Oh, Canada
Oct.19, 2006 — -- Why do Canadians love their health-care system?
Most policy analysts are only comfortable with the usual and tangible metrics of health-care access, cost and quality.
The real answer might come as a surprise to those analysts.
Although it is accessible, cost-effective, and provides good quality care, Canadians love their health-care system for what they think it represents about them and their basic values.
Those values are remarkably consistent across the country -- when the issue is health care, Canada has no "red" or "blue" states.
A full 90 percent of Canadians believe that no one should be denied health care simply because they don't have money.
Fairness and equity are values that most Canadians like to think their country stands for. Because they see and hear so much about the real and imagined horrors perpetrated by the U.S. health-care nonsystem, Canadians like their system even more by comparison.
I do think Canadians would be less fervent about their system if health-care delivery in the United States didn't look so awful by comparison.
But, put bluntly, democratic countries tend to get the health-care systems they deserve, based on history, culture and national values.
Most of the debates about health-care reform in the United States that I have seen and heard over the last 30 years have focused on details of how care is paid for, rather than on the fundamental question of what values should drive the provision of care.
So, is money the only value driving the American health-care system? If so, it is more than a bit misguided.
If we truly want to make the system better, as Americans we should find an answer to the hard questions.
What does the present way of apportioning health care in our country say about us and our values? What would we want it to say?
Canadian health care is not socialized, as it is in Great Britain. It is not even one system.
Each province and territory has its own provincially administered insurance plan.
These plans are conditionally and partially supported by federal funds. The conditions require the provinces to provide insurance that is universal, covering all citizens and legal residents for all necessary medical and hospital services, on the same terms and conditions -- no co-pays, no deductibles, and no lifetime or yearly limits.
Each province must accept the other provinces' plans.
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