Diane Francis wrote in today’s National Post that:
Canada has a better health-care system than does the United States… As an American living in Canada, I find it embarrassing that the United States — rich and smart –has such a mediocre health-care system.I find it embarrassing that even educated and financially astute Americans buy the lies that the AMA and others spew about Canada and other “socialized” medical schemes.
I disagree, not that Canada’s is necessarily worse than the system the United States has, but that this isn’t a linear scale. The American system has all the flaws that Ms. Francis has pointed out. But in Canada, we force the majority of people to wait for care. Sometimes they wait until it is too late to really help them recover and it increases costs overall. And sometimes patients die on the waiting list. Only the relatively wealthy can afford to seek care outside Canada where they can afford to pay to get the care they need right away.
In Canada, the failure of anyone (except politicians) to care what the system costs has resulted in a system where no one can tell you how much the system actually spends on a given patient or procedure. Hospitals have no incentive to save money or find better ways of doing things, because they get a block grant. Their incentive is to reduce the number of patients they see – which seems a little distorted to me if the goal is supposed to be treating people…
The real solutions probably lie in countries like Taiwan and France, where a mixture of public and private care provides good quality health care at a reasonable cost to the economy.
8 comments
aek says:
19 May 2009 at 16:39 (UTC -7 )
Canada has a monopolized health care rationing system. Your pet dog can get a hip replacement faster than you can.
Recall the 2004 election when Paul Martin bribed voters with their own health by promising to “fix health care for a generation” by allowing more of your taxes to be spent on your health care. In effect he was implying that your physical well-being or even your life may depend on how you vote.
Until we have the freedom to purchase our own health care and allow competition with the government/public service union monopoly, our health will remain hostage to government policies.
Blame Crash says:
19 May 2009 at 20:55 (UTC -7 )
She’s certainly evolving into being quite the left wing kook, isn’t she.
Canada has a better system only if you ignore how we mooch off of the American system. They pay for all the Health Care Technology and Drug research and development which we eventually end up using after the costs have come down.
Meanwhile, back in Canada we’re busy researching new ways to get Canadians accustomed to longer wait times and poor and poorer service, and other new ways to ration our health care. That’s what happens when everyone gets a say in every ones else health care.
Of course, some people with economic and political pull get a lot more “say” than others. These people don’t want themselves or their corporations to pay more taxes to pay for other people’s health care. Besides, these people all have private Health Care Insurance set up in the States. V.I.P’s don’t sit around withering in pain waiting for a hospital bed to free up. They get their hurtin butts onto a plane heading south. Think “Belinda” for a good example of what I’m referring to. And who can blame them. I wonder if Ms Limo Lib journalist is one of them too? And maybe she could ask her fellow Limo Lib Belinda why she went to get her cancer treatments in a country with an “embarrassing mediocre health-care system”.
Then there is the Healthy majority. These people have gone most of their life without being a major burden on the health care system. We all tend to think that this will always be the case. And it’s true, up until the day it isn’t.
Our “Free” health care system isn’t free at all. It’s true costs are paid in pain and suffering of those who have to sit around and wait and wait.
Powell Lucas says:
19 May 2009 at 21:20 (UTC -7 )
It seems that both Ms. Francis and yourself are correct; and this comes from a guy who would rather die on the street like a dog than be committed to one of the germ factories they call hospitals in Canada.
Ms. Francis’ point that Canada’s system lifts the burden of worry about disastrous health care costs from the shoulders of the populace is true. However, it also removes the necessity for taking the responsibility for one’s own health. When people assume a service is “free” they tend to feel no requirement to look after their own well-being. They also feel that every little ailment from sunburn to hangnails is a malady for which they have the right to clog up emergency rooms.
You, on the other hand, are correct in saying that the one-payer system stifles innovation and creates long waiting lists for procedures.
Where, I feel, you both miss the boat is in not confronting the fact that ANY enterprise in which the government bureaucracy becomes involved becomes a bloated, administrative quagmire. It also becomes a political tug-of-war with each side offering more extensive services in an effort to garner votes.
In the U.S. ever increasing numbers of people are denied the benefits of quality health care due to the skyrocketing costs involved for both the care and for comprehensive insurance coverage.
In Canada the bulk of the provinces could not afford the costs of maintaining the system without a huge infusion of cash from the federal government and, ultimately, the taxpayer.
Until such time as the governments in both countries bite the bullet and truly design a health care system that benefits everyone, while limiting the costs, both systems will stagger along with piecemeal approaches that only increase costs while reducing care. However, to do so would require that the politicians and their empire-building bureaucracies, show the intestinal fortitude to face -up to the special interest groups and adopt a system that truly serves the best interests of the nation and its citizens. And…there is as much chance of finding either the politicians or the bureaucrats with enough spine to attempt the necessary reforms as there is of me flapping my arms and flying.
Taliesyn says:
20 May 2009 at 19:25 (UTC -7 )
Powell – you want the government to “bite the bullet and truly design a health care system that benefits everyone, while limiting the costs” – but they can’t do it. You said it yourself: “any enterprise in which the government bureaucracy becomes involved becomes a bloated, administrative quagmire“.
The truth is that until EVERYONE in the system has to face the price of health care can individuals make better choices. Government run insurance might be ok, but government run hospitals are a disaster.
Kez says:
20 May 2009 at 7:32 (UTC -7 )
With so many people to provide care for, any system is going to have problems. However, many of my American friends feel that the Canadian system is fantastic and wonderful and do not heed my warnings about different problems that arise. I just had a British friend comment that she is happy to have the same kind of care as us because she doesn’t have to worry about not having a roof over her head…. I challenge that because I know people right here in Canada who lost their homes because they were out of work SO long waiting for surgery, they could not afford their mortgage or rent with disability (if they even managed to GET disability in the first place). My mom’s friend contributed to the system for over 40 years, paying her taxes and health care premiums, but then had to wait over 2 years for shoulder surgery. Unable to work, her disability was not enough to pay rent. She did not qualify for AISH because it was classed an acute short-term situation, and she lost her home. She moved in with her sister at the age of 64. Talk about a kick in the arse after so many years of hard work! When she finally got surgery, she was over 65 and found it so hard to find another job at that age, she officially retired. She is very disillusioned with the health care system. The same things are starting to happen to my mom who just turned 64. Why bother paying in for decades if you are going to get the shaft at the end? My 49 yr old friend is waiting for an MRI that the doc ordered in Feb but she isn’t getting until August (back problem). Meanwhile, she has to cut her work hours because she can’t take the back pain and doesn’t want to pickle her liver with pain killers all the time and end up with more problems. The list is endless for problems within the system but when I try to explain it to others, they ignore me.
At least you have a choice in the US. You can choose to have more extended health care, choose what kind of treatment you want (even if it’s based on what you can afford, you still get to choose), families can choose to band together and pay for a relative’s treatment, choose choose choose. Here? No choice. Even if you decide not to pay your health care premiums and foot the bill from the hospital, you will get sent to a collections agency and/or court for not paying the premiums (that is what happened to my bf years ago). No choices. Now in Alberta we totally have choices removed with the end of premium payments. We can still choose to get extended health insurance for dental, eye, ambulance, etc but that’s about it. Basic health care – no choice. My mom doesn’t even have a family doc anymore because her’s retired and no others are taking new patients. NEW patient? She has been in Alberta since 1969!
Janet says:
20 May 2009 at 7:38 (UTC -7 )
Taliesyn says when speaking about Canada, “Only the relatively wealthy can afford to seek care outside Canada where they can afford to pay to get the care they need right away”.
Based on my research (to be published shortly), Canadians who leave the public system to get medically necessary care are everyday folks. I have interviewed 50 such people across Canada. They range from loggers to lawyers; homemakers to housebuilders. They spend on average from 2-30 thousand dollars. All reported that “it was worth it”.
Janet
Canadian RN
Cynical Bard says:
21 May 2009 at 11:56 (UTC -7 )
Ms. Francis has definitely gone downhill since going to Harvard. Wm. F. Buckley once said “I would rather be governed by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than the faculty at Harvard University.” Gee, where was out Opposition Leader a Prof?
I am starting through the process of getting treatment, and it appears that the goal of everyone in the system is to delay everything, go around the loop twice instead of once.
The Supreme Court has ruled that peole are dying while waiting, so the proponents of the status quo should tell us how many lives they are prepare to sacrifice on the altar…………
Ira says:
22 May 2009 at 12:01 (UTC -7 )
The costs of the universal system would likely be quite a bit lower if Canada didn’t insist on a government monopoly of healthcare provision.
Of all the OECD countries that have universal health coverage, only Canada requires that the government provide those covered services.
Countries like France and Japan make for far more useful and relevant comparisons than the US does.