Republican Lies About Canada's Superior Health Care

Just who is this jerk, Rick Scott who bankrolls the propaganda-mongering Conservatives for Patients' Rights? He and his group are fabricating negatives about Canada's health care system and I resent this. I am an American who has lived in Canada for more than 35 years. I can vouch that the system is more than adequate and is not run by civil servants but by doctors who are able to treat everyone, rich or poor.

Mr. Scott, and other conservatives (code for rich) are against universal health care without any justification whatsoever. Their criticisms are in accurate and should not be broadcast.
Where are the ethics in network broadcasting? I saw one of Scott's ads on CNN recently and wondered why the same curation of content was not imposed on CNN advertising messages as is upheld editorially. If CNN is unwilling to vet content, then where is the FCC?
Here are the facts as to why Canada's medical system, far from perfect, is dramatically better than America's:

1. Canadian and European systems are on average 10% of GDP while in 2007 the U.S. cost was 16.2% even though tens of millions were not covered. These escalating costs represent America's biggest competitive disadvantage going forward.

2. Canada's health care system which fully looks after 32 million people costs roughly what the private-sector health insurance companies make in profits in the United States looking after less than half the population for excessive premiums.

3. America's health care system is even more uncompetitive if litigation costs and awards for medical bills are added. One estimate is that this adds another 3% to the 16.2% GDP costs of the American-style health care. In Canada and Europe, medical costs are borne by taxpayers as a whole so there are no court costs and awards necessary.

4. Canada's and Europe's health care systems enhances economic productivity. Workers diagnosed with illnesses can still change employers and be employable because they are not rejected by employers with health benefits due to pre-conditions.

5. Infant mortality is much lower in Canada and Europe than in the U.S.

6. Outcomes with major illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease, are better than in the United States.

7. Longevity is better in Canada and Europe than in the U.S.

8. No emergency is neglected in Canada.

9. Some elective procedures may take longer if compared to blue-ribbon U.S. health care but that's no comparing apples with apples. More appropriately, the overall population's care should be compared and there are tens of millions of Americans who are uninsured or uninsurable.

10. No one in Canada goes broke because of medical bills whereas ARP estimates half of personal bankruptcies are due to unpaid, high medical bills. More Americans go bust or lose their homes due to medical costs than the sub-prime problem.

11. Canadians are able to choose their own physicians and to seek multiple opinions.

12. Canadian doctors and nurses are better trained than American counterparts and U.S. physicians must study for at least a year in order to qualify to practice in Canada.

13. Drugs made and invented in the United States are cheaper in Canada, Europe and Japan because our communal health care means volume discounts and savings passed along to society. Americans are overpaying.

14. Americans are being cheated by a patchwork quilt system where the highest risk people -- veterans, the indigent and elderly -- are insured by governments but the "gravy" or young, healthy people are handed over to private insurance companies.

Is Canada's system perfect? Or Europe's? No and nobody said it was. Networks should stop allowing propagandists to tell lies and any arguments about other countries' practices should be ignored as totally irrelevant.

The United States is a rich and talented nation and it's very upsetting to me, as an American, that it does not have the world's best medical care for its citizens instead of one of the worst.
Americans deserve better.

Comments

[JuliaRain]

Please post this article on your front page, Huffpost!

Please!!

[CJWebber]

Articles which make other countries look superior to the U.S. won't end up on the front page.

[TheFriendlyAtheist]

Sounds like a great system to me. To bad that our new president and his party have blocked any attempt to get single payer in the United States. They should be ashamed and anyone who keeps supporting them should be ashamed too.

[JuliaRain]

Very important article.

Please post this on your front page Huffpost Thank you!

[joebaggadonuts]

Thank you very much for reporting the truth, Diane.

I think if you notice the vast population of fat unhealthy people we have here and think of our corporate industrial food production you will see a very uncomfortable thing. Neither Canada nor any of the other countries who have universal single payer healthcare have such populations of morbidly obese people. Industrial feedlots production of meat animals produces many unhealthily fattened animals with no regard to their individual health.

As the adbusters organization (which I think originated in Canada) once noticed: We are the product. In AMerica it's all about how much money they can make from our existance that counts. For the "Healthcare Industry" and its parasitic symbiote the Insurance Industry, for the auto industry, for the oil industry, and so on.

We recently started a revolution by voting out the GOP and voting in Obama. We have hope, but we have FAR to go.

[JuliaRain]

Here is some more on Rick Scott.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002243.html?hpid=topnews

[JuliaRain]

Bravo.

[S1m0n]

Diane Francis is as close to an economic libertarian as Canadian political journalism gets. if she's on side, the evidence is overwhelming.

She's got #13 a bit wrong, however. Drug costs are lower here because in the 80s the federal government agreed to a drug patent law change that the industry wanted, on the condition that a cost-based* national pricing system be established. All new drug prices are regulated by that board, after negotiation with the drug company.

*In contrast with the 'value' pricing model big pharma follows in the US.

[totalliberal]

My daughter is an anesthesiologist in Canada. She makes around $420,000 per year. In fact she makes enough to spend 2 months of every year working for Doctors Without Boarders, (Which worries me greatly.) She is a Canadian and she tells me she would never work in America. I guess money isn't everything.

PS: By the way, she doesn't spend half of her time trying to collect from insurance companies.

[lisakaz2]

I'd love to know how they treat lyme disease. I get the royal runaround here (or have).

[S1m0n]

You go to a doctor. He diagnoses and treats whatever it is. If you need referral to a specialist, he can make the referral. If he does, it's deemed medically necessary, and medicare covers it. If you need admission to hospital and/or tests or day surgery, etc., you make an appointment and go.

All procedures are covered in full, as are all medications dispensed in hospital. Drugs not dispensed in hospital have regulated prices, but are not covered. Many provinces have drug plans for seniors and low-income earners, which pay most or all of the cost in those cases. Employee benefit plans frequently include prescription benefits, and private insurance can also be purchased, if need be. Usually, there's little hardship and everyone gets the meds they need.

[PlaceboStudman]

Ya know I am really getting tired of people saying that UHC will be the magic fix it pill to all our health care problems. It won't be. it will be a partial fix to ONE aspect of a multifaceted problem of including more people into the system and getiting them health care. It does not, however, do one single thing to address the needs of all the people who are getting care (which would be considerably more after UHC is implemented) but whose care is substandard to poor. Giving more people access to care will not do anything to prevent those people from suffering or dying from long term chronic disabilities, many of which people are born with. Nor will UHC do anything to improve the medicines and technology we currently receive. If I hear one more person disregard the millions of people who are dying from poor quality care in this country, I will scream. if I hear one more person say that UHC will help people dying from liver kidney and heart failure due to substandard drugs I will scream. No one, has openly and honestly addressed what anyone is going to tell the families of those of us who die because we were given medicines and treatments and procedures that are far far worse than the ailment they were intended to treat, but we were told we had no choice because we would die without them...exc­ept we're dying WITH them, and faster.

[Canadian Paul]

If you're going to die, you're going to die and there isn't anything either system can do to stop it.

However, one of the focuses of the Canadian system is preventative health care. Doctors try and encourage behavior which leads to better health. Being able to see your doctor quickly and without worrying about costs may enable them to diagnose issues before they become a larger problem. Record sharing among doctors, hospitals, specialists also play a role.

5. Infant mortality is much lower in Canada and Europe than in the U.S.

6. Outcomes with major illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease, are better than in the United States.

7. Longevity is better in Canada and Europe than in the U.S.

While some of these may be attributable to reduced access to Denny's Grand Slam breakfasts, the medical system does play a role.

Will single payer fix all the problems, of course not, but it may help improve the overall health of the population as a whole.

[algebragirl]

Is Canada's system perfect? Probably not. Do Canadians know that getting seriously ill will not bankrupt them and wipe out their life savings? Hell, yes, and it makes them one of the happiest nations in the world.
France's system if the gold standard, by the way. Countries manage health care; it's not a mystery. We don't and act like we can't. That's a mystery!

[Dbos]

"No one goes broke because of illness'' . Enough said .

[PlaceboStudman]

That one is awfully vague to me. They may not go bankrupt from paying so much, but there very well may be people who are afflicted with something that prevents them from working and they may go broke from their inability to work and earn money

[Canadian Paul]

In that case, they may qualify for "long term disability", so they receive money from the government. It's not a lot of money, but certainly enough to pay for living expenses. They won't be living high on the hog, but they'll be taken care of.

[Diane Francis - Huffpost Blogger]

We have a brain drain medically from Canada and Europe and other countries because your doctors and nurses are overpaid sometimes as are your CEOs, in certain specialities.

Procedures cost many times more in the U.S. than in Canada and doctors make obscene amounts of money.

If the U.S. had the same system, where doctors are not overpaid or charge excessive amounts to cover their malpractice insurance premiums due to lawsuits, there would be little or no brain drain except in certain circumstances.

[S1m0n]

The brain drain's a bit of a hoax. Canada comes out even, in that roughly the equal numbers of medical professionals immigrate to Canada as leave. Those who do leave often return within five years.

[-0013]

"If the U.S. had the same system, where doctors are not overpaid or charge excessive amounts to cover their malpractice insurance premiums due to lawsuits, there would be little or no brain drain except in certain circumstan­ces."

What we need down here is tort reform to get rid of all the bs lawsuits people file against doctors not a cut in doctor's pay.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

Lawsuits are NOT the basis of EXCESSIVE physicians' fees in the U.S.; it's part collusion and part a sense of entitlement!!!

[CJWebber]

I am Canadian and lived in Canada my whole life. Neither I, anyone in my family, any relative nor any neighbour has ever gone to the U.S. for health care. That Canadians can't get decent health care so they swarm across the border to the U.S. in order to see a doctor is a complete fallacy. Really, why would we? How insane would that be? There is no waiting to see a GP. I can always be seen within 3 days of making an appt, if I don't want to wait a couple of days then I go to a walk-in clinic and am seen immediately. I choose my doctor. If I am not happy with him/her, I get another. There is generally a wait time to see specialists, but that has to do with the number of specialists not the healthcare system. The system isn't perfect by any means, but it sure beats the U.S. one. (if I really want to wait some time after making an appt I will make an appt with a dentist. And they are not a part of the healthcare system).

[N3rfgun]

I am a Canadian so I'll throw in my 2.5 cents.

Practically everyone I know is satisfied with the health system. It certainly causes no stress. You *know* that whatever happens to you, and however much money you have, you will be looked after. No one has any doubt about that.

As to UltraClassic's point: there's a good quote in Sicko that speaks to this point. There are Canadian doctors and nurses who do go and work in the states because in private practice you can make a silly amount of money, if the demand is there and you are specialized. The quote went something like: "In Canada and Europe doctors make enough money to buy a nice car and house. In the US, if you want it, you can potentially make enough for TWO nice houses and cars." So naturally some people go to make some money down south.

The only downside is, as the author said, "blue-ribbon" services (CAT scans and the like) can potentially take longer to get in Canada, but I'm not sure if that holds up... my father, who is a retired banker of some seniority, has access to pseudo-private same-day services he can avail himself of, IF he wants to pay more. Which honestly sounds like a pretty good compromise to me.