Right, Left and Centre: The Politics of Some Canadians. By Dave Jaffe - Part Four

    Taking Aim At Soviet Medicare Right, Left and Centre by Dave Jaffe


     Milan and Maria never forgot the horrors of Yugoslavia and East Germany. "It was terrible," Maria said about her life in East Germany. "Just a nightmare." Many of her childhood memories were of long days in drafty schools and her return by foot to her family's crowded apartment building where her five member family survived on porridge on potatoes. Part of the problems back then could be blamed on the terrible effects of the Second World War. Not all of the country's problems were caused by communism. Yet Maria and Milan forgot that or never factored it in.
     Clayton their son had a far different childhood. He grew up in Burnaby, a growing working class suburb just to Vancouver's east. He played hockey but also learned to play the piano, sing operatic songs, read poetry by Rilke and loved to read literature. "I loved Ivo Andric's book 'The Bridge On The Drina',: Clayton says. "It was all about Yugoslavia's history."
    Yet Clayton also read works by Dosteovsky, Thomas Mann, and many other novels by famous European authors. Like his parents, Clayton remained a firm anti-communist. When he met pro-communist students and Marxist students at university, he didn't argue with them. He just remained silent  and smiled when he heard them speak. He knew what communism was all about: His parents had told him all about  that. The communists couldn't fool him.
     So when his sociology professor set up an assignment that would show flaws in the Soviet system, Clayton nearly leaped at the chance. He was only too happy to zero on on the Soviet medicare system. If he could prove that the communist medicare system had big gaping flaws, then this would prove that all of communism was a fraud.
     So Clayton set to work. He studied Soviet statistics. He pored over big heavy volumes from U.S. think tanks. (Remember: This was in the pre-Internet age.), He interviewed immigrants from the Soviet Union about  their medicare experiences. Clayton dubbed the Soviet immigrants he spoke to "Soviet Union survivors". And by and large, Clayton proved his points. Medicare patients  in the Soviet Union did sometimes receive rough treatment. In some instances, there were long waiting periods for certain procedures. People at the top of the communist heirarchy often got far better treatment than those below them. And some of the treatments didn't help people as much as the medicare people promised they would."I think I've done my work on this paper," Clayton said. "The Soviet medicare system has many faults." Clayton's professor agreed and gave Clayton's paper an A minus mark.
      Socialist medicare doesn't work most people would think after reading Clayton's paper.