What would you think of a person who, say, continually and effusively praised the Sundown Medical Clinic but, when he or she was ill, hastened to the Sunrise Treatment Center?

Would this raise questions as to the person’s integrity, as well as the quality of the Sundown Clinic?

Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach is a strong supporter of the national health care service of that nation. The Canada Health Act mandates that no one should pay for a health service if others get it free; no matter how bad they need surgery, they must wait in line.

Anything different, said Ms. Stronach would be “a two-tiered health system and … I’m not in favor of a two-tiered health system.”

She’s not in favor of waiting either, and long medical waits are common in Canada.

When Ms. Stronach developed breast cancer, she traveled to California last June for an operation that was recommended as part of her treatment. However, she denied the speed of medical care in the United States was the reason for her quick trip to California.

So, the Labor MP believes in a two-tiered health system …  as long as she doesn’t have to use it?

Of course, if the United States had the same type of health care plan as Canada had, Ms. Stronach would still be waiting. There would have been no place to go for her operation.

Locally, Rockingham Memorial Hospital is a high-quality facility. The local oncology center is one of the finest in the state. The local physicians, nurses, technicians and other staffers are first-rate, efficient, caring and competent.

With proposals of federal health care being thrown around now by presidential candidates, do current and future patients really want the federal government — full of the likes of Sens. Edward Kennedy, Harry Reid, and Hillary Clinton —  to get its hands on local health care?