this wasn't a rural hospital, this was one of the largest in quebec. i guess that is consumer driven health care, canadian-style. one is aware according to ontario's government guidelines three-quarters of patients requiring urgent surgery don't get it in a timely manner. according to my standards, but according standards outlined by the government, and of course there are the issues around value and quality where in quebec there is an intense review going forward suggesting that maybe one in every for breast cancer test results were tainted and less on reliable. one in four. mr. castonguay changed his mind and certainly i appreciate where he comes from. i was born and raised in canada as well from a little town smack dab in the middle of the prairies, winnipeg. on a cold winter's day it can drop to 40 below on the prairies. i guess i am the son of castonguay, not literally, but someone a generation younger than him i correlate under socialist medicine and i & white people would believe in a single payer system. why they would believe it would be com

have the folks in quebec gotten over it? >> we still call them the washington expose. we can't get over that. >> how many games do you get to see? >> i get to see one or two a year. it's a busy job, so i've got to do that. >> did you have a chance to go in the clubhouse and see the guys? >> i met some of the people on the field, but not in the clubhouse. standing beside the batting cage watching the ball coming in practice, it's hard for me to see it. >> did you play ball yourself? >> yes, but not well. >> not at this level. >> not a chance. >> big story yesterday, the canadians were sold. >> yes. >> makes perfect sense. >> it's back to the old days. they were great owners before. hopefully they'll be great owners. i'm sure they will be. hopefully they'll get the success they had. montreal is a great franchise. they've had wonderful teams. i grew up in montreal. so deep down inside, while i was born in toronto, the canadians were my first team. >> i was in montreal for a sugar ray leonard fight against hearns, i believe it was, back in the 80s. the first time i had bee

in canada, claude, chair of the commission which recommended the quebec establish a government-run system in the 1960's declared last year the system is in "crisis," his words. private clinics are opening all over canada at the rate of one per week to treat those who are on waiting lists at the public hospitals. many canadians who have the resources to get out of the bureaucratic government have chosen to do so. as the republican leader pointed out, britain's national institute for health and clinical excellence, the entity responsible for setting guidelines on pharmaceuticals and treatment for british patients denied parents in that country access to four kidney cancer drugs with the potential to lengthen the patients' lives explaining it this way -- and i quote -- "although these treatments are clinically effective, regrettably the cost is such that they are not a cost effective use of resources." a chilling statement, indeed. the stories of parents being denied treatment by their governments are real. president obama and some of my colleagues in the senate, like the majority whip, have

guest: he, the quebec quite a few years.they had served together on various groups and commissions. -- they went back quite a few years. host: here is chicago on the independent line. caller: yes, i want to say i support what president obama has been doing. he had ice-cream on saturday and went off and on sunday. i enjoyed those activities myself. thank you. host: banks. westchester, new york, caroline on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. i was wondering how mr. bradley graham felt when he found out that donald rumsfeld, wolfowitz in the other neocons promoted saddam hussein, kept telling us that he had these weapons of mass destruction when the man was contained for 12 years? now they have ridden off into the sunset with big money in their bank accounts. i like to know when they're going to give some of the money back to the american people because now we are suffering? guest: concerning weapons of mass destruction, clearly that is misjudgment. bush and all the other officials will have to continue to address that

sarah palin, of quebec? i'm so worried about my country, i'm sorry about it -- but i love the response that was well, i love glen back's mind, but i'm worried about. host: today is flag day which was first observed in 1877 on the 100th anniversary of the continental congress' adoption of the stars and stripes as our official national flag. all public buildings should fly the flag on july 14 and the idea quickly caught on in many wanted to participate in the waving of the flood. one early supporter was bj, a schoolteacher who wanted june 14 to be known as the day. in 1916 president woodrow wilson proclaimed it as a national celebration, however, the holiday was not officially recognized until 1949 when harry truman signed the national flag day bill. back to the phones. we have one more from miami, on our republican line. caller: i have a comment about the connecting the dots, and you made earlier from the miami herald. you said that long time homers

the long working long hours hours that our task force chaired and i represent quÉbec.congresswoman, who represents the territory of guam, and also a new member, the congress that represents, congressman. were just very glad for him to join us today. we want to make sure that we stand firmly with our partners cbc, to ensure that we move in the right direction and health reform. and that's why we need to strengthen existing workforce diversity programs, create new programs and investing community for health care. must be integrated for the whole of the health reform bill and not relegated to one little or one title, or an afterthought. the great expenses that we see and that we have struggling with in the past with regard to health care has been originating from those gaps that we have described. the time is now for congress and the president to come together on this issue and i look forward to continuing my dialogue with the leadership on this important issue and let me reiterate again that the work that the tri-caucus along with those in the indian country and the comm

there was a study years ago when quÉbec introduced universal coverage overnight, and they didn't phasinganything. it just went the way canadians do hockey, rough. >> and what happened was there was a redistribution of physician visits on the higher income group to the lower income groups. that was the immediate effect of it. and of course, we could do that here also. in other words, whatever resources exist, we share them. that's the canadian approach. the alternative is to phase it in until the uninsured segue, we don't want to give up anything. wait until we grow the supply. i'm not sure you want to grow the supply actually. because then you have to feed the supply. so i'm not sure what is the right answer here. probably you have to have a little bit of both, redistribution from us, the fortunate to them, and some phasing in. but i wouldn't wait too long until paul's strategy works. that could take a decade. i wouldn't want to wait that long with the uninsured. >> i would just like to offer this notion. you know, i believe that having a payment reform advance quickly is really a choice