this canadian is sick and tired of the smear
Not because I think most of you on my flist need it, but maybe you can link others to it. This is a great article addressing the myths about the Canadian health care system.
Debunking Canadian health care myths, in the Denver Post.
From it being financially impossible:
Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.
Ten percent of Canada's GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada's. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.
to it being too bureaucratic:
Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.
The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.
to wait times:
Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.
There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada. There are reasonable waits for most specialists' care, and much longer waits for elective surgery. Yes, there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S. for all cancers combined, according to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group and the Canadian Cancer Society. Moreover, fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent) admit unmet health care needs.
All these ones in particular have been driving me *nuts* to read over and over again.
If all of this is true, why is the question so hard? I think it comes down to a fundamental ideological difference between Canada and the US (or Europe and the US, to a greater extreme). The US is all about individual rights, freedom of the individual, and capitalism at it's heart - look at the Amendments, that's what they're all about. That's what the country was founded on. If you can't afford it, it's because you as an individual haven't worked hard enough, and that's your problem. You control your own destiny. But is society actually set up to support that? Historic biases, the hit-and-miss of privilege tells it it's not, and than the American Dream is really just that - a dream.
Canada, not so much. We're not as socialist as Europe, but we do, in the majority, lack the foundation of "individual over society". Rather, the welfare of the whole of society is superior to the rights of the individual. What does that mean? Well, it means we expect our rich to give up the right to snap their fingers for instant care so that every member of society can have access to equally good medical care. It's obvious, but only when you switch the lens around. All of the arguments against socialize health care essentially boil down to "but my right to get whatever I can pay for is more important than equality". I'm not going to say that's the wrong mindset, but it's not mine and not one I want governing the country I live in.
Debunking Canadian health care myths, in the Denver Post.
From it being financially impossible:
Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.
Ten percent of Canada's GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada's. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.
to it being too bureaucratic:
Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.
The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.
to wait times:
Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.
There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada. There are reasonable waits for most specialists' care, and much longer waits for elective surgery. Yes, there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S. for all cancers combined, according to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group and the Canadian Cancer Society. Moreover, fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent) admit unmet health care needs.
All these ones in particular have been driving me *nuts* to read over and over again.
If all of this is true, why is the question so hard? I think it comes down to a fundamental ideological difference between Canada and the US (or Europe and the US, to a greater extreme). The US is all about individual rights, freedom of the individual, and capitalism at it's heart - look at the Amendments, that's what they're all about. That's what the country was founded on. If you can't afford it, it's because you as an individual haven't worked hard enough, and that's your problem. You control your own destiny. But is society actually set up to support that? Historic biases, the hit-and-miss of privilege tells it it's not, and than the American Dream is really just that - a dream.
Canada, not so much. We're not as socialist as Europe, but we do, in the majority, lack the foundation of "individual over society". Rather, the welfare of the whole of society is superior to the rights of the individual. What does that mean? Well, it means we expect our rich to give up the right to snap their fingers for instant care so that every member of society can have access to equally good medical care. It's obvious, but only when you switch the lens around. All of the arguments against socialize health care essentially boil down to "but my right to get whatever I can pay for is more important than equality". I'm not going to say that's the wrong mindset, but it's not mine and not one I want governing the country I live in.