They Could Do Worse

The debate now raging in the United States revolving around President Barak Obama's insistence that all Americans should be covered by some type of universal medicare has brought Canada's system back into the public eye. Americans never like to think that another country has a better system of service delivery of any kind than one they have themselves developed.

And since the free enterprise system of social services is such a mainstay in that country, and the health insurance lobby such a robust creature of government prodding, Americans vaunt their medical care, even while millions go without health insurance. And their health professionals don't chafe at government giving them a fee structure they must abide by.

Health insurance is so incredibly costly in the United States it becomes a challenge even for upper-middle-class families to be able to afford it. Without employment that offers the perquisite of group health insurance, people find themselves in a nasty bind should someone in the family become ill.

It's not only health insurance that's sky-high, but also hospital stays and medical fees. And when it comes to specialist medical fees, they're in the upper stratosphere. Sufficiently so that if someone's misfortune is to be diagnosed with a dread disease and they haven't insurance coverage, they can see their acquired wealth disappear; alternately seek no medical assistance.

Canada's single-payer system, unlike other countries that embrace the public along with private health providers, isn't much liked in the United States. A country that highly respects private initiative, and insists that government stay out of such personal matters as affordable health provision for its population.

And until the country bites the bullet and accepts the mature social judgement and exercise its social conscience in recognition that it has an obligation to its entire population to provide health insurance across the board, people will continue to fall by the way. Under this new administration perhaps the political will is there, finally.

Ironically enough, a debate on universal health care is being planned at Columbia Medical School, between Canada's former Canadian Medical Association president who just happens also to own a private clinic in Vancouver and who, coincidentally, rejects the country's single-pay system, and a Yale University political scientist, Theodore Marmor, an admirer of Canada's single-pay system.

It's quite interesting to see how each country ranks in various measurements of success, using yardsticks of optimum service and optimum results. While the U.S. spent 15% of their GDP on total health spending in 2006, Canada spent 10%. For each country the amount spent represented 7% of GDP. And that's where the similarity in numbers diverge:

Number of doctors per 1,000 ... Canada 2.1 ....U.S. 2.4
Number of MRIs per million .... Canada 6.2 ....U.S. 26.5
Angioplasties per 100,000 ..... Canada 128 ....U.S. 433.7
Excess of 4-month
surgery wait times ............ Canada 27% ....U.S. 5%
Specialist appointment
2-month or longer wait time.... Canada 42% ....U.S. 10%

And then there's these statistics:

Life expectancy at birth (2005). Canada 80.4 ..U.S. 77.8
Diabetes deaths per 100,000..... Canada 18.4 ..U.S. 20.2
Breast cancer survival
rate after five years .......... Canada 80.8 ..U.S. 79.3
Did not visit doctor, get
prescription or have test done
due to cost (2008) ............. Canada 24% ...U.S. 54%

Take what you will from that, but it appears that Canadians suffer inconvenience, lack of accessibility to high-tech diagnostic machines, longer wait times, fewer angioplasties that's true, but on balance Canadians appear quite a bit further ahead with longevity, recovery from dire illnesses, not to mention greater availability of medical help, diagnostic tests and medication.