O Canada!

If you're a diabetic, don't forget to thank our frozen neighbor to the north.

I bet you didn’t know insulin was discovered and developed by three Canadian people. Other things Canadians discovered or invented:

Instant mashed potatoes

Pablum

Most of The Band

Java (the programming language, not the coffee)

The BlackBerry

Standard Time

Sonar

Ebola vaccine

Radon

Trivial Pursuit

Electric-powered wheelchairs

The paint roller

Peanut butter (wait, not George Washington Carver?)

The Wonderbra

IMAX

Pacemakers

In my latest New Republic piece, which was written for the print magazine and therefore is more deeply reported than my usual stuff, I explain how insulin, from whose sale its nice Canadian discoverers resolved never to earn a profit, eventually became so expensive that the Biden administration had to pass a low putting a price ceiling on it for Medicare patients. This is actually a broader piece about the Democrats’ excellent record on health care and the paradox that voters don’t give Democrats much credit for the economy but give them lots of credit for health care, only health care really kind of is the economy. You can read the piece here.

PS. One of the more remarkable facts about me is that I have never been to Canada, even though I’ve been within 10 miles of it repeatedly, on both the East coast and the West.