NO FREE LUNCH (OR COFFEE)
McDonalds is offering free coffee for two weeks to fight Tim Hortons up here in Canada, Mark, and as you might expect, while the coffee is free, there’s a 20 minute wait for it. So this morning as I was trying to get my McMuffin combo, I inquired whether there was a shorter line for people buying food or if I could pay for a "quick" coffee. I was greeted then with the traditional Canadian refrain: "NO TWO-TIER [COFFEE].” I fled the restaurant before the CBC arrived with the tar and feathers… although a bit of that tar with some hot water would have been nice with my McMuffin.
So please: Alert the ObamaCare fence-sitters about the costs of “free” stuff.
I encountered a sadder example of the cost of "free" stuff a couple of weeks ago at my son's bowling tournament. I overheard another parent (a man who appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties) telling a friend that he was in need of a knee replacement but was deemed too young to receive one. He was lamenting the fact that, by the time he's old enough to get on the waiting list, his kids will be grown - it will be too late to do the things he wants to do with them now, but can't because of his bad knee. (This is a perfect example of how government annexation of health care is tantamount to the state taking ownership of your body, a topic upon which Mr. Steyn has often commented.)
Perhaps this man will choose to go to the United States to have his knee replaced, if he can afford it. He didn't seem to be a famous politician or an NHL player, so if he wants the health care he has already paid for with his tax dollars, he will most likely end up waiting to get on a waiting list for it. But hey, at least that new knee will be "free"... providing he gets to the top of the list before he dies or before the bureaucrats doling out the knee replacements decide he has become too old to be knee-worthy. Maybe we should all be put on waiting lists when we turn 40 in order to maximize the possibility that our free knees (or hips, or whatever) will be offered to us when we actually need them. Of course, if they're installed only months before we succumb to old age, they can always be recycled, like dentures sometimes are.
Perhaps this man will choose to go to the United States to have his knee replaced, if he can afford it. He didn't seem to be a famous politician or an NHL player, so if he wants the health care he has already paid for with his tax dollars, he will most likely end up waiting to get on a waiting list for it. But hey, at least that new knee will be "free"... providing he gets to the top of the list before he dies or before the bureaucrats doling out the knee replacements decide he has become too old to be knee-worthy. Maybe we should all be put on waiting lists when we turn 40 in order to maximize the possibility that our free knees (or hips, or whatever) will be offered to us when we actually need them. Of course, if they're installed only months before we succumb to old age, they can always be recycled, like dentures sometimes are.
That is a really sad story. I was also once told I could not have any tests for a lump in my breast because I was "too young" to get breast cancer. What rot. I was in my 30's, you know, the age at which super-curler Sandra Schmirler died of cancer.
ReplyDeleteI've got a different doctor now, and of course, I'm older, which helps.
On the matter of free coffee, Mr. Pinkerton and I did a very un-Canadian thing. We went to McDonald's in Edmonton last week and bypassed the free-coffee queue (which was also quite chaotic, with coffee spilled everywhere and people were generally grumpy). We ordered food and Mr. P. paid for his coffee. And they willingly sold it to us. But that is because we live in the free, wild WEST.