Why isn't there a revolution...in Canada, eh?
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Why isn't there a revolution...in Canada, eh?
There ought to be a revolution.
Not here, silly. I'm talking about our friendly neighbors to the north in Canada and our former colonizers in Great Britain. I mean, living under the yoke of socialized medicine all these years...why haven't the Brits and the Canadians started guillotining their politicians and their doctors in the nearest public square? Could it be because the vast, and I mean vast, majority of folks in those countries are happy with a kind of health care that dare not speak its name here in the United States?
The other day last week, the Drudge Report linked to a headline that was certainly Drudge-worthy: "Canadians visit U.S. to get healthcare." It's exactly the kind of A-ha! story that conservatives like Matt Drudge are on the prowl for these days, proof that any kind of government involvement in healthcare can be lethal (except for Medicare...don't dare touch that!). Except like a lot of links on the Drudge Report, if you take the time to read the actual story, it doesn't say what Matt Drudge or his fellow travellers think that it says. Yes, some Canadians come to America -- a neighboring country with nearly 10X as many people and thus a lot more doctors -- for some specialized tests not so easily available there; but in many cases that's an efficiency -- i.e., Canada not spending lots of money on highly specialized equipment that would be underutilized there -- and efficiency is critical to making sure that all get healthcare.
In the part of the story that I doubt Drudge or radio talk hosts read that far in, it notes:
But Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University health economist who has studied the U.S. and Canadian health systems, said arrangements with cities like Detroit "are a terrific way to manage capacity" given Canada's smaller health care budget.
"This is efficient," he said. "At least in Canada, you don't worry about going broke to pay for health care. You do here."
Really. Would it be a horrible indictment of Pennsylvania if someone went to New York, the nation's largest city just 100 miles away (farther than Detroit is from a chunk of Ontario), to get a certain test not as readily available in Philadelphia? In the reality-based world, people in Canada, Europe, or other industrialized nations that provide close-to-universal healthcare aren't complaining about their own systems -- but express bafflement that a prosperous place like America can't do the same.
Recently, some American conservatives appealed to their right-wing brethren across the pond in an effort to get them to relay the horrors of socialized medicine in Britain. The response?
Dr. Rawlins is part of a broad British backlash against American critics that already has landed David Cameron, the leader of the conservative Tories, in trouble. Reports that Daniel Hannan, a Tory member of the European Parliament, criticized the N.H.S. on TV programs in the United States created an uproar, forcing Mr. Cameron to distance himself from Mr. Hannan. Labor ministers gleefully declared Mr. Hannan to be unpatriotic. On Thursday, Mr. Cameron gave a lengthy speech declaring “the conservative party’s commitment to the N.H.S.”
“Conservatives rely on the N.H.S., work in the N.H.S., volunteer to help the N.H.S.,” Mr. Cameron said. “This party wants to improve the N.H.S. for everyone.”
The N.H.S. is very popular in Britain, and if Mr. Cameron ever suggested that he wanted to fundamentally change the system he would “become politically unelectable,” Dr. Rawlins said.
Rawlins goes on to add that Britons and other Europeans are "shocked" that the United States isn't able to provide healthcare to all its citizens. I guess that would be shocking...if you didn't live here, where a stunned majority watches as even a greatly watered-down package that's no where close to the kind of single-payer systems that these nations have still can't get enough traction. Meanwhile, the biggest critics of healthcare in Canada and in Great Britain seem to be...Americans. If a government role in healthcare were so awful, wouldn't their own citizens be the ones manning the barricades?
We already have universal healthcare. When you get shot in North Philly, the hospital doesn't ask for proof of insurance before treaing you. It's just a question of who pays for it at present. I don't favor "reform" simply because, like so much else in this country, people are unwilling to actually, you know, PAY for entitlements and there's no political will to force that issue. So this will just be an excuse to further balloon the deficit.- If we're talking about people traveling from one country to another for health care, let's discuss the many Americans who travel to Mexico, India and other countries for everything from dental fillings to heart operations. The Deloite Center for Health Solutions forecasts that 6 million Americans will travel abroad for medical care by 2010. Savings can be significant. Costs in Mexico, a nation with significant medical tourism, are 20 to 25 percent those in the United States. At an internationally accredited facility in India the cost of heart bypass surgery is $10,000, versus an average of $130,000 in the United States.— JenJen
There is a reason why America is what it is and Canada and Great Britain are what they are. I'm not sure Will can figure that out, but it's pretty obvious.— jmc
bryanc, I've always understood that Canada pays for its citizens to get necessary, non-experimental care in the US if it isn't available to them in their area. Funny you should bring up bureaucracy, since a third of every US health care dollar goes to bureaucratic overhead, while it's only 1 (one) per cent in Canada.
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- bill, when liberals use the word "society", what they hear is "government". They don't seem to understand that there are other ways of of fulfilling the moral obligation of delivering healthcare to a society other than having it provided by the government.— legatus
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- LJL, why I agree with some of your points, the infant mortality rate comparison is skewed based on how a country reports the rate. From my understanding, the U.S. includes younger preterm infants than other countries. so our denominator is much higher relatively.— spags
- although phialsportsfan and ljl resort to the americans are dumb and violent, that's why we have the present system argument. apparently canada and england are utopias.— spags
- "Please- I beg you- move to Canada......" . . . . . LOL, you never know, you might run into that long lost job your company outsourced 20 years ago under Reaganomics.
- JenJen -- if your facts are correct about costs, that's EXACTLY why we do not need a nationalized healthcare system. We need to focus on taking costs OUT of our current system (i.e. huge malpractice insurance fees the doctors have to pay). We need to push generic drugs and encourage doctors to operate in an efficient fashion. Competition generates quality and lower prices. Socialism does not.— IggleFan68
- "They don't seem to understand that there are other ways of of fulfilling the moral obligation of delivering healthcare to a society other than having it provided by the government." . . . . . . . Well, you can always appeal to a hospital administrator's moral sense by using your right to bear arms, I guess.
- "I noticed the Hero of Chappaquiddick didn't head to Canada or Mexico to treat his illness. I wonder why?" . . . . . . Must be that gubmint-funded health insurance he gets.
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