of Charter rights.

Holmes had a benign cyst called a Rathke Cleft cyst, which is not life-threatening but can cause blindness in rare cases. On May 27, 2009, Holmes was interviewed by Fox News. She claimed she was suffering from a brain tumour, but could get no medical help in Canada. "I'm just one story," she said. "There's so many out there like me." Holmes told the interviewer that her American friends had advised getting another doctor, then claimed, "that is something we are just not allowed to do here in Canada."

After going on her own to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and having the cyst removed at a cost of $97,000, Holmes asked for reimbursement from Ontario. The government refused on grounds she did not follow proper procedures.

Holmes' story of distress is compelling; what's questionable is her decision to tell only one side of the story on national television. And her lawsuit, which was prepared by Avril Allen of Boghosian and Associates, goes beyond personal grievances.
Allen sits on an advisory committee to the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF), which is funding the lawsuit. CCF describes itself as "a registered charity, independent and nonpartisan ... a voice for freedom in Canada's courtrooms and law schools." Executive director John Carpay, a former Reform Party candidate, has announced the group is funding a constitutional challenge to Alberta's medicare system.

Other CCF advisers have included Ezra Levant, an ultraconservative activist and publisher of the Western Standard (westernstandard.ca). One of CCF's donors is the Donner Canadian Foundation, which an article in the Western Standard called "the lifeblood of conservative research in this country." Another donor is Atlas Economic Research, whose former president, John Blundell, said his mission was to "litter the world with free-market think- tanks."

When the Supreme Court of Canada decided Quebec could not place an outright ban on a parallel private system of health care, the court majority stated a ban on private insurance "might be constitutional in circumstances where health care services are reasonable as to both quality and timeliness." Accordingly, the Holmes suit is based on a claim that Ontario's services are not timely.

On its website, CCF describes Ontario's "unconstitutional legislative monopoly on health care." In other words, its goal is to bring privatization into the Canadian system.

According to the Romanow report of 2002, privatization, with its unnecessary administrative costs, is both inefficient and a drain on system resources. Dr. Arnold S. Relman, a Harvard professor of medicine and emeritus editor-in-chief of New England Journal of Medicine, states, "The facts are that no one has ever shown, in fair, accurate comparisons, that for-profit makes for greater efficiency or better quality, and certainly have never shown that it services the public interest any better."

Because CCF has charitable status, contributions to it are tax-deductible, which means taxpayers at large are subsidizing its attempts to undermine our single-tier health-care system. That is truly a health care travesty.
Burlington resident John Kneeland was born in the U.S. to Canadian parents. He has lived about half his life in each country.

Shona Holmes - Part 4

Despite the reluctance of private media to publicly challenge Shona Holmes' veracity about her condition and prognosis, the Hamilton Spectator today ran a story about a woman with the same last name who is receiving a flurry of phone calls very critical of Shona Holmes' lending herself to the American right wing for propaganda purposes. The paper finally reveals (undoubtedly after much soul-searching) that Holmes had a cyst, not a tumour, removed at the Mayo Clinic. I have taken the liberty of reproducing the story below:

Couple getting abusive calls meant for Canadian health critic

July 23, 2009
Carmela Fragomeni
THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
(Jul 23, 2009)




I am NOT Shona Holmes.

Waterdown resident Palmira Holmes wants angry callers to know she is not the same Holmes from Waterdown whose problems with Canadian health care have made her the U.S. poster girl for forces opposed to President Barack Obama's health-care plan.
Palmira Holmes has been inundated with phone calls from people trying to express their fury over Shona Holmes' decision to become the face of an aggressive American TV ad that slams Canadian-style health care.

Airing in 50 states as Shona's Story, the ad has Holmes explaining: "I survived a brain tumour, but if I had relied on my government for health care, I'd be dead."
Palmira Holmes says "it was like being bombarded" in the last few days as critics called constantly, thinking they'd reached Shona Holmes. Palmira's number is listed as S. Holmes for husband Stephen.

Callers have shouted, called her a liar and tried to shame her, but they are venting to the wrong person.

"We are not related. I don't even know her," said Palmira. "I wasn't even aware this was going on until people started calling me."

It isn't a surprise the other Holmes family is getting calls. Shona Holmes has ignited an issue of clear emotional importance.

Canadian media websites that have carried items on the ad have registered more than 1,000 critical online comments since Monday. A key area of discussion for critics is whether the facts about Holmes' case are accurately portrayed.

"It's unclear to me exactly what her condition was, and why she was put on the waiting list," said Kenneth Sherman, national chair of Democrats Abroad, an organization of American expats who live here but still vote in the U.S.
"No matter what her situation was, it's the worst example of the Canadian system, not the norm."

Holmes came to public attention in 2007 when she and another Ontario resident launched a lawsuit against the Ontario government, alleging undue wait times.
Her statement of claim, filed in the Ontario Superior Court, says Holmes began to get headaches, disturbed vision and other symptoms in March 2005, but was told she had to wait more than seven weeks for an MRI, over four months for a neurology consultation and over six months for a consultation with another specialist.

The MRI in May 2005 "showed an 8-9 mm tumour" and subsequent tests "confirmed a significant loss of vision in both eyes," the statement of claim says.

Concerned by the projected wait for treatment, Holmes had the symptoms evaluated at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, which identified a Rathke's cleft cyst, a fluid-filled sac that grows near the pituitary gland at the base of the brain.

The statement of claim says the Mayo Clinic urged Holmes "to have the cyst surgically removed immediately to avoid the risk of permanent blindness and death."
That operation took place in Arizona in August 2005. Her lawsuit against Ontario is on hold until a hearing this fall to try to recoup the $100,000 cost from OHIP.

Shona Holmes has said she feels so strongly about faults in the Canadian system that she had to act when contacted by the Americans For Prosperity Foundation, which opposes government involvement in health care. The group is among many lobbyists working to derail Obama's plan.

Sherman says Democrats Abroad -- which supports Obama -- is so incensed by misrepresentations of the Canadian system that it will run a counter campaign.
"Most of us members, like myself, have had insurance coverage in both systems, so we know the pitfalls as well as the benefits of both," Sherman said. "Americans here in Canada feel we have a unique tale to tell. We're going to share that with letters and phone calls to our congressmen and back to hometown newspapers ..."

Meanwhile, Palmira Holmes has had to warn her eight-year-old son not to answer the phone. Palmira said the family can't even change their number because they run their business from home.

"I just can't shut it off."

She has called Hamilton police to find out what she could do and is waiting to hear back.

"I'm just stressed and terrified."
cfragomeni@thespec.com

Shona Holmes - Part 3

Finally, someone asked the questions that need to be asked of Shona Holmes. But guess what? Those who are practicing real journalism are working for our public broadcaster, the CBC, much reviled by the right wing as a terrible drain on the taxpayer, and not needed because we are so 'well-served' by private broadcasters. Of course, were that true, those hard questions about her story would have been asked, wouldn't they?

To hear the interview, click here and download the podcast of tonight's edition of "As It Happens."

Shona Holmes – Brain Tumour or Cyst Survivor?

I was very disappointed by the media's superficial coverage of Shona Homes, the Waterdown woman who has aided the American right wing by filming a commercial in which she describes herself as a ‘brain tumour survivor” whose life was saved because she used the U.S. private system to attend to her health problems. In allowing herself to be used by those U.S. vested interests who oppose any hint of public health care (even though it is the only Western industrialized country that leaves its citizens to the capricious mercy of the private insurers, and seems unbothered by the fact that 50 million Americans have no coverage), there is one major problem: her story as reported isn’t quite true.

A quick visit to the Mayo Clinic website reveals her actual condition, Rathke's cleft cyst, described as a “rare, fluid-filled sac [that] grows near the pituitary gland at the base of the brain and eventually can cause hormone and vision problems.” Nowhere is it described as potentially fatal, a clear contradiction of Ms Holmes’ claim in the commercial that within six months she would have been dead if left to the vagaries of the Canadian health system.

I feel especially upset by the propagandizing nature of her commercial due to the fact that last year my brother-in-law died of brain cancer. The truth is that from the moment he was diagnosed (days after he had his initial seizure) to the time he died, he received exemplary and timely care from a team of dedicated specialists employed by our allegedly flawed system in Ontario. Unfortunately, the nature of his brain cancer, multiforme glioblastoma, the same suffered by Ted Kennedy, meant a fatal outcome was inevitable.

In my view, despite her anxiety and suffering, Ms Holmes should be ashamed of herself for undermining Barrack Obama’s efforts to bring some humanity to a system that is badly in need of it, and calling into disrepute a Canadian system that we would all be much worse off without.