The media would love to have the scalp of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and hold it high for every conservative or libertarian to see, and show them that the politician they venerate as the lover of free markets relies on leftist pet projects, but it would appear the leftist media will have to wait a little longer.

Paul is heading to Ontario, Canada, to have surgery for the damage done to him after a 2017 attack by his neighbor Rene Boucher. There, he’ll have an outpatient procedure performed at Shouldice Hernia Hospital, which bills itself as “the only licensed hospital in the world dedicated to repairing hernias.”

Of course, the left seized on this as the moment when Washington’s most famous libertarian-leaning Republican essentially admitted that socialized healthcare is better than a privatized version, as Canada is the glorious land of socialized healthcare and a beacon to follow according to the American left.

brave of rand paul to offer himself up as a guinea pig to showcase the savagery of socialized medicine https://t.co/QXKTNZOyyH

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) January 14, 2019

https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/1084900981542961152

Rand Paul, enemy of socialized medicine, will go to Canada for surgery https://t.co/8TESKnG0oB pic.twitter.com/w5sdzSkhq1

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) January 14, 2019

The left’s Wile E. Coyote finally had Paul’s Roadrunner in its grasp, but as it turns out, with a bit of fact checking, the story suddenly becomes not so cut and dry. As it turns out, Shouldice Hernia Hospital is a cash-based hospital that has zero connection to Canada’s socialist system, according to the Daily Wire:

“This is a private, world-renowned hospital separate from any system and people come from around the world to pay cash for their services,” Kelsey Cooper, a spokeswoman for Paul, told The Hill.

Paul’s chief strategist Doug Safford responded to the unwarranted outrage on Twitter.

“It is one of a handful of private hospitals grandfathered to exist outside their normal healthcare laws,” Safford added. “Try fact checking, it’s not hard.”

So we have a leftist who physically attacked Paul — which they celebrated — then tried to attack Paul within the media for seeking aid in Canada completely under the assumption that every medical facility is part of their socialized utopia. Only it’s not, and it’s a shining example of how a medical facility can be the best in the world when allowed to thrive by itself, and completely outside of the socialist system so venerated by wannabe socialists.

I love the smell of capitalism in the morning.