WSJ publishes op-ed falsely equating "ObamaCare" with Canadian "single-payer" system
SUMMARY: A Wall Street Journal op-ed by David Gratzer falsely equated "a new public insurance program" supported by "Congressional Democrats" to the Canadian "single-payer" system. In fact, President Obama has explicitly rejected a Canadian-style system and supports a "public plan" option alongside private insurance plans.
In a June 9 Wall Street Journal op-ed, headlined "Canada's ObamaCare Precedent," Dr. David Gratzer, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, falsely equated "a new public insurance program" that "Congressional Democrats will soon put forward" to the Canadian "single-payer" system, which he suggested was "government health care" that is neither "compassionate" nor "equitable." In fact, President Obama and key congressional Democrats -- such as Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chairman Ted Kennedy and House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman -- have stated that they support the creation of a federally funded "public plan" as one of many insurance options available in the health care market, not as the sole option, as in "single-payer" systems such as Canada. Moreover, Obama has explicitly rejected a Canadian-style system.
Gratzer wrote:
Congressional Democrats will soon put forward their legislative proposals for reforming health care. Should they succeed, tens of millions of Americans will potentially be joining a new public insurance program and the federal government will increasingly be involved in treatment decisions.
Not long ago, I would have applauded this type of government expansion. Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither.
My views changed in medical school. Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a "single payer" -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.
According to the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings thesaurus, a single-payer system is:
An approach to health care financing with only one source of money for paying health care providers. The scope may be national (the Canadian System), state-wide, or community-based. The payer may be a governmental unit or other entity such as an insurance company. The proposed advantages include administrative simplicity for patients and providers, and resulting significant savings in overhead costs.
In a June 2 letter to Kennedy and Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, Obama wrote: "I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest." When asked during a March 26 online town hall discussion, "Why can we not have a universal health care system, like many European countries, where people are treated based on needs rather than financial resources," Obama replied, "I actually want a universal health care system," adding that instead of adopting a "single-payer system" like Canada's, "what I think we should do is to build on the system that we have and fill some of these gaps."
Moreover, Gratzer cited criticism of the Canadian system by Canadian orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brian Day, a former president of the Canadian Medical Association, to falsely suggest that Day is in favor of the U.S. health care system. Gratzer wrote: "Ironically, as the U.S. is on the verge of rushing toward government health care, Canada is reforming its system in the opposite direction," and went on to cite Day's "[growing] increasingly frustrated by government cutbacks that reduced his access to an operating room and increased the number of patients on his hospital waiting list" as evidence of the support from the Canadian "medical establishment" for these changes. However, as Media Matters for America has documented, Day has said he favors the health care systems of several Western European countries, not the current U.S. system of health care.
In an April 27 Politico blog post, Ben Smith reported that, during an October 9, 2008, interview with the Fraser Institute, Day stated: "I think this is what people tend to forget. They equate alternatives to the Canadian health care system with 'Americanization,' which is not what we're talking about. We're talking about countries like Belgium, and Switzerland, and France, and Austria." In an October 22, 2007, op-ed for Canada's National Post newspaper, Day similarly wrote that "the goal of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) -- of which I am President -- is to help improve our universal system, not destroy it." Day went on to note in the op-ed that he is not in favor of the U.S. system:
Let me be clear: I am not for an American-style system in Canada.
It is true that I believe in competition. But not the type of unhealthy competition that seems to exist between Canada and the United States in health care. As two of the world's richest countries, we seem to be in a race to the bottom when it comes to health. Canada's health system has been ranked 30th by the World Health Organization, and the U.S. was ranked 37th. Why would anyone copy a system that ranks substantially below ours?
From Gratzer's June 9 Wall Street Journal op-ed:
Congressional Democrats will soon put forward their legislative proposals for reforming health care. Should they succeed, tens of millions of Americans will potentially be joining a new public insurance program and the federal government will increasingly be involved in treatment decisions.
Not long ago, I would have applauded this type of government expansion. Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither.
My views changed in medical school. Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a "single payer" -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.
[...]
Ironically, as the U.S. is on the verge of rushing toward government health care, Canada is reforming its system in the opposite direction. In 2005, Canada's supreme court struck down key laws in Quebec that established a government monopoly of health services. Claude Castonguay, who headed the Quebec government commission that recommended the creation of its public health-care system in the 1960s, also has second thoughts. Last year, after completing another review, he declared the system in "crisis" and suggested a massive expansion of private services -- even advocating that public hospitals rent facilities to physicians in off-hours.
And the medical establishment? Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon, grew increasingly frustrated by government cutbacks that reduced his access to an operating room and increased the number of patients on his hospital waiting list. He built a private hospital in Vancouver in the 1990s. Last year, he completed a term as the president of the Canadian Medical Association and was succeeded by a Quebec radiologist who owns several private clinics.
In Canada, private-sector health care is growing. Dr. Day estimates that 50,000 people are seen at private clinics every year in British Columbia. According to the New York Times, a private clinic opens at a rate of about one a week across the country. Public-private partnerships, once a taboo topic, are embraced by provincial governments.
In the United Kingdom, where socialized medicine was established after World War II through the National Health Service, the present Labour government has introduced a choice in surgeries by allowing patients to choose among facilities, often including private ones. Even in Sweden, the government has turned over services to the private sector.
Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?
Simple answer: because ours is even worse.
Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.
Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.
Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.
Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.
Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.
Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K.
Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.
Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.
Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K.
Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.
Conclusion: Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.
Source: Scott Atlas, M.D.,senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor at the Stanford University Medical Center.
The phrase ",if they can afford it," should be inserted after the word Americans.
#7 is NOT completely true. Canadians see the need for reform, but on the whole are satisfied with what we have.
Canada is ranked #30 in the world for health care. The US is ranked #37. We want reform to IMPROVE the system, not to make it worse.
Half of all Americans filing for bankruptcy have had serious health problems. Health care costs are obviously a major burden.
Another right wing think tank. More of Barney's idea of balanced.
You are kidding yourself if you think government run health care will be any better than what we have right now.
Yes, healthcare does need fixing. Somewhere we need to figure out how to lower costs. Moving to a socialistic system will not help, but rather diminish health care. Having some bureaucrat deciding if you get treatments doesn't sound very compasionate to me.
Then it's time for a system that doesn't pick and choose who gets treatment, which is what we have now, by way of insurance company claims adjusters and underwriters.
As an OT, is it no wonder that the Michael Moore loved Cuban system was so great, a Spanish surgeon had to come in and save the life of Fidel Castro after the beloved Jefe's personal doctor botched the surgery?
That's not true. Only non-emergent surgeries are delayed.
Exactly. We have millions upon millions of people who can't afford preventive or non-emergency care, but the idea of waiting is supposed to scare us away from the idea of getting covered. The argument against the national plan is remarkably lacking in sense and logic.
How are you going to lower costs when everything is based on corporate profit? Even if you do so, aren't insurers just going to deny more claims and cut corners to maintain the profit margin and keep their market share? The entire problem is that profit and care are mutually exclusive goals. You cannot maximize both at the same time.
Bureaucrats do not decide who gets what treatment - the doctors do. My girlfriend is a neurologist who works for the social medical insurance, and she decides who needs what treatment based on diagnoses, not a prescribed checklist composed by some insurance actuary. There are rules about what forms need to be filled out with what justifications for given treatments, but that's going to be true in any regulated system. Her patients pay nothing out of pocket.
Two of my rowers are also doctors, and they practice privately - outside the social insurance program. Those who want to visit them are free to do so, and my rowers make a fine living serving their independent patients. Private sector treatment is available if you want to pay for it, and the public medical care system provides good care for everyone.
Socialized medicine in Austria costs less than my insurance in America used to, covers a higher percentage of the population, and is not exclusive of private practice. Where's the problem?
Where did you get your numbers?
Here is a link to the original report.
You forgot to mention that the Doctor is a professor at Stanford University Medical Center.
However, like so many other times, when you can't argue the facts, you attack the messenger. Very weak.
Was everything she said/claimed a 'fact' because she had academic standing?
Your attempts at playing the 'attack the messenger' game are dishonest, at best.
Hoover Institute.... wait a minute it will come to me....Oh yea, wasn't there an "enlightened" president named Hoover that almost bankrupted this country about 80 years ago?
I interviewed my grandmother about it for my HS history class project. EVERYONE she knew at the time blamed Hoover.
I tried to Google your third assertion but all I could find was that same list on multiple right-wing sites and some additional information about Americans taking more drugs (medical) than their European counterpart.
Your fifth assertion is probably true because a lot of low income Americans get Medicaid (government insurance).
Your sixth assertion is probably true for elective surgery and Americans who actually have good coverage either through the private sector or government.
I don't know about you're seventh assertion but I know at least 2/3 of Americans want universal coverage.
Again, I don't know about your eighth and ninth assertions. Maybe Americans with health insurance are more satisfied with the insurance they get either through the private sector or government, likewise the same with imaging.
It would have helped your case is you'd at least listed your links.
Where is your link?
Just naming a source != link, you probably know.
You are just citing a source whose conclusions, YOU are claiming are facts.
But you knew this already but did it anyway.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649
I'm still trying to find the details behind all of the assertions you made but all I can find is multiple right-wings with that same list - no details, explanations or links seem to be available.
http://www.healthcare-now.org/2009/06/medical-bills-underlie-60-percent-of-us-bankruptcies-study/
Too bad republicans, who voted 100% lockstep against it, don't have a similar success story to share...
I am happy for you and your family. I wish you all good health.
The problem arises when COBRA runs out and the economy is still in the tank because Obama policies and taxes prevente businesses from expanding and offering jobs to good, honest, hardworking people like yourself.
The problem with the Obama stimulus plan is that it increased the deficit and hasn't helped with employment. That means you and your your children will be paying back, through taxes and inflation, the benefits you are now enjoying.
But I will admit, I hate cabin fever. His stimulus package is a boon to blue collar jobs. We need a different plan for white collar jobs. In that arena he needs to do more if he really plans to help a guy like me...
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1101-EMPIRICAL-PROOF-Obama-Stimulus-FAIL.html
I know some will argue as did Biden's economic advisor that the 4th quarter figures were worse than they projected. That to me only proves further their incompetence.
I don't want the government running our health care, but as far as how we pay for it, insurance companies have had their chance to bring affordable care to everyone and they failed. It's time to try something else. Preferably, something that doesn't have a profit motive that's driven by denials, pre-exisiting conditions, age rating, medical underwriting, the burden of uncompensated care, and cluttered paperwork and procedures geared to make policy holders give up on claiming their benefits.
We agree that the cost of health care is the problem.
We disagree that handing it over to the government will reduce costs, (it won't.)
The political satirist P.J. O’Rourke once quipped: “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”
Taking 100 million people out of their private health care insurance and adding their cost to government run health care will further bankrupt the already bankrupt government.
Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention SS are already going broke. Adding trillions in healthcare cost to be doled out by the government is not going to solve these problems, it will do just the opposite. Besides who will pay for it? How many times can you go to the well with property taxes, city and state taxes, sales taxes, federal taxes, fica taxes, medicare taxes, etc., etc., etc.?
Maybe if we stop raiding them to fund everything else, including war, they wouldn't be going broke.
Not really. With a government plan, people pay higher taxes, but this is offset by paying nominal or no health care insurance premiums. For example, the health care insurance premium in Canada is about $50/month per person. Furthermore, the per capita cost of health care in Canada is about $3700 per person, or 10% of GDP (to cover everybody), while it's $6700 per person, or 15% of GDP in the USA, while still leaving large sectors of the population either un-insured or under-insured.
"Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention SS are already going broke"
YES, because private insurance companies are able to cherry pick, and offer insurance only to healthy people, young people, and people with no pre-existing medical conditions (ie-the PROFITABLE health clients) while dumping the poor, the sick and the old on the public system. Then (to add insult to injury) they can point to the government program going broke as the result of having to cover all the NON-profitable clients as an example of how bad government programs are.
The only way a nation-wide healthcare plan will ever work is if you collect premiums from both healthy and sick people within the same system, which is exactly what all the other developed countries do. And it's not a coincidence that they do it this way. But as long as the private sector is able to cherry pick the profitable clients while the government plan is left to deal with the unprofitable ones the public sector will always look bad by comparison. A comparison which is unfair.
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649
Fact 3 is deceptive, without stating which chronic diseases and which other countries.
Fact 5 is FALSE: A quotation from the exact Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health document cited by Gratzer: "While in both countries, those in the poorest income quintile reported poorer health, more low income Americans did so compared with low income Canadians (31% versus 23%). The same pattern prevailed regarding the distribution of severe mobility limitation, obesity and unmet health care needs."
Fact 6 is true, but only for people with certain types of insurance. Those on medicare, medicaid, veterans health, or having no insurance have to wait as long as Canadians, if not longer. (One grain of truth: waiting times in Canadian emergency wards are slightly longer.)
Facts 7 and 8 are false in that they are not "highly dissatisfied." Again, a quote from the study cited by Gratzer: "Americans were more likely to be “very satisfied” with their health care services (both all services and doctor services) while Canadians were more likely to be “somewhat satisfied” (for all services) even when compared with insured Americans."
Fact 9 is true, but again is related to points 1, 2, and 4, and only applies to certain types of equipment. ie-there are five times as many NMR machines in the U.S. as Canada, per capita, leading to earlier diagnosis and earlier intervention.
Fact 10 is false. It's pretty much evenly split between the United States and western Europe. Just as a quick example: six of the ten largest pharmaceutical companies are in western Europe. The United States happens to file the most patents (only a fraction of which are successful) because the patenting process is simpler in the U.S., and the U.S. has more intellectual property lawyers per capita to do it. Doesn't mean Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.
Fact No. 1: the Hoover Institute is a right wing think tank that specializes in distorting facts for the purposes of propping up corrupt industries. Quoting them for facts is like quoting an episode of Law and Order for legal advice.
Fact No. 2: the United States pays on average $1,000 more per capita for health care than any other country in the world.
Fact No. 3: We rank 37th among nations averall in healthcare service!
Fact No. 4: We have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world.
Fact No. 5: putting the word "fact" before a statement doesn't make it a fact but what the heck, I can do it too.
Fact No. 6: The healthcare system we have was designed by the rich, for the rich. It's existence despite its obvious shortcomings is the result of industry propoganda by pinheads like you who can't explain why it fails the majority of Americans so utterly. There are no market forces at play in healthcare. Large corporations monopolize every element of care we receive. HMOs routinely deny coverage for little or no reason. HMOs in our wonderful system can not be sued for malpractice when their greed costs a person's life. The whole industry is propped up by the corporate administrators at HMOs who make tons of money by providing no service whatsoever and by medical professional who think an M.D. should guarantee a person $250,000/year no matter what their competence, field, or ability. Specialist routinely make salaries far higher than that already astronomical sum. A two year degree in nursing makes you more than a professor who spends ten years minimum to get the necessary degrees.
Fact No. 7: You are a bad person. You purposely spread propoganda that you know to be dubious at best to support a system that is causing suffering for millions.
Look around, the waters around you have grown.
The issue of single payer universal health-care is not about the actual health-care in America being better or worse than any other country...
IT IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN ABOUT BEING ABLE TO ACCESS ALL THAT GREAT HEALTH-CARE!!!!!!
It is not nor ever will be government run health-care... all the government would do is pay the bill... you and your doctor would have all the say as it pertains to your health-care! Period!
No poop.... America has the best health-care... hot damn... never knew that...
You guys don't seem to realize that the powers that be on the right-wing corporate side have lied to you about this issue... the fact that you are spewing their lame talking points proves it!
You are actually spouting off against something that if implemented, would be beneficial to you, your families, and basically, all of us!
This over-heated "debate" over a public OPTION for health care when there are millions who cannot afford it AT ALL in our country is the most egregious example of the free enterprise greed in conservative think tanks in this country.
Do you mean the people who choose to pay their rent rather than insurance? Those who choose to eat instead of paying for insurance?
Those on pensions who can't afford to pay for supplementary insurance?
We're all one health crisis away from bankruptcy.
Get back to us after you've been hit with a hospital bill in the hundreds of thousands that is over and above what your great insurance is willing to pay.
I don't think the system is perfect, fwiw. Cost escalation is out of control, and the insurance companies to not price the goods and services of healthcare, agreed?
Like how much?
In fact, they are not "uninsured." They've chosen not to buy health insurance because they foolishly think they'll never get sick, and if/when they do get sick they go to the emergency room and have their treatment paid for by the government anyway. Thus, their healthcare is publicly funded NOW! So why not formalize the arrangement by at least making them pay the premiums through taxes, since that's what's happening anyway?
What kind of systems are the countries scoring much better than us using? The majority seem to be socialistic in nature.
I do know, however, that we do not have the worst healthcare system in the world, and we do score better in a lot of things that matter, including cancer care.
The WHO made those rankings penalizes the U.S. for not having universal health care. So even though we score better than practically every other country in actual medical care, we are dinged for not being socialist.
if you remove the homicide rate and accidental death rate from MVA’s (ie., motor vehicle accidents,) from this statistic, citizens of the US have a longer life expectancy than any other country on earth.
The WHO will score a country where all the health care is paid for by the government, even though the health care is terrible, as perfect. So naturally, the U.S. score is lowered and yet this has nothing to do with actual health care.
The WHO ranking system has minimal objectivity in its “ranking” of world health. It more accurately can be described as a ranking system inherently biased to reward the uniformity of “government” delivered (i.e. “socialized”) health care, independent of the care actually delivered.
http://smartgirlnation.com/2009/06/01/popular-ranking-unfairly-misrepresents-the-us-health-care-system/
WRONG. We are dinged for paying such a huge percentage of our GDP for health care while having so many uninsured at the same time.
On this issue you guys trot out the echo chamber as if it has any credibility whatsoever. Their work is not peer reviewed and has no scientific basis to it whatsoever.
I noticed in your response above you did not provide any peer reviewed work. Why as a matter of fact, you didn't even provide any source or link to back up your arguments.
Physician, heal thyself!
I love my Canadian HealthCare.
What I DESPISE is the constant drumbeat from selfish, narcissistic doctors who see their American cousins making ARMLOADS of ca$h from the miseries of their patients... the healthcare insurance, BigPharma & other corporate cronies who WORK LIKE DEMONS & INVEST MILLIONS into Canadian media & the healthcare industry & GOVERNMENT LOBBYING IN OTTAWA & provincial capitals...
TO PRIVATIZE & DESTROY CANADIAN SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE.
You heard me: there is a MASSIVE MOVEMENT TO DESTROY CANADIAN HEALTHCARE.
& most of that money COMES FROM THE USA.
Even those who do cosmetic surgery for a living can also give back by providing reconstruction for abnormalities and accidents.
The item above includes a definition of what the term "single payer system" is supposed to mean.
The definition begins with "health care financing", where a simpler and more direct and less equivocal description of the "system" should be "health insurance".
Then the definition says that "the [single] payer may be... an insurance company".
How can that be?
If the payer is an insurance company, then doesn't someone pay them, making the thing a "double payer system"?
Or is the insurance company a charitable organization, being the single payer, but not billing or charging anyone premiums?
I don't see how any insurance company could be described as a single payer, seeing as how the very existence of an insurance company creates two payers : you, who pay the insurance company premiums, and then them, the insurance company, who pays doctors and hospitals, and who acts in the capacity of a "middle man" in the process... two payers at least, unless someone thinks the "middle man" pays out of the goodness of his charitable heart, and charges no fee or premiums.
The definition also states that the single payer system [of health insurance] results in "significant savings in overhead costs".
Yes, that's a vague of way of saying that if you cut out the middle man, you reduce costs to the consumer, or in this case the user of the service.
It's vague and evasive to refer to what health insurance companies take from you as a middle man (between you and the doctor), as merely "overhead costs".
The definition given above for a "single payer system" is strange, for evading the simple term of health insurance in the description of what the "system" is that's being defined (and the definition strains when it refers instead to "health care financing").
Also, it's simpler and more direct to emphasize that what makes the single payer system [of health insurance] so singular, is the exclusion of a "middle man" in the process... a middle man that jacks up the costs by way of inserting themselves into the transaction, and always manages to take a healthy and profitable slice out for themselves, in addition to jacking up as much as possible the actual costs attributable to the health care itself (the fees of a doctor or other health care provider), as a self-serving way of keeping health care unaffordable to you, and therefore keeping you in need of their health insurance, for your inability to afford being the actual "single payer" yourself.
And again, I don't see how a health insurance company could ever be a single payer (as the definition claims), as there must be two payers at least (you and them) if a health insurance company is inserted into the process... and then the singularity is lost, and instead there's a duplicity involved, in a system [of health insurance] that requires two payers at least : you, and whatever number of middlemen have managed to insert themselves into the transaction, between you and your health care.
Dr. Day is hardly impartial when it comes to the Canadian system. His primary interest is in making himself rich through private clinics.
And the Fraser Institute is hardly an font of unbiased information. All of their so-called studies always support the institute's right wing philosophy.
Any government in Canada (provincial or federal) knows the one sure way to electoral defeat is tampering with universal healthcare.
Now, why would Canadians feels so strongly about a system in such disarray?
Simple, because it works.
Sure, there are problems with some wait times, but governments are constantly working and succeeding in reduce those times. (It should be noted that most wait times are for elective procedures.)
I could go on, but I'll leave you with this last point. If you think HMOs are more responsive to your needs than a government run system, you're kidding yourself. HMOs will deny you services and procedures at the drop of a hat. Government healthcare is far more responsive because, at the end of the day, their clients will express their dissatisfaction at the ballot box.
“more Canadians reported having a regular medical doctor compared with Americans (85% versus 80%) - Canadians were similar to insured Americans in terms of having a regular medical doctor.” Thus, the doctor availability for ALL Canadians is similar to or better than that for INSURED Americans. We won’t go into what life is like for UN-insured Americans.
Other quotes from the same study cited by Gratzer:
“Overall, more Americans reported that they had experienced an unmet health care need in the previous year compared with Canadians (13% versus 11%). There was no difference in the proportion who reported unmet health care needs between Canadians and insured Americans.”
“The top reasons for unmet health care needs differed between the two countries: waiting time was most often reported in Canada and cost was most often reported in the United States.”
Gratzer, like most private health care shills, also selectively quotes the one medical condition, cancer, for which the American “system” has a slightly higher survival rate than the Canadian one, while neglecting to mention that most others metrics are lagging. (The Lancet article he quotes lists cancer survival rates in the U.S. vs Canada as 61% to 58% for women, and 57% to 53% for men.) Laughably, he then quotes the fact that the Ontario (population 13.5 million) government sent 160 patients to the U.S. for emergency surgical treatment over a 2 year period to alleviate a backlog. (160 patients who still, incidentally, got their treatment free of charge.)
The Canadian system is not perfect, and improvements can be made. Those imperfections spring from the fact that Canada spends a much smaller amount of money on healthcare than does the United States, even on a per capita basis. All of these minor problems that seem to so concern the editorial pages of U.S. newspapers could be solved with a modest 10% increase in Canada’s healthcare budget. Consider the following statistics: Canada spends about $3700 per capita, and 10% of GDP to provide every Canadian with healthcare, with no co-pays or deductibles. By contrast, the U.S. spends $6700 per capita, and 15% of GDP on healthcare, does not cover everybody, does not cover people with pre-existing conditions, and clobbers the middle class with co-payments. If Canada spends $3700 per capita to deliver very good healthcare to every one of its citizens, while not burdening Canadian businesses with the cost of providing healthcare to their employees, while the U.S. spends $6700 per capita, only to leave large sectors of its population either uninsured or underinsured, and place American businesses at a competitive disadvantage, somebody is doing something wrong, and it’s probably not Canada.
Do your research!!!! Quote studies and not op-ed pieces! Journalists are idiots who base their opinions on what they ate that morning, the crap they found on blogs, and what will comfort the ears of the ignorant!
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The issue of single payer universal health-care is not about the actual health-care in America being better or worse than any other country...
IT IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN ABOUT BEING ABLE TO ACCESS ALL THAT GREAT HEALTH-CARE!!!!!!
It is not nor ever will be government run health-care... all the government would do is pay the bill... you and your doctor would have all the say as it pertains to your health-care! Period!
No poop.... America has the best health-care... hot damn... never knew that...
You guys don't seem to realize that the powers that be on the right-wing corporate side have lied to you about this issue... the fact that you are spewing their lame talking points proves it!
You are actually spouting off against something that if implemented, would be beneficial to you, your families, and basically, all of us!