US Health Reform – Blame Canada?

Shona Holmes is an Ontario woman who claims she was forced to mortgage her home to seek care in the United-States for her life-threatening brain tumour. Holmes is the new figurehead for the American anti-public health care campaign: she’s testified before Congress, made appearances on Fox TV and CNN, as well as the now infamous anti-reform ads produced by the Republican-led lobby group Patients United Now. It turns out that her tumour was never life threatening and was in fact, benign. Click here to see the ad.

We have even been the subject of a series by Ian Austen, a Canadian journalist based in Ottawa, for the New York Times, entitled “How does Canada’s Healthcare System Actually Work?

No one denies that the Canadian system has to address wait times, but in recent weeks we have found ourselves cast in the unusual role of the health-care bogeyman. In fact, the Canadian example has become such a polarizing factor that now even the President needs to set his reforms apart from the Canadian system.

On July 28th, President Obama hosted an AARP town hall webcast to pitch his reforms to older Americans. He assuaged their fears when he promised, “If you have a doctor that you like, you can keep that doctor. Nobody is trying to change what works. We’re trying to change what doesn’t work… This is not like Canada.” To view a video of this Health care Reform Town Hall click here.

But What’s so Scary about Canadian Healthcare?

While 82% of Canadians polled this July said they preferred the Canadian health care system to the American one, Americans are being misinformed about our system—for example, that Canadians are not free to choose their doctors, that we have different drugs, that public health care means rationing medical attention for older persons, that wait times are unbearable across the board and that our system of “socialized medicine” means doctors barely make a living. The Campaign for America’s Future blog bluntly debunks these myths in this mythbusting article.

These ideas are being used to cloud the real issues at hand in the American health care debate: namely, that private insurers have a hugely lucrative arrangement in which they want no interference. One telephone participant in the town hall noted that everyone was talking about the cost of health care reform. Who, if anyone, was talking about the cost of doing nothing?

The Center for American Progress, thankfully, is talking about it. According to a recent article, US health care costs are expected to grow 71 per cent over the next decade, driving huge premium increases for health insurance. David Cutler notes that if there are 47 million uninsured Americans today, there will be even more in ten years when family premiums could exceed $25,000 a year (excluding co-payments and other out-of-pocket expenses). Click here to view the article

Our System is Far from Perfect but Americans Could Do Far Worse