Millionaire Pro Athlete Brock Lesnar Makes the Case For the American Health Care System
Not surprisingly, Brock Lesnar’s dismissive comments about the Canadian health care system riled some people up today, prompting reporters to push him on exactly what went wrong when he was hospitalized in hockey country. On a UFC conference call following his ESPN appearance, Lesnar said it wasn’t all Canada’s fault, but likened the care he received to “a third-world country,” and praised the U.S. system as “a little radical, but we’ve got the best doctors in the world.”
The way Lesnar sees it, our system doesn’t need reforming because it is totally kick-ass — an assessment that probably feels pretty accurate when you’re a millionaire at the Mayo Clinic. True, as recently as 2007 medical bills accounted for 62% of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. (and, of those, 78% had health insurance), but Lesnar is about as far from the poorhouse as anybody in the state of Minnesota, so obviously that’s not his concern. He needed the best care money could buy, so he needed to be in a place where money could buy it.
As some of our friends on Twitter have kindly pointed out, it’s a little unfair for him to compare some small facility in Canada to one of the best medical facilities anywhere in the world. But Lesnar isn’t trying to bash Canada. He just wants us Americans to know that reforming a system where we spend more than any other country in the world, and yet ranked 19th among 19 developed countries when it comes to avoiding preventable deaths is completely unnecessary. Need proof? Well, Lesnar will be back in the Octagon this summer, won’t he?
After the jump, Lesnar’s full “Sportscenter” appearance, in case you missed it.
