A recent rash of scare-ads, funded by the moderate, centrist and balanced Canadian Labour Congress, has hit the radio waves. One in particular laments the possibility of letting the private sector enter health care, and says sternly that we mustn't Americanize medicare.
Look, there's no question that in the USA, there are some people (although far fewer than we are led to believe) who get sick or even die because they don't get the healthcare they need, as they can't afford it. In Canada, there are some people (far more than we are led to believe) who get sick or even die because they don't get the healthcare they need, as their goverment can't provide it and they're not allowed to pay for it themselves. It has yet to be explained why the first is a national shame and a catastrophe while the second is entirely acceptable. My theory is that socialists don't object to people suffering as long as everybody else is suffering just as much: in other words, equality of outcome. They're not offended by the thousands waiting months for necessary treatment in Canada; they're offended by the well-insured or well-off getting the same treatment immediately through the private sector.
America's health care system isn't perfect; neither is Britain's NHS, or Singapore's MSA system. By most measures, they're all better than ours, though, and copying some aspects of one or all of them isn't likely to make our system much worse. But the CLC's jejeune scare tactics will likely work; nothing makes a mild-mannered Canadian squeak in terror like the phrase "American style health care." It may be a crumbling, disgraceful Third World medical system, but at least it's ours.
Posted by Clio at April 18, 2004 10:25 AM