America Fails in Health Care

Amending the Constitution to prohibit flag burning is "important to the heart and soul of the American people," according to Bill Frist and the Republican controlled Senate. Really? That contradicts recent polls that show health care is the number one domestic issue, and the public "thinks that Bush and the GOP are doing an outstandingly bad job in addressing the issue."

The public also believes by two to one (62 percent to 31 percent) that it’s the responsibility of the federal government to “guarantee health care for all.”

One of the solutions often mentioned is national health insurance similar to that in Canada, but our government and their enablers (the MSM) try to scare us into believing that their system is inadequate and inferior. I've lived in SE Michigan most of my life and know many people across the border in Canada who love the health care they receive. People may wait for elective surgery for something non-life threatening like a knee replacement, but they all laugh about the horror stories of people dying while waiting for bypass surgery or other such operations. In fact, they point out that infant mortality rates are lower in Canada compared to the U.S. and life expectancy is longer too. They must be doing something right in Canada. In fact, that's exactly what this latest study shows:

A study by Harvard Medical School researchers in the July, 2006 issue of the American Journal of Public Health finds that U.S. residents are less healthy than Canadians. Moreover, despite spending nearly twice as much per capita for health care, U.S. residents experience more problems getting care and more unmet health needs.

The study analyzes the Joint Canada-U.S. Survey of Health, the first-ever cross national health survey carried out by the two nations’ official statistics agencies. The authors found that U.S. residents were less healthy than Canadians, with higher rates of nearly every serious chronic disease examined in the survey, including diabetes, arthritis, and chronic lung disease. U.S. residents also had more high blood pressure (18% of U.S. residents versus only 14% of Canadians). U.S. rates of obesity and sedentary lifestyle were higher; with 21% of U.S. respondents reporting obesity versus 15% of Canadians. However, U.S. residents were slightly less likely to smoke.

Canadians had better access to most types of medical care (with the single exception of pap smears). Canadians were 7% more likely to have a regular doctor and 19% less likely to have an unmet health need. U.S. respondents were almost twice as likely to go without a needed medicine due to cost (9.9% of U.S. respondents couldn’t afford medicine vs. 5.1% in Canada). After taking into account income, age, sex, race and immigrant status, Canadians were 33% more likely to have a regular doctor and 27% less likely to have an unmet health need. For each of these measures, the average Canadian did about as well as insured U.S. residents.

Race and income disparities, although present in both countries, were larger in the U.S. Non-whites were more likely than whites to have an unmet health need in the U.S. (18.6% vs. 11.1%); while in Canada they were not (10.8% vs. 10.2%). Notably, both white and non-white Canadians had fewer unmet health needs than white U.S. residents. After taking into account income, age, sex, race and immigrant status, poor U.S. residents (making less than $20,000 per year) were 2.6 times less likely to have a regular doctor than the affluent (those making $70,000 or more). In Canada, the poor were only 1.7 times less likely.

In the U.S., cost was the largest barrier to care. More than seven times as many U.S. residents reported going without needed care due to cost as Canadians (7.0% of U.S. respondents vs. 0.8% of Canadians). Uninsured U.S. residents were particularly vulnerable; 30.4% reported having an unmet health need due to cost.

Lead author Dr. Karen Lasser, primary care doctor at Cambridge Health Alliance and Instructor of Medicine at Harvard commented, “Most of what we hear about the Canadian health care system is negative; in particular, the long waiting times for medical procedures. But we found that waiting times affect few patients, only 3.5% of Canadians vs. 0.7% of people in the U.S. No one ever talks about the fact that low-income and minority patients fare better in Canada. Based on our findings, if I had to choose between the two systems for my patients, I would choose the Canadian system hands down.”

Canadian health care may not be perfect, but as one doctor from the University of British Columbia stated: "There are more than 44 million Americans without any health care at all. (Canadians) might complain about wait times but for those 44 million, the wait time is literally forever."