Keep Canada Out of the U.S. Health-Care Debate
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By presenting a false choice between the Canadian health-care system and America's current one, Republicans are doing their country a disservice.
Photo by gregor_y available under a Creative Commons License
Email to a friendWatching the debate in the U.S. about health care has been a fascinating, if depressing, experience. In particular, the fact that a Canadian woman has played into the hands of the Republican lobby because of her understandable anxiety about her medical condition doesn't make me mad; it just makes me sad.
Shona Holmes is a Canadian insured by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. She says she was made to wait months to get a diagnosis for her benign tumour. Once diagnosed she wanted an operation right away, so she went to the States for the procedure. Now she wants OHIP to pay for the cost of her U.S. treatment, which she paid for out of her own pocket. She has a public insurer, and wants a refund on her private treatment, which she decided had to happen right away.
But the trouble is that the people on whose behalf she's made the ad don't want to have a public insurer; they want to maintain a system where over 40 million people don't have coverage at all.
How many millions of Americans go untreated, undiagnosed because of their current system? How many are turned down by their insurance companies? How many Americans have gone bankrupt because of uninsured medical costs?
The ad Ms. Holmes appears in says Canadians are denied care because "the government says patients aren't worth it.” So private insurance companies that routinely deny treatment and coverage in the U.S. are Good Samaritans? I think not.
No one should demonize Shona Holmes. The health-care system we have in Canada has challenges – we all know people who are frustrated by delays. But that is hardly unique to Canada.
And the fact that she has weighed in with her story is not something we should fear or denigrate, though we are at a bit of a disadvantage, not knowing "the other side of the story" for privacy reasons.
Let's not forget the other stories we all know: the people who've been diagnosed and treated quickly and effectively without once being asked about their coverage or their income; the success we've had in dramatically reducing wait times for heart surgery and cardiac care.
Even the most conservative of political parties in Canada want to maintain the integrity of our system, just as in communities and provinces we figure out how to improve both the excellence of and access to what we have. We shouldn't be afraid of a debate or a discussion, but since "the Canadian system" has been made the whipping boy of the Republican lobby in the U.S. it's high time we fought back, with facts, figures, and the deep reality of our shared experience with universal insurance coverage.
If the U.S. falters in their quest for a better system, it will be their loss. I don't really hear many voices in their political system arguing for "the Canadian solution.” It's a false debate. The questions are simple. Should anyone be denied health care because of their income, disability, or illness? (No.) Should patients be able to choose their doctors, and advocate for speedy, effective treatment? (Yes.) Should insurers, taxpayers, and premium payers be worried about how to control costs as an ageing society combines with great technological advance to produce an expensive mix? (Yes.)
Keep Canada out of the U.S. debate. We've never suggested exporting our system. We have our own debates and our own issues, and because of the moral choices we made 40 years ago they are different from the American paradigm.
We should be proud of what we have, but we need to keep the focus on how to improve it, how to combine access, excellence, and innovation. We shouldn't treat health care as some kind of taboo subject. We should keep what we have and make it better. And hope our friends in the U.S. will find their own answers to the questions that lie at the heart of health care everywhere.
Re:Marks
“ I'm curious how telling the *facts* about the sad and worsening Canadian health care system serves to "distort the truth." Perhaps you could take a page from our Dear Leader's playbook and have folks email you examples of these distortions. Being a good sport, I'll happily get the ball rolling: http://insureblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/oy-canada-reality-tv-bites.html Ooops, too much "truthiness?" Okay, then how about: http://insureblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/oy-canada-docs-bailing-nicus-missing.html Please feel free to tell all your friends! Be well, Henry Stern http://insureblog.blogspot.com
“ Speaking of the Canadian system, this came up in a discussion on the Washington Post website: New Haven, Conn.: "Ezra, what do you make the most recent CNN poll on health care reform that showed a generational divide between those who want reform (the under-50s) and those who don't (the over-50s)? Given that the over-50s are about to benefit from government-run health care in the form of Medicare, I find their (overall) hypocrisy amusing." Ezra Klein: "America's elderly effectively live in Canada. They have single-payer health care. They have a government-run, defined benefit pension plan. And they like it. Their opposition is a funny kind of opposition: They're not worried that the government is going to take over health care. They're worried that they're going to lose their government-provided health care." I'm 62 and underinsured, in other words, I'm on the Republican healthcare plan. If I become seriously ill or injured, it's bankruptcy and/or early death.
“ Canada shouldn't be kept out of the debate - our system is a shining example of what public health care can be. To see people dwelling on the faults of it - while the system continues to grow and improve, is laughable. Men like Henry Stern (Mr. Insurance-blog-spammer and moonlighting astroturf warrior) need to be answered with the clear reality of truth: Canadians live longer, have more disposable income and ARE HEALTHIER than their US counterparts because of our system. I'm tired of the slander and lies being flung at us from insurance corporations in their gilded towers (built on the backs of dying Americans). Human health isn't a privilege, it's a right. Unless you acknowledge that you're actively renouncing your membership in civilized society. Shame on you, Henry Stern. Shame on every American or Canadian who would decry public health care. Shame on Shona Holmes for overreacting to a CYST and then turning on a system that would have taken care of her NON-LIFE-THREATING condition in due time. Shame on her for taking money for the ad. Be heard, Canadians. Let the Americans know that we love our country and our health care system and that the insurance corporation lies NEED TO STOP.
“ Julie: "They're not worried that the government is going to take over health care." That's ALMOST correct: they're worried that American politicos will follow the lead of our Cousins Across the Pond and deny necessary health care to those most vulnerable. Graham: Bravo! You hit ALMOST all the DNC Talking Points, Missed one or two, though: I'm also a well-dressed but unruly mobster in the pay of BigPharma. None of which, of course, addresses or refutes the basic point that Canadian health care is inferior to ours on every single metric, however much you wish it weren't so. I'm also curious how you came to the conclusion that health care "isn't a privilege, it's a right." On what do you base this rather surprising, and unsupportable, assertion? Do you mean that doctors, for example, must be required to treat patients, regardless of whether or not they'll be paid for doing so? That's called theft. And thanks for asking, but I have no more renounced my "membership in civilized society" than you've demonstrated a grasp of basic economics. I do appreciate your caring, however.
“ Henry Stein, what metrics? I'm an American living in Canada. Up here we live longer and healthier, our babies die less frequently, and we spend a lot less money than the US does to accomplish that. Everyone is covered; no-one is denied care by an insurance company bean-counter; no one is denied due to a pre-existing condition. Theft is actually what insurance companies do when they deny doctors and patients payment retroactively--a not uncommon practice in the US, and simply not heard of up here. As to rights: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" should mean that you don't have to choose between death and bankruptcy.
“ Keep Canada Out of U.S. Health Care Debate?? Wasn't it Shona Holmes with her distortions & melodrama state side the one who brought Canada into the health care debate to start off with?? FYI, Private for Profit doesn't mean better & for those who think Dr Chaoulli was heroic in his lawsuit better think again..His own clinic was responsable for negigence & ill-equipped & undertrained staff...a 77 year old man dies sitting in a waiting room---not in a hospital ER but in the one & only Dr Chaoulli's private clinic in Montreal...http://www.montrealgazette.com/Health/Visit+private+clinic+sealed+fate+coroner/1524485/story.html Is private really better? And Dr Chaoulli is no hero but a greedy individual who, after the lawsuit went his way obviously didn't care about anything but his pocket book..If any are interested, I also have a copy of the Coroner's report
“ Julie, I'm glad you came out & said you believe health care should be a privilege & not a right...I deplore & feel repugnant to views like this...but at least you're honest. I only wish more right winged folks I've argued with would come out & say stuff like this...rather than not address it. What's more Julie, I'm not surprised there are folks like you who feel sorry for overpaid doctor trying to keep their mansions, luxury cars, & country club memberships that practise exclusion. Their European counter-parts are paid less than in North-America, do the research, you'll see. Whatever happened to the hippocratic oath? Once upon a time, medicine was considered a calling for those exceptionally bright men & women who wished to heal people. Theft, you say?? The theft is with doctors practising private for profit...catch the gazette link I posted about a man who died a lonely death in a private waiting room clinic in the midst of strangers who tried to help him more than the staff & Dr Chaoulli, the owner of this clinic himself. You don't know theft Julie, If you did, you wouldn't be making statements like that. Come talk to me if & when you ever lose your job & coverage...will you still feel the same way??
“ A publicly funded, administered and delivered health care system is what Canadians want and need. In Ontario, there is much health-care money that flows anywhere but to where it's needed to improve the system -- the front lines. Ontario employers such as hospitals, however, continue to cut costs by reducing registered nursing positions, closing beds and cutting services. For a variety of reasons, wait times continue to lengthen and patient care suffers. ONA has advocated for maintaining and improving our public health-care system for years. No one believes a U.S.-style system is desirable. Linda Haslam-Stroud, RN President, Ontario Nurses' Association
“ The heath care debate right now in the United States reminds me of one of the classic lines from the Simpsons: "Man, you've got to help me. I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!" Of course, one could probably say the same thing about the health care debate in Canada most of the time as well...
Ryan Androsoff