This Report Just Shredded Every Myth Claiming Canadian Medicare Is Superior — or Fair
27th July 2017
A Canadian writer in a Canadian publication gives us the truth.
Canada’s public service unions gleefully embraced a recent international ranking by Oxford University and the Institute for Government that placed us number one in the world for “civil service effectiveness.” Perhaps understandably intoxicated with this success, those same unions were curiously silent when the prestigious Commonwealth Fund in the U.S. released its most recent update comparing health-care systems in the rich industrialized world. This showed our health-care system, run virtually in its entirety by these effective Canadian public servants, not just below average, but at the bottom of the heap, barely outperforming France and our health-care system’s arch-enemy, the U.S.
On measure after measure the data belie the boasts that medicare apologists tout as proof we have the best system in the world. When measuring the equity of our system against the others, we come a pitiful ninth out of 11, despite the fact that “fairness” is the argument most frequently trotted out to defend the status quo. Turns out Canadian health care isn’t all that fair.
Ditto for health-care outcomes. Despite being a fairly high spender, we are not able to turn that money into better outcomes for Canadians. Again, we rank ninth out of 11.
July 27th, 2017 at 10:28
“Despite being a fairly high spender, we are not able to turn that money into better outcomes for Canadians.”
Change “Canadians” to “Americans”, and you have the same result. Only it’s worse here. We spend more, and get less, than any other civilized country in the world.
Changing to Canada’s system may not make anything “fairer”, but it would save us money, regardless of how ‘crappy’ the care is considered by some.
July 27th, 2017 at 12:22
Getting rid of government interference in the health care market would save us even more, and give us an even better system than we have now.