The scare ads and op-ed pieces featuring Canadians telling us American how terrible their government health-care systems have arrived - predictably.
There's another, factual view - by those of us Americans who've lived in Canada and used their system.
My wife and I did for years, and we've been incensed by the lies we've heard back here in the U.S. about Canada's supposedly broken system.
It's not broken - and what's more, Canadians like and fiercely defend it.
Example: Our son was born at Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital. My wife got excellent care. The total bill for three days in a semi-private room? $21.
My friend Art Finley is a West Virginia native who lives in Vancouver.
"I'm 82, and in excellent health," he told me this week. "It costs me all of $57 a month for health care, and it's excellent. I'm so tired of all the lies and bullshit I hear about the system up here in the U.S. media."
Finley, a well-known TV and radio host for years in San Francisco, adds,
"I now have 20/20 vision thanks to Canadian eye doctors. And I haven't had to wait for my surgeries, either."
A Canadian-born doctor wrote a hit piece for Wingnut Central (the Wall Street Journal op-ed page) this week David Gratzer claimed:
"Everyone in Canada is covered by a single payer -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system."Vancouverite Finley: "That's sheer b.s."
I heard Gratzer say the same thing on Seattle radio station KIRO this week. Trouble is, it's nonsense.
We were always seen promptly by our doctors in Montreal, many of whom spoke both French and English.
Today, we live within sight of the Canadian border in Washington state, and still spend lots of time in Canada.
Five years ago, while we were on vacation in lovely Nova Scotia, the Canadian government released a long-awaited major report from a federal commission studying the Canadian single-payer system. We were listening to CBC Radio the day the big study came out.
The study's conclusion: While the system had flaws, none was so serious it couldn't be fixed.
Then the CBC opened the lines to callers across Canada.
Here it comes, I thought. The usual talk-show torrent of complaints and anger about the report's findings.
I wish Americans could have heard this revealing show.
For the next two hours, scores of Canadians called from across that vast country, from Newfoundland to British Columbia.
Not one said he or she would change the system. Every single one defended it vigorously.
The Greatest Canadian Ever
Further proof:
Not long ago, the CBC asked Canadians to nominate and then vote for The Greatest Canadian in history. Thousands responded.
The winner? Not Wayne Gretzky, as I expected (although the hockey great DID make the Top 10). Not even Alexander Graham Bell, another finalist.
The greatest Canadian ever?
Tommy Douglas.
Who? Tommy Douglas was a Canadian politician - and the father of Canadian universal health care.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-francis/republican-lies-about-can_b_201521.html
5. Infant mortality is much lower in Canada and Europe than in the U.S.
7. Longevity is better in Canada and Europe than in the U.S
The U.S. mortality rate and logevity rate includes non-citizens and first generation immigrants (who really represent the outcome of customs and conditions in their home country). When controlled for demographics, the U.S. comes out ahead. For example, Americans of Swedish descent suffer a lower infant mortality rate than do Swedes. Same is true of Americans of Canadian descent. To compare "Europe" overall with the U.S. one would need to include Turkey and Russia. In which case infant mortality is about twice as high in Europe as it is in the U.S.A.
Robert
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So, maybe if you remove immigrants from the US numbers and not from Canada's numbers... or create an apples to oranges comparison... then you are right.
Basically you are saying "Yeah, but if you take the dead people out of our mortality numbers, we do better!"
Bogus.
What nay sayers have never been able to explain is what horrible event will happen if we have a national health care system like other countries? What specifically are you afraid of.
And don't get me started on pro-lifers. They will be legitimized overnight. Right now our main argument against them is that the healthcare is a private matter and that they should mind their own business. With public care it will suddenly BECOME their business, and quite legitimately. Anything run by a democratic government is subject to the full force of public and political opinion and compromise. Succesful public healthcare has been in those countries where the populations are quite homongenous and there is relatively little disagreement on most major issues. Think Sweden and Japan (or, um, Canada).
Robert
If you want to comment on this thought, Janet, do it quickly, or 'JULIA' will reply for you!
In any society people pay for services they don't use because some other person pays for services they do use. Think about, K-12 school, levees, universities, food stamps, libraries, soil conservation, bridges, police protection, fire protection, rural electrification, dams, irrigation channels, airports, harbors, roads, storm clean-up, farm and industry subsidy, the armed services. You pay taxes for all these services whether you use them or not. Why should the health of the nation be of concern to all of us.
Living off the grid is always possible. Some do it by choice some have no choice.
That seems inordinately selfish. I don't think a very dynamic, or healthy society is based on that kind of selfishness when basic services are concerned.
BTW Canada has a mind bendingly divers population, from the Innuit in the Arctic to the French in Quebec from the Scots in Nova Scotia to the Tlingit in the west and all the Asians, Indians, Jamaicans , etc in between. They even have 3 official languages.
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" if the US had implemented public healthcare in 1890, then today we would all be benefiting from an equal and fair and inexpensive access to 1890 quality healthcare."
This is just silliness. You can't really believe this kind of nonsense.
We covered R+D about 10 and 20 pages ago and debunked the lies surrounding it. The EXACT same lies as you are spewing here. Please keep up.
However, I will give America credit for clusterf__ks like this:
Pfizer Reaches Settlement In Nigerian Drug-Trial Case
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040301877.html?hpid=moreheadlines
"In 2007, Nigeria's federal government and the state of Kano filed four civil and criminal actions against Pfizer and 10 individuals, including former Pfizer chief executive William C. Steere Jr. The actions sought $9 billion in restitution and damages, and included 31 criminal counts, including homicide."
Unless you got something new for us, don't come back until you've gotten informed. Thank you.
I'm also angry at the American system for endangering my life & the lives of fellow Canadians! If you want to endanger your own; that's your business, but illness doesn't recognize national boundaries. If I'm sick, I see a doctor (&, no, I don't have long waits for routine visits & can see a doctor immediately if I think something's wrong). I can be diagnosed & treated quickly. In the NYT, I recently read that young Americans who have lost their jobs, &, with it, their health insurance, do things like take their friends' left-over, outdated antibiotics (which may be the wrong antibiotic for their cases) because they can't afford to see a doctor. This is a perfect recipe for the development of drug-resistant bacteria. The US's present system creates a public health disaster waiting to happen, and the result could easily be a world-wide pandemic that would make swine flu look like nothing. The US should take responsibility for it's own illnesses instead of foisting disease on the rest of us. Get a single-payer plan!
If I go to my doctor and tell her I would like some unnecessay cosmetic surgery done she will probably suggest a clinic which will charge me for it - or I could go to New York - or India or or.....
The point is people in Emergency who are urgently ill get cared for before people who can wait. It is the small price we pay for doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. The $ is NOT king in our system as it is in the American system. I would have a hard time trusting an American doctor because the $ is king - he makes his money from my hide! So does the Canadian doctor but it is much less direct - I think there is
One colleague waited weeks to get gall bladder surgery. Finally she became an emergency after her gall bladder became infected. Another woman was on a waiting list to see a specialist with an estimated wait time of months, with intense pain. She finally paid her own way to the US. A newspaper reported a man who had a stroke while waiting for treatment of a broken leg, due to a shortage of operating rooms.
I heard many stories of people who "knew somebody" so they could jump the queue. I heard you could just pay a doctor $1000 to jump the queue.
Maybe you get fast service for certain preventive care (such as a mammogram). Parents of a daughter with an eating disorder were very grateful. But scheduling surgery was problematic. People were given a date, then the date got pushed back, and pushed back again.
And don't forget the taxes. You come out ahead in Canada if you're low-income or uninsurable...and you don't mind waiting in pain.
THIS IS A LIE.
HIT AND RUN TRO//
I am still waiting to find out how much tax you do pay per year compared to Canadians if you added your insurance premiums to it. No one has ever mentioned the totals.
Americans you have to decide what is best for you. You know all the systems out there. Figure out what works for you. Do your own research. Check UN sites for statistics of disease outcomes, infant mortality, etc. If you let the lobby groups decide for you then there is no one to blame but yourself.
Well Croatia does rank 43. I guess that is worse than America's 37th rank.
I guess standards aren't very high with some of you.
At $3,500 per capita it is far less than the $6,100 per person in the U.S.
French healthcare is provided by autonomous private practitioners. Doctors agreed to participate in compulsory health insurance if the law protected a patient's choice of practitioner and guaranteed physicians' control over medical decision-making.
French doctors have complete freedom of diagnosis and therapy, unlike in the U.S. where insurance company middlemen often overrule doctors by refusing to pay for treatments.
Sécurité Sociale has created a standardized and speedy system for physician billing and patient reimbursement using electronic funds. French doctors’ offices don’t have armies of billing specialists who do daily battle with insurers' arcane and constantly changing rules of payment. It's not uncommon to visit a French medical office and see no nonmedical personnel.
There are no waiting lists for elective procedures and patients need not seek pre-authorizations, as U.S. insurance companies usually require.
JUST STOP! If Canadians were as resentful as some Americans are to their fellow, lower income citizens, we would take you to court for slander!
http://www.windsorstar.com/goes+Buffalo+life+saving+treatment/1702800/story.html
And this man is, too:
Mr. Esmail, based in Calgary, is the director of Health System Performance Studies at The Fraser Institute.
"Canadian healthcare: Age 57 "too old" for hip surgery"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123413701032661445.html
Oh, yes, despite all the problems this young man had, his treatment is still covered by his single-payer health insurance. How much would an uninsured American pay?
I don't see any republicans giving up the insurance provided by their constituents. If repubs really think that UHC is evil, why the he.ck are they using it? If it's so bad, why don't they give it up and get private insurance? WHY?
If I start hearing about how "health care" isn't part of the Constitution or how doctors will become "slaves", I will have to accuse you of medical profiteering.
There is no incentive for us Canadians to defend our health care system to Americans. Many of us just feel that Americans should have health care. We do not wish to see you suffer, or in pain, or dying simply because you weren't born to rich parents.
It's cruel and evil to deny health care to those who are hurting.
Medical profiteering isn't much different than War profiteering as far as I am concerned. Both are criminal.
Republican Lies About Canada's Superior Health Care
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-francis/republican-lies-about-can_b_201521.html
Debunking Canadian health care myths
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427
The Cost Conundrum
What a Texas town can teach us about health care
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande
Ex-Hospital CEO Battles Reform Effort
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002243.html?hpid=topnews
At least have the courage and conviction to defend your beliefs.
I dare you. I double dare you.
And I double dare you to NOT mention Belinda.