In honor of Canada’s 150th birthday, Bill Gardner provides what to my eye is an excellent primer on Canada’s health care system which American supporters and opponents both misunderstand. Among the misconceptions are that it’s not a federal program, although its administrative costs are lower than ours they’re higher than those of most other OECD countries, and by U. S. standards it’s a small program—just about half as many people are covered by it as are covered by Medicaid here. Another important feature: Canada’s health care system covers a small percentage more of total health care expenses than is the case when you combine all of the various local, state, and federal programs here. In other words Canada’s system is cheaper than ours because health care is cheaper there, not the other way around.
Basically, my view of Canada’s health care system is that it would be a good model for us if we had Canada’s immigration laws, didn’t have a 1,500 mile land border with Mexico, and health care were a lot cheaper here. As it is, it’s a good system for Canada but not a model for us.
We don’t provide insurance for illegal immigrants. We could just continue that if we wanted if we copied the Canadian system. So immigrants and a 150 mile border are not why the Canadian system would be hard to adopt. We have too many states with hugely varying populations. Canada has just 10 provinces. Even at 10 they have issues. With our 50 states it just wouldn’t work w/o much more willingness to compromise that i think is possible. Besides, many states don’t want universal coverage. They are OK with their poor not having coverage.
Steve