In the Wall Street Journal today, Canadian physician David Gratzer warns Americans of the long waiting periods that come from state-sponsored health care:
The problems were brought home when a relative had difficulty walking. He was in chronic pain. His doctor suggested a referral to a neurologist; an MRI would need to be done, then possibly a referral to another specialist. The wait would have stretched to roughly a year. If surgery was needed, the wait would be months more. Not wanting to stay confined to his house, he had the surgery done in the U.S., at the Mayo Clinic, and paid for it himself. . . .
Indeed, Canada’s provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery—described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as “broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain.” . . .
Overall, according to a study published in Lancet Oncology last year, five-year cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. than those in Canada. Based on data from the Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health (done by Statistics Canada and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics), Americans have greater access to preventive screening tests and have higher treatment rates for chronic illnesses. No wonder: To limit the growth in health spending, governments restrict the supply of health care by rationing it through waiting. The same survey data show, as June and Paul O’Neill note in a paper published in 2007 in the Forum for Health Economics & Policy, that the poor under socialized medicine seem to be less healthy relative to the nonpoor than their American counterparts.
Gratzer also notes the number of Canadian physicians opening private practices and the British and Swedish governments’ decisions to turn parts of their health care systems over to the private sector—more reasons to be cautious about switching to large, government-sponsored care. But the key sentence of Gratzer’s article is buried in the paragraph above: “To limit the growth in health spending, governments restrict the supply of health care by rationing it through waiting.” Thereby the quest to cure human disease is turned into a war of attrition on human health. And for all the flaws in the current health care regime, that would not be an improvement.
June 9th, 2009 | 4:09 pm
The Canadian Health Care system suffers by its proximity to the United States. Canadians are not as wealthy as Americans, so an American-style health care system would not work. However, this does not prevent American health care providers who see in Canada a market for their services, and the Canadian Health Care system a barrier, from lobbying for its demises. This met some success when hospitals were closed in 1996 as a cost-cutting measure. As the population ages in Canada, and more health spending is required, the lack of a younger generation to support the old shall manifest itself in ever greater pressure to privatize the system. If the United States were to enact some kind of a public health care system, this would alleviate the pressure somewhat.
June 9th, 2009 | 7:59 pm
Well, for people whose health care is limited by lack of access (and that is an increasing number of people these days, except perhaps in Massachusetts), we already know the other form of rationing and waiting. It’s not like the US doesn’t already have it, you know.
June 9th, 2009 | 9:19 pm
This is it! The answer to reducing abortions–make the pregnant mom wait 41 weeks for her abortion!
June 10th, 2009 | 1:08 am
I have never heard as bizarre an argument for the Canadian health care system as Rachelle’s posted above. As a Canadian who lived under Canadian health care for 40 years, the only way it survives is because of its proximity to the U.S.A. Difficult cases are routinely sent to the U.S., as are routine cases, such as radiation treatment and chemotherapy. Every Canadian family, and I stress every Canadian family, can give you incident after incident of their loved one’s waiting for surgery, emergency care, or a visit to the specialist. I will give only one: my wife lost a fallopian tube, and more significantly a child, when she had an ectopic pregnancy. She literally crawled into the hospital the day before her fallopian tube burst because of the pain, but was sent home with me. They could not do an MRI and none had been done in the weeks prior, though one had been suggested by our physician because she suspected an ectopic pregnancy. They would not keep her overnight at the hospital. I do not know if our child could have been saved, but the next day all was lost, except, thank God, my wife. This is one story; I could give you many, many more. If not for the American system, which continues to produce access, technology and medical breakthroughs, Canada’s sytem would have been lost years ago. Gratzer has written a couple of books on the Canadian medical system. I encourage all Americans to read one soon.
June 10th, 2009 | 12:00 pm
The best health care system is that of France. Americans would do well to study European examples of health care systems, and not limit themselves to the UK.
As for Canada, the manufacturing of scarcity, willed through public policy, is the first step towards the creation a two-tiered system that would allow private enterprise to undermine a public system. Hence it is not the best example in assessing what a public health care system can become.
As a Canadian living in New York, I became aware of how many Americans undermine their health by not seeking prompt medical care because of the great expense of the system. It was shocking to see how inaccessible routine medical care was for the great majority of middle class Americans, and how any serious illness made them vulnerable to personal bankruptcy, and worse NO medical care when the money ran out.
I prefer to work on the renewal of the Canadian health care system by allowing a larger enrollment in medical schools, and the re-opening of those hospitals closed in the madness of curtailed public spending to reduce the national deficit.
The current political problems of the Canadian Health system must be seen as just that: political problems. There are plenty of good examples of well functioning public health care systems in Europe to provide us with inspiration as to how public health care can be managed successfully.
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