"Private Health Care Is Here"

A growing number of Canadians pay out of pocket for MRIs, hip replacements,
even family doctor visits. How a two-tiered system crept into Canada.

https://macleans.ca/society/health/private-health-care-canada/

"Private Health Care in Canada"

Private health care in Canada? You might be thinking, “I thought health care
was free in Canada?” It is true, hospital and doctor visits are 100% free in
Canada under the Medicare system. Although, other medical services, like
dental care and prescription glasses, are not free. In addition, Canadians do
have the option to participate in other private health care options for a
pretty penny. Confused? Don’t worry – we’ve ironed out all the details here.
Continue reading to understand what private health care means in Canada.

https://wealthmanagementcanada.com/blog/private-health-care/

So, to repeat the obvious: there is no medical service or care available in the
U.S. that is unavailable in Canada. The only question is who pays for it. The
Canadian public financing system ("Medicare") might not pay for something, e.g.
prescription drugs or dentistry, but prescription drugs and dentistry are, of
course, available in Canada.

>"Private Health Care Is Here"
>
> A growing number of Canadians pay out of pocket for MRIs, hip
> replacements, even family doctor visits. How a two-tiered system
> crept into Canada.
>
>https://macleans.ca/society/health/private-health-care-canada/

They should do it the American way. Twice the price for 1/2 the service and
a lifetime of debt; along with long waits for specialists and surgery.

There's no profit in single payer health care.

Republican convention organizers raised more than $85 million for the
Milwaukee event that will nominate Donald Trump for president next week.

The convention host committee said in a statement that its total haul
represents “a record amount raised by any host committee for a Republican
convention in history.” The committee’s internal goal was $68 million.

“The outpouring of support for this convention has been bigger than I ever
imagined,” Reince Priebus, chair of the MKE 2024 Host Committee, said in the
same statement.

He credited local organizations in Wisconsin as having an “integral role” in
supporting the fundraising efforts “because they know that this convention
is a great way to put Milwaukee on the map.”

The host committee is organized as a nonpartisan nonprofit — designed to pay
for transportation, venues and other associated event expenses — which means
it does not have to publicly disclose its donors.

Previous reporting notes that Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual and Forest
County Potawatomi, which operates a hotel and casino, have donated.

The Republicans’ fundraising news follows Democrats announcing their host
committee is on track to raise between $80 million and $100 million for the
four-day convention it will host in Chicago next month.

But Democrats are starting to raise alarms about their own candidate
fundraising. Campaign donations have started to dry up after President Joe
Biden fumbled his debate with Trump and the party’s donors are more broadly
starting to voice concerns about the viability of the presidential ticket.

On Wednesday, actor George Clooney, who has donated to Biden’s campaign,
said he wants the president to step aside so another candidate can run at
the top of the Democratic ticket.

But Republicans, after months of a fundraising deficit against Democrats,
are starting to see donor enthusiasm return. Even before the debate and in
spite of Trump’s criminal conviction on hush money charges, the Trump
campaign was surpassing Biden in fundraising.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/11/republican-convention-host-
fundraising-haul-00167584

Each day brings us closer to Trump lying beaten, raped and naked in his
prison cell.

Each day brings us closer to Trump lying beaten, raped and naked in his
prison cell.

You lawmen had your chance to kill him when you arrested him.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott says he’s “very disappointed” in a
decision by the 5th Circuit Solicitor’s Office to not seek the death penalty
for a man formerly on death row after murdering two people in Richland
County.

The man will now serve life in prison, a decision supported by the victims’
families, according to the solicitor’s office.

Qunicy Allen, who said he wanted to be a Mafia hitman, was convicted in 2002
of brutally murdering two people in Richland County before killing two more
in North Carolina.

Locally, Allen shot and killed Dale Hale, a woman he met on Two Notch Road,
with a shotgun near I-77 in Columbia. He then doused her body with gasoline
and set it on fire. A month after that killing, Allen ⏤ again using a
shotgun ⏤ shot and killed Jedediah Harr, a bystander in an argument Allen
had with others outside the Texas Roadhouse Grill on Two Notch Road.

Although Allen was ultimately sentenced to death, his sentence was
overturned in 2022 by the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which found
that the trial judge failed to “consider” all favorable evidence for him in
the case.

“I am very disappointed in your decision,” Lott wrote in an email to 5th
Circuit Deputy Solicitor Dan Goldberg and Gipson. “Quincy Allen is a cold-
blooded killer of four victims. He will continue to kill as he has already
demonstrated in prison. Any other deaths/injuries/crimes committed by him
will be the result of your decision.

“It’s sad that the voices of the victims cannot be heard because we are not
speaking for them,” Lott said.

While incarcerated, Allen was charged with assault and battery on a prison
employee with intent to kill in 2009, according to South Carolina Department
of Corrections records. In 2012, he was charged with possessing a weapon
while still behind bars and, in 2014, for threatening to inflict harm on a
prison employee.

Prior to the 4th Circuit overturning Allen’s sentence, the S.C. Supreme
Court unanimously upheld his death sentence in 2009, saying the sentence was
“proper” and supported by ample aggravating circumstances that made him
eligible for the death penalty.

“Allen gave statements to police outlining the details of his crimes,” the
Supreme Court noted. “He told police he began killing people because an
inmate in federal prison, where Allen spent time for stealing a vehicle, had
told him he could get him a job as a Mafia hit man.”

Before starting his death spree, Allen used a homeless man, James White, 51
⏤ who was sitting on a bench in Finlay Park in downtown Columbia ⏤ for
target practice. Allen shot him twice to learn how to use his shotgun, the
high court noted.

“If anyone deserves the death penalty, it’s Quincy Allen,” Lott told The
State Friday.

In an email last week to Lott and attorneys connected to Allen’s case,
Goldberg said the decision to not re-try Allen for the death penalty was
largely based on wishes from the victims’ families.

“After a great deal of consideration, we have decided to allow Mr. Allen to
be sentenced to life in prison rather than re-trying the sentencing phase of
his previous death penalty trial. This decision was based in large part on
conversations that our office has had with the surviving next of kin of both
Ms. Hall and Ms. Harr,” Goldberg wrote.

“This was not an easy decision by any stretch of the imagination,” Goldberg
continued. “Solicitor Gipson and I discussed the case at great lengths and
he struggled mightily with how to resolve it. In the end, the idea of
getting immediate closure for these families, rather than potentially living
thru another 18 years of litigation, carried the day.”

The sentencing will be placed on the record in front of Judge Debra McCaslin
on Monday, July 22, at 1 p.m., in Lexington County.

Out of respect for the family, Gipson told The State Friday that he didn’t
think addressing Lott’s comments were “proper” before Monday’s hearing, but
that he and Goldberg plan to fully explain their reasoning before McCaslin
on Monday.

When sentenced in 2007, Allen, of Columbia, became the first person in
Richland County in 10 years to receive the death penalty. In five other
death penalty trials, from 1997 to 2000, defendants received life sentences.
Richland County juries are known for handing down life sentences instead of
death penalties.

But Allen’s case was unusual in that a judge, not a jury, imposed the
sentence.

Allen had pleaded guilty before Judge G. Gordon Cooper, and Cooper then
heard testimony about whether Allen should get the death penalty or life.

Allen’s lawyers contended the killer suffered from schizophrenia during his
crime spree ⏤ but prosecutors said claims of mental illness were
exaggerated.

Allen’s lawyers also said he had suffered a horrendous childhood, shuffled
among relatives. His mother once stuffed him in a trash can.

It was those circumstances surrounding Allen’s childhood that led the 4th
Circuit to overturn his original death sentence.

The appeals court said that Cooper, who sentenced Allen to death after 10
days of testimony in 2005, “did not consider all of Allen’s mitigating
evidence” and sometimes “assigned no weight at all” to crucial mitigating
evidence that works in favor of the defendant.

“The trial court in this case just completely failed to give meaningful
consideration to the overwhelming mental illness this young man has
suffered, and the profound damage that Quincy had been subjected to as a
young man and as a child,” said 5th Circuit Public Defender Fielding
Pringle, who served as Allen’s defense counsel when he was convicted in
2005.

Allen had a severe mental illness at the time of the killings and the
sentence would likely have been different if the judge had not “excluded,
ignored or overlooked” defense testimony concerning it, the federal panel
said.

Allen also has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to life for killing the two
North Carolina men in 2002.

“Both families previously expressed that they would be okay with life, so
long as Mr. Allen waived all appeals, and that they were ready to move on
with their lives,” Goldberg said in the email to Lott. “Our office has made
contact with both families again over the last few days and they each
reiterated those same feelings. Mr. Allen has signed a waiver of all appeals
and a waiver of his right to pursue a (post conviction relief).”

“I appreciate and I’m grateful to the solicitor for looking at all of the
factors ... and getting us to the right outcome,” Pringle said. “He should
of never been sentenced to death. Never should have happened that he was
sentenced to death. But ultimately, the system did what it was supposed to,
and righted itself.”

Staff writer John Monk contributed to this story.

Fuck his childhood. He could have called the police and didn't.

https://news.yahoo.com/news/continue-kill-sc-sheriff-unhappy-171508833.html

Each day brings us closer to Trump lying beaten, raped and naked in his
prison cell.