3. Wait times in Canada are horrendous.
True and False again -- it depends on which province you
live in, and what's wrong with you. Canada's health care system runs on
federal guidelines that ensure uniform standards of care, but each
territory and province administers its own program. Some provinces don't
plan their facilities well enough; in those, you can have waits. Some
do better. As a general rule, the farther north you live, the harder it
is to get to care, simply because the doctors and hospitals are
concentrated in the south. But that's just as true in any rural county
in the U.S.
You can hear the bitching about it no matter where you live, though.
The percentage of Canadians who'd consider giving up their beloved
system consistently languishes in the single digits. A few years ago, a
TV show asked Canadians to name the Greatest Canadian in history; and in
a broad national consensus, they gave the honor to Tommy Douglas, the
Saskatchewan premier who is considered the father of the country's
health care system. (And no, it had nothing to do with the fact that he
was also Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather.). In spite of that, though,
grousing about health care is still unofficially Canada's third national
sport after curling and hockey.
And for the country's newspapers, it's a prime watchdogging
opportunity. Any little thing goes sideways at the local hospital, and
it's on the front pages the next day. Those kinds of stories sell
papers, because everyone is invested in that system and has a personal
stake in how well it functions. The American system might benefit from
this kind of constant scrutiny, because it's certainly one of the things
that keeps the quality high. But it also makes people think it's far
worse than it is.
Critics should be reminded that the American system is not exactly
instant-on, either. When I lived in California, I had excellent
insurance, and got my care through one of the best university-based
systems in the nation. Yet I routinely had to wait anywhere from six to
twelve weeks to get in to see a specialist. Non-emergency surgical waits
could be anywhere from four weeks to four months. After two years in
the BC system, I'm finding the experience to be pretty much comparable,
and often better. The notable exception is MRIs, which were easy in
California, but can take many months to get here. (It's the number one
thing people go over the border for.) Other than that, urban Canadians
get care about as fast as urban Americans do. http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/mythbusting-canadian-health-care-part-i
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