The most recent issue of Yes! magazine has a series of articles on universal health care, a subject that has been hotly debated for quite awhile here in the US. One article, Has Canada Got the Cure?, neatly summarizes what we are losing by sticking with our privately funded health care system. From the introduction:
most Americans are unaware that the United States is the only country in the developed world that doesn’t already have a fundamentally public–that is, tax-supported–health care system….
The United States now has the most expensive health care system on earth and, despite remarkable technology, the general health of the U.S. population is lower than in most industrialized countries. Worse, Americans’ mortality rates–both general and infant–are shockingly high.
I had assumed that the richer Americans would be benefiting from the private health care. If that were true then it would be easy to understand why the US still has a private health care system: the poorest of the people living in the United States are less likely to vote than those of us for whom employment and health care are pretty much constantly available. Surprisingly (at least to me), this is not true.
the overall improvement in health in a society with tax-supported health care translates to better health even for the rich, the group assumed to be the main beneficiaries of the American-style private system. If we look just at the 5.7 deaths per thousand among presumably richer, white babies in the United States, Canada still does better at 4.7, even though the Canadian figure includes all ethnic groups and all income levels.
Finally, I had erroneously assumed that the US has a larger problem with poor people than Canada. Again, I was wrong.
like the United States, there is plenty of inequality in Canada, too. In terms of health care, that inequality falls primarily on Canadians in isolated communities, particularly Native groups, who have poorer access to medical care and are exposed to greater environmental contamination. The only major difference between the two countries that could account for the remarkable disparity in their infant and adult mortality rates, as well as the amount they spend on health care, is how they manage their health care systems.
Joseph has nicely summarized all of the health-care related articles in this issue of Yes! on his blog, the Corpus Callosum.
We Americans pride ourselves on being bright and able to rapidly adapt to changing situations. It is time for us to learn from the people who have tried universal health care.
This is one of those rare 🙂 occassions where I compeletely agree with you. Health-care in America is now in a crisis. Insurance providers make discount “deals” with health care providers who in turn charge full price to the uninsured, those least able to afford double what the the insured is charged. More and more businesses are either dropping health insurance coverage or sharing the cost with employees. Insurance companies refuse to take the time to add riders and therefore it is not possible to get private insurance unless you have never been ill a day in your life! The millions of working people living near the poverty level are not even in a position to consider private insurance. We are long overdue in taking steps to remove high income earning potentials of health care providers so that health care is no longer a luxury of the rich.