Canadian Health Care Sucks...Says The Architect Of Canadian Health Care

Americans need to consider very carefully the words of the man who destroyed Canada's health care system.  Mainly, those on the Left who support universal health care need to get a clue and realize that what us opposers are predicting will happen in the U.S. has already happened in Canada!  Excerpts:

As this presidential campaign continues, the candidates' comments about health care will continue to include stories of their own experiences and anecdotes of people across the country: the uninsured woman in Ohio, the diabetic in Detroit, the overworked doctor in Orlando, to name a few.

But no one will mention Claude Castonguay — perhaps not surprising because this statesman isn't an American and hasn't held office in over three decades.

Castonguay's evolving view of Canadian health care, however, should weigh heavily on how the candidates think about the issue in this country.

Back in the 1960s, Castonguay chaired a Canadian government committee studying health reform and recommended that his home province of Quebec — then the largest and most affluent in the country — adopt government-administered health care, covering all citizens through tax levies.

The government followed his advice, leading to his modern-day moniker: "the father of Quebec medicare." Even this title seems modest; Castonguay's work triggered a domino effect across the country, until eventually his ideas were implemented from coast to coast.

Four decades later, as the chairman of a government committee reviewing Quebec health care this year, Castonguay concluded that the system is in "crisis."

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.

What would drive a man like Castonguay to reconsider his long-held beliefs? Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.

Years ago, Canadians touted their health care system as the best in the world; today, Canadian health care stands in ruinous shape.

The emergency measures they're taking in Canada now to fix their crisis sound amazingly similar to what we've already got here, don't you think?  The article cites numerous examples of Canadians seeking health care in America because they can't get it at home due to a number of reasons: excessive delays, rejections due to simple paperwork snafus, and higher quality, to name just a few.  But it's not a uniquely Canadian problem.  It happens everywhere universal health care is implemented.  Take Britain, for example:

Britain's system, once the postwar inspiration for many Western countries, is similarly plagued. Both countries trail the U.S. in five-year cancer survival rates, transplantation outcomes and other measures.

The problem is that government bureaucrats simply can't centrally plan their way to better health care.

A typical example: The Ministry of Health declared that British patients should get ER care within four hours. The result? At some hospitals, seriously ill patients are kept in ambulances for hours so as not to run afoul of the regulation; at other hospitals, patients are admitted to inappropriate wards.

Americans are fed up with what we've got now.  But, the question is how do we fix it?  Do we go the way of Canada and Britain, as Obama proposes, or do we move more toward privatization and reform, as McCain proposes?

However the candidates choose to proceed, Americans should know that one of the founding fathers of Canada's government-run health care system has turned against his own creation. If Claude Castonguay is abandoning ship, why should Americans bother climbing on board?

Amen!  Universal health care is a very, very bad idea, and it will destroy our health care system.  This is not speculation, this is not an educated guess...it is a FACT based upon overwhelming evidence from other countries who have tried it and failed.  We need to change things, yes.  But the change we need is NOT universal health care.

There's my two cents.