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The Truth About Canadian Healthcare
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the debate over a public healthcare option in the US is that in some ways, it's turning into a debate over the efficacy of the healthcare system in Canada. Canadians have taken a keen interest in the discussion in the US, not simply because it's familiar territory (we debate the efficiency of our healthcare system endlessly), but because our name keeps getting dragged through the mud.
The most shocking of these disdainful remarks on the Canadian system has come from a Canadian. Shona Holmes, from Waterdown, Ontario is currently featured in US ads run by the Americans For Prosperity Foundation (through a group called Patients United Now), warning of the dangers of Canadian-style healthcare. Holmes was told she would have to wait to be treated for a "rare type of cyst at the base of the brain", so she went to the US to pay for the treatment. She now warns Americans: "If I had relied on my government for healthcare, I'd be dead."
These ads began running only days after Fox host Glenn Beck flew into a rage on his radio show at a caller who suggested that the US adopt universal healthcare. During his rant (before he called his listener a "pinhead" and told her to "get off my phone!") Beck mentioned Canada's healthcare system. He said sarcastically:
Canada has a great healthcare. That's why people are suing. That's why, in Canada, they have a lottery. They have a lottery system. Who gets to go see a doctor this month in Canada?
Are they right? In a way, yes. Canada's system isn't perfect, and Canadians will – evidently – be the first to admit it. But there is a problem with the way it is being portrayed – namely that both Beck and Patients United Now (PUN) are leaving out the details. It's easier to scare people that way.
The Canadian healthcare system is complicated and is in many ways much different than the public healthcare systems in the UK and France. In effect, it's predominantly a provincial system with coverage, hospital wait times and access to private, for-profit clinics differing in each region. The funding comes from the federal government and is distributed to the provinces under the Canada Health Transfer, with the poorer provinces receiving more than the rich ones.
The 10 provincial programmes differ, but all fall under Medicare, the largest public health programme. (The federal government is directly responsible only for a few groups in Canada, like the military and Aboriginals.) Canadians who aren't covered by a private insurer will sometimes pay premiums to their province, depending on where they live. It's not much and varies depending on income, but it guarantees treatment. In each province, there are private practices and clinics, with public hospitals overseen by regional health authorities.
Canadians are obviously also covered if their employer offers private insurance, or if they can afford it themselves.
Both Beck and PUN argue that if the US system were so terrible, people from other nations – nations with universal healthcare – wouldn't be lining up to pay for treatment in America. This is supposed to be an indictment of the universal systems that exist, but all it means is that these individuals had money. Holmes re-mortgaged her house to pay for her treatment and is now suing the Ontario Health Insurance Programme to recoup her losses – an experience that is admittedly terrible. But the fact remains: she gathered the necessary cash.
If you have the money, the US system works very well, but it also allows for, and often encourages individuals or companies to make a profit, and generally caters most to the rich. People make money in the Canadian system, too, but the system itself is not as exclusive. Profits can be made, but everyone has to be treated.
Both PUN and Beck only truly defend the US healthcare system on the fact that the government is barely involved, rather than its effectiveness. Beck, specifically, is boastful of US health innovation but ignores the fact that it is unavailable to a large portion of Americans. Those who don't qualify for coverage from Medicaid and aren't rich enough to pay insurance premiums or get private help are basically on their own. And with businesses shedding their insurance coverage due to cost, more and more Americans will find themselves in that lonely middle ground. What do they do then?
They may have to do the same as Holmes.
Are there wait times in Canada? Yes, sometimes lengthy ones. Are taxes higher because of universal healthcare? Yes, but a hospital visit is worth something. Will you be treated, no matter your coverage or income? Yes.
Does the government decide what treatment you get? No, your doctor does. Does your insurance company decide what treatment you get? Again, no, your doctor does.
The universal healthcare system in Canada is a source of pride here. In a CBC poll to find the Greatest Canadian, the winner, Tommy Douglas, was the man who first introduced it. Canadians also smugly enjoy having something that the Americans don't.
But Americans can have it, if they want. People like Glenn Beck believe that a public healthcare option is a step toward socialism. It's not. Essentially, it comes down to knowing that you're taking a hit so someone else who can't doesn't have to, and knowing the same would be available for you if it were reversed. It's simple: it's about people, not profits.
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8 Comments so far
Show All"But Americans can have it, if they want."
No, they can't.
It's not a question of Americans wanting it. Most do. It's a question of what their government's paid sponsors will perimit.
And, if you don't understand that, you obviously fail to comprehend the "greatest democracy on earth" wherein corporate dollars are votes and human voters are merely a periodic inconvenience for endorsing their own non-representative governance.
The U.S. has government programs for people over 65, government officials (like the ones haggling in D.C.), some of the poor, some children, and the military. I don't hear complaints that those have led us toward socialism, don't adequately provide services, and should be dismantled.
This is pretty substandard writing about a rather simple debate: Americans, notwithstanding trash-talkers like Beck, would definitely prefer a system that covers all citizens equally. The amount of obfuscation and outright deceptive 'truthiness' that commentators (like Horgan) are loading this story with is tremendously annoying. The fact is most people outside of Canada (or in U. S. of Alberta!) don't know what they're talking about, and so they talk even more...
I am a middle aged Canadian who recently had heart surgery. While it was not critical at the time, doctors made a decision to correct a faulty mitral valve before it got worse. I became familiar with both my cardiologist and surgeon in the months beforehand, each of whom turned out to be among the best in their profession in our province. Because of their unsurpassed expertise, I didn't worry about a thing. As an unemployed guy with no special privileges, I can not only say the system works well, but beyond expectation.
Ms. Holmes has since been discredited as a misleading 'witness' to the weaknesses of our health care system. Horgan seems quite unaware of this. I can tell you as someone from Hamilton Ontario (which includes Waterdown), citizens are fuming about her treasonous behavior. It's hard to get people riled up here, but in this case the deception is too unforgivable.
While politicos keep wasting time with this debate, many people in my position in the U.S. will not even make it to a waiting list. Their stories never get presented, and the impasse keeps insurance and drug companies as powerful as ever.
Horgan: "It's simple: it's about people, not profits."
That explains it. America is about profits before people.
I married an American 15 years ago. At the start, we had a dicussion about whether I should move to the States or he to Canada. Two major considerations - job security for him and health insurance for both of us, and his teenage daughter.
The practice of making every worker a free-lancer or a subcontractor made his job prospects insecure, whereas I had a secure, unionized career in Canada. Also - and this is a major consideration, our single-payer universal health care was something I was not willing to give up. The presence of a child in our life made that mandatory. In addition to the universal health care, I had a private plan that could cover my family for discretionary items such as massage, orthotics, dental care, optical, etc.
No way I was willing to give those up for "Freedom" and "Opportunity".
My husband, thanks to the importation/imposition of the American business model, is still a freelancer/subcontractor. But here, universal health care covers him. And this came in handy, when a Canadian doctor, a specialist in rare auto-immune diseases, diagnosed and treated him for a rare condition - all covered by the universal health care system.
You can't progress as a civilization if you can't count on the basics of life.
Solution: Each US citizen take 500 aspirins and call 911 in the morning.
It's hard to read this article when the guys gets some basic facts wrong about our health care system. For example the federal government doesn't pay for health care in the country. The feds do provide an unconditional grant for health called the Canada Health Transfer they also provide an unconditional grant for social services and post-secondary education called the Canada Social Transfer. Provinces and territories can use the federal funds for whatever they deem necessary and do if the reporter had even causally glanced at a provincial budget. I think Alberta and I know Ontario nominally collect income taxes which they call health premiums but which are really nothing more than income surtaxes. I'm not aware of any order of government in Canada which ear-marks any taxes for any public service or good. I'd expect most Canadian finance ministers would resign if any nutty group tried to impose ear-marked taxes on any fiscal structure. You can call a tax anything you want for the slow-witted in your society but the funds will simply flow into the general coffers to be allocated amongst all competing government demands.
I also don't think our system is complex.
As with almost all discussions, this one utterly fails to calculate the global cost of securing health care in favor of a side-remark about 'higher taxes'.
Would you pay higher taxes if you paid less on health insurance and health-related expenses? If you could be certain that you will always be covered, regardless of employment? If you could limit the risks to yourself and the economy of epidemic diseases? If you could limit the costs to the medical system of dealing with patients who can't pay, which will inevitably be bounced back onto those who can?
The only question worth asking is how much it costs, total, to get what you need. A tax dollar is not a pound of flesh: it is just a dollar, one of many you will spend on keeping your world afloat.