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Universal Healthcare Elsewhere in the World - Universal
Health Care Problems
Many countries around the world have universal healthcare
policies. How has this worked out for them? Many
American journalists have looked to these countries as
examples for the basis of national programs.
Canada
Brian Schwartz, one of
these writers, wrote in the Hawaii Reporter:
"The Canadian Medical
Association Journal reports that in one year, 71 Ontario
patients died while waiting for coronary bypass surgery and
over one hundred more became 'medically unfit for surgery.'
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports that '109
people had a heart attack or suffered heart failure while on
the waiting list. Fifty of those patients died.'
'Physicians across Canada
are in an advanced stage of burnout due to work conditions'
which 'causes them to retire early...or simply leave,' a
former Canadian Medical Association president told the New
York Times. He 'attributed much of the problem to
technological shortages and the powerlessness doctors feel
when patients complain about long waits for treatment.'
'Access to a waiting list
is not access to healthcare,' wrote Canadian Chief Justice
McLachlin when striking down legislation banning private
insurance in 2005. Last year a New York Times read: 'As
Canada's Slow-Motion Public Health System Falters, Private
Medical Care Is Surging.'
England
And in England? The BBC
reports that 'up to 500 heart patients die each year while
they wait for potentially life-saving surgery.' The Times
claims that a British woman 'will be denied free National
Health Service treatment for breast cancer if she seeks to
improve her chances by paying privately for an additional
drug.' A Daily Telegraph headline reads: 'Sufferers pull out
teeth due to lack of dentists.' Another article says that
'doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from
patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.'”
7
According to Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at the Los Angeles-
based Reason Foundation, "There is no evidence
that ... [universal health care] will bring economic nirvana. If anything, contrary to what the
president suggests, the correlation runs the other way for countries
with universal coverage such as Canada, England, France, Germany, and
Japan. On nearly every economic front, their performance has been worse
than America's-even, surprisingly, in controlling health care costs.
More information on
universal health care issues in America
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