\nI’m currently part-way through another round of my winter session online course on Michael Ondaatje and was responding today to a discussion board thread in which my students were talking about some of the things they know about Canada. One student brought up the health care system and I responded as follows:\n<\/p>\n
\nAs I often tell my students, learning more about another country (and \nWho knew that this would also be the subject of a couple of really interesting NY Times pieces over the last couple of days. In Paul Krugman’s editorial “A Healthy New Year<\/a>” (which you might not be able to open without being a TimesSelect subscriber) he states that “The U.S. health care system is a scandal and a disgrace. [. . .] In 2005, almost 47 million Americans \u00e2\u20ac\u201d including more than 8 million children \u00e2\u20ac\u201d were uninsured, and many more had inadequate insurance.” Krugman goes on to bring up some of the points I always tell my students:\n<\/p>\n \nSome say that we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford universal health care, even though every year lack of insurance plunges millions of Americans into severe financial distress and sends thousands to an early grave. But every other advanced country somehow manages to provide all its citizens with essential care. The only reason universal coverage seems hard to achieve here is the spectacular inefficiency of the U.S. health care system.<\/p>\n Americans spend more on health care per person than anyone else \u00e2\u20ac\u201d almost twice as much as the French, whose medical care is among the best in the world. Yet we have the highest infant mortality and close to the lowest life expectancy of any wealthy nation. How do we do it?<\/p>\n [. . .] The truth is that we can afford to cover the uninsured. What we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford is to keep going without a universal health care system.<\/em><\/span>\n<\/p>\n
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particularly one that’s as close to home geographically, culturally, and
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historically as Canada) can teach Americans a lot about their own
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country as well. As D…. pointed out, I think one of the things that
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should really make Americans look more critically at their own
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healthcare system is the lack here of universal health care, something
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that every other well-off country in the world enjoys. Universal health
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care is not “free” health care at all. Canadians pay for it in taxes and
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employers also pay health care premiums. However, the Canadian
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government still pays less per capita than the American government and
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the premiums paid by businesses per employee is about 10% of what UVM
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contributes towards my insurance. As D… also rightly pointed out,
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though, the Canadian system is also far from perfect (very long wait
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times for particular tests, specialists etc). Knowing about how another
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system works, though, is crucial to being able to see what works and
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doesn’t work well enough in your own system. Canadians often use the
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American system in that way to both argue for what we should be doing
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(better access, shorter wait times etc) and shouldn’t (privatized
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insurance etc).<\/em><\/span>\n<\/p>\n