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June 17, 2005
More On Canada's Health Care System
This isn't the first time I've posted on the subject of the Canadian health care system and it likely isn't the last either. As flawed as the US health care system is...it wouldn't be improved by following the Canadian model. Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune:
...Any debate on health care eventually arrives at the point at which one participant says, "We should have what Canadians have. Free care, universal access and low cost--who could ask for more?" ...The dirty secret of the system is that universal access is no guarantee of treatment. Sick Canadians spend months and even years on waiting lists for surgery and other procedures. In 1993, the average wait to see a specialist after getting a doctor's referral was nine weeks. Since then, according to the Fraser Institute of Vancouver, it has increased to 18 weeks.
The typical patient needing orthopedic surgery has time to get pregnant and deliver a baby before being called. The Supreme Court cited the testimony of one orthopedic surgeon that 95 percent of patients in Canada waited over a year for knee replacements--with many of them in limbo for two years.
In some cases, the delay lasts longer than the person enduring it. Or as the Supreme Court put it: "Patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care." ...
After adjusting for the age of the population, the Fraser Institute compared 27 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that guarantee universal access to health care. By some mysterious alchemy, Canada has proportionately fewer physicians than most of these nations but spends more on health care than any except Iceland. ...
Admirers of our good neighbor to the north say the United States pours money into all sorts of fancy equipment but doesn't get better results by such measures as life expectancy. But life expectancy is affected by multiple factors, including education, crime rates and diet--with health care playing only a modest role. In those areas where modern medicine can make a big difference, the United States does very well.
Take breast cancer. In Britain, which is famous for its socialized system, close to half of all victims die of the disease, according to a recent Cato Institute study by John Goodman, head of the National Center for Policy Analysis. In Germany and France, almost one-third do. In Canada, the figure is 28 percent--and here, it's 25 percent. Our mortality rate for prostate cancer is 67 percent lower than Britain's and 24 percent lower than Canada's.
Posted by Dave at June 17, 2005 01:19 PM
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