Posted on 07/02/2009 4:25:54 PM PDT by Libloather
Canada's in the spotlight as debate on health care reform rages in the U.S.
Published Thursday July 2nd, 2009
Lee-Anne Goodman, THE CANADIAN PRESS
WASHINGTON - It's rare that anything to do with Canada is front and centre in the minds of Americans, but the Canadian health-care system has been a hot topic of discussion over the past few weeks as Capitol Hill legislators work on a massive health-care overhaul.
From hair salons to hospital waiting rooms and Georgetown dinner parties, Americans have wanted to know: "What's health care really like in Canada?"
"Is it true no one can get a family doctor in Canada?" came the query from a Commerce Department employee earlier this week at a Canada Day barbecue at the Canadian Embassy.
No, it's not true, came the reply.
"But don't people have to wait weeks or months for special services?" Occasionally, was the response from another Canadian.
Is it really true that every single Canadian is covered?" Yes, came the rousing, in-unison answer from the entire group of Canadians involved in the discussion.
The Canadian health-care system will likely remain a subject of fascination for Americans with health-care reform expected to dominate Congress when it returns to work on Monday after the Fourth of July recess.
By the end of the month, the House of Representatives hopes to vote on a health reform plan, and President Barack Obama has said he wants legislation by October.
On Thursday, the two leaders of the Senate health committee announced that they'd come up with a government-run insurance option to compete with private insurance plans.
Its US$611 billion pricetag is cheaper than the original $1 trillion estimate, something that's expected to draw more bipartisan support. Under the plan, say Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd, 97 per cent of Americans will end up with health insurance coverage.
Currently, 47 million U.S. citizens - mostly the impoverished - have none. The U.S. also has the highest health-care costs of any country in the industrialized world.
In weeks of congressional hearings and debate on health-care reform, Canada has often enjoyed a starring role - sometimes cast as the demonic bogeyman, and other times a towering beacon of virtue.
There have been TV ads warning of the alleged horrors of the Canadian system, and Republican pollster Frank Luntz even advised his colleagues to "use horror stories from Canada" while opposing Obama's health-care agenda.
"They do resonate," he said in a memo obtained in May by various media outlets.
Even Obama seemed to acknowledge this week the American distrust of Canada's single-payer health-care system, even though many of his Democratic colleagues have spent weeks defending their neighbour to the north during congressional hearings on health reform.
"Whenever you start hearing these arguments about socialized medicine, government takeover, rationing, Canada-style health care - what I need you to do, and I need everybody here to do and everybody who's watching to do, is to actually pay attention to the argument," Obama told a town hall meeting in Virginia.
"Don't let people scare you out of reforming a system that we know is not working."
During various hearings, Republicans have frequently called witnesses - some of them from Canada - to debunk Canadian public health care as a decrepit system plagued with problems and delays.
Belinda Stronach's decision to travel to the U.S. for a medical procedure after suffering breast cancer two years ago frequently came up during the debate, even though associates of the former MP say her trip to California for reconstructive surgery had nothing to do with Canada's health-care system.
Some lesser-known Canadians have figured in the debate. Mitch McConnell, a Republican senator from Kentucky, recently spoke of a Canadian named Fran Tooley from Kingston, Ont., as he apparently obeyed Luntz's directives.
"Two years ago, Fran herniated three discs in her back and was told it would take at least a year before she could consult a neurosurgeon about her injury," he said.
A Manitoba-born physician, David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute thinktank, has been a Republican favourite, frequently appearing to assail the Canadian system.
"Look north of the 49th parallel and you don't find a compassionate system. You find people waiting and, to use your words, in some cases dying," he said.
"We need policy reform and regulatory reform and tax reform to build on what is good with this system and not to end up with a system far worse, like you see in Canada or Britain or right across the western world."
Some Democrats bitterly disputed Gratzer's bleak descriptions of the Canadian system.
"I think all of you have done a pretty good job of trashing the health-care system in Canada and in Ireland and in Europe, generally," said Charlie Rangel, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Another Democrat pointed out that U.S. places well above Canada and the U.K. in infant mortality rates, and has a higher rate of patient deaths due to doctor error.
As well, said Xavier Becerra, a Democratic congressman from California, life expectancy in Canada and the U.K. is higher than it is in the U.S.
"So, perhaps there are reasons to rail against what Canada and Great Britain do, but I got to tell you, if you want to live longer, if you want to have a better chance of living when you first are born, or if you want to make sure you don't die from some basic medical error, you may be better off living in some of these other countries," he said.
Another observer from afar took aim at Republican fear-mongering about Canadian health care.
"I'm 82, and in excellent health," Art Finley, a West Virginia native now living in Vancouver, recently told the Huffington Post.
"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."
And can't a Canadian doctor decline medication because the patient isn't worth it?
Yes. (Pssssst - that's how the gubmint 'keeps costs down'.)
For your reading pleasure - Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins, Its Architect Admits (crushed in only 40 years!)
I think all the MSM screaming, stomping and headlining of the Jackson death,(and stringing it out for weeks), is part of the Obama smokescreen to mask the health care farse, Poloski-CIA rumble, giving more BILLIONS to Fanny Mae,and 101 other sligh of hand lib trickery. The White House is in lock step with the MSM to ruin America.
Charlie Rangel: (A crooked, socialist, liberal American hack politician):
"I think all of you have done a pretty good job of trashing the health-care system in Canada and in Ireland and in Europe, generally..."
Gee. Who ya gonna believe? I'm so conflicted.
I’m Canadian and had a liver transplant 2 yrs ago. I was on government disability benefits and the operation cost me nothing. I get all my anti-rejection drugs for free.
If I’d lived in the States the transplant would have cost me $250,000 and the life time medications would be costing me $2,000 a month. I would have had to sell my home.
I had to wait for the transplant a long time, but they kept me in the hospital for almost a year before to keep me alive. I’m so happy to be alive.
Yes, I am so thankful that I didn’t lose my home and I’m living life to it’s fullest. I go RVing, kayaking and after going through hell, I’m not fiancially stressed.
Yes, we have to wait too long for hip replacements, MRI’s etc., but we’re working to improve those things.
I’m Conservative, and I’m thankful for our Health Care.
Swell!!!!
So you are currently costing the Candadian government $2,000 a month to keep you alive... $24,000 a year.
Dang, you are one expensive puppy.
The flaw in your line is simply that the Canadian Health Care doesn't pay for or supply medication to patients .
btw, Some one should tell David Gratzer that when he says " a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor." he's wrong on that one too . Norwalk Ontario, is not in Ontario. It's in Ohio.
Some poorer women in the US don't bother getting pre-natal care, even though it's available through Medicaid. So that government health care that already exists isn't helping them in any way. As for higher rate of patient deaths, that's probably because there are more risky procedures done in the US, because there's more innovation with the private health care facilities.
One way to judge the two systems is to see how many US doctors are moving to Canada to practice medicine (I've never heard of any), compared with Canadian doctors heading south to the US.
More physicians returning to Canada The number of physicians who moved abroad decreased by 57% over the past five years. Furthermore, for the third year in a row, the number of physicians returning from abroad in 2006 was greater than the number leaving Canada (238 compared to 207). CIHI’s study also found that most of the overall increase in physicians is attributed to an increase in Canadian-trained physicians. The number of doctors trained in Canada grew by 5.2% between 2002 and 2006, compared to an increase of less than 1% (0.7%) in the number of foreign-trained physicians. Doctors trained abroad come primarily from the United Kingdom and Ireland, South Africa, India, Egypt and the United States.
http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=media_25oct2007_e
Both the Canadian and American health systems are broken.
If I were in the States I would be dead. And I was almost dead by the time I did get a transplant. I was too ill to have lived through the stress of selling my home.
Those in the States who have no homes to sell do die. The cost of Canadian health care is low per person.
I do think Obama is too ambitious to try to push his health care plan while in a depression, though. But what is your life or your children’s lives worth?
I think Canada and the States can learn a lot from each other.
We have private clinics in Canada too. If we can afford it we can get a hip replacement faster or an MRI for instance.
But I think Obama is going to break the States with his over ambitious and wasteful, insane plans in these hard times.
When the States sneezes, Canada gets pneumonia every time.
So I pray Obama gives his head a shake and stops his crazy spending for a while.
The story also mentions the fact that the younger doctors coming up in Canada don't have quite the work ethic of the older doctors, and that it could create problems as the older doctors retire. Doesn't sound like a good situation to me.
That is the wrong question.
My children’s lives are very precious, but I would not want to see them trade their freedom for slavery.
I have seen how the Canadian and English systems work. I don’t want that here.
Remember the 4 doctors in England (or perhaps it was actually Scotland) who took time off from work to go to try blow up their car at the airport.
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