Every year my parents winter in Florida, and every year they are buttonholed by Americans who insist on telling them how bad Canadian health care is, and then get sniffy when assured that, no, no, it’s fine, the service is reliable and comprehensive and safe; no long waits, no preventable deaths caused by waiting. Like universal health care everywhere else in the developed world, Canadian Medicare is vastly superior to the American system when it comes to access and cost of delivery (about half what it costs the Americans). The Republicans are of course responsible for the canard that Canadian health care is all about nightmarish waiting lists, and that as a result desperate Canadian patients flood the U.S. border in search of relief (Republicans also insist on calling our system “socialized medicine,” which it is not). Over the years they’ve successfully twisted the reality to fit their propagandized version of it for cynical, self-serving reasons.
But the quantifiable reality of the situation may startle even Canadians. You can see it at a glance after the jump.
From the peer reviewed journal, Health Affairs:
I had surgery last week, and though it was not covered by provincial health insurance, it was still available and affordable. When I woke up in the middle of the night spitting up blood, my husband drove me to the nearest hospital and I was admitted immediately and saw a doctor after very little wait. They kept me for observation and I saw a specialist before I left, the actual surgeon who had operated on me. I got good care, and, as usual, other than parking, there was no question of payment, no question even of filling out insurance forms. The medications I needed for recovering from the operation were covered by my husband’s health care plan, something that was not possible when we lived in the U.S. because of discriminatory laws and policies. It says something very encouraging about humanity that something as civilized as the Canadian health care system exists.