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Statistics Show Canadian Healthcare Is Inferior to American System

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I am Canadian an for all those Americans reading this article, sorry to inform you but this article is full of crap!
If you look below at the very fine print of the chart it says "Prepared by Republlican staff, Joint Economic Committe". It is just another ploy by the Republicans to brainwash Americans to thinking the universal healthcare system wont work. You see the Republicans are rich and they just want to get richer and mostly, they would like it to stay that way. They are also are very greedy and just wanting to make a profit any cost, especially at the cost of Ameriacan lives.
They want you to think their are long waits here and people actually die from it. NOT TRUE. Perhaps their maybe a small percentage, but dont tell me there are no wait times in the US. Our wait times are not bad at all. Its better than you having to wait for your insurance company to see if they will pay for you get medical trement or not. Yes we do get taxed a portion from our paycheck, but at least we know that when we need medical help we will get it. Americans have to pay insurance premiums and when you claim they will try to find ways not to pay and cover your medical bill. So their is that chance they wont cover your bill, and therefore you having to pay for it. If cant afford it YOU DIE! You see your Republicans make money from these insurance companies and they want to stay thay way. As long as there are these private insurance companies, they will keep making money and keep getting richer. So how does that help the average American? The way I see it your healthcare system gambles with American lives!

Canadian 2:06AM January 08, 2010

I am Canadaian an for all those americans reading this article, sorry to inform you but this article is full of crap!
If you look below at the very fine print it says "prepared by Republlican staff, joint economic committe". It is just another ploy buy the Republicans to brainwash Americans to thinking the universal healthcare system wont work. You see the Repulicans are rich and just want to get richer and they would like it to stay. They are also are greedy and just wanting to make a profit any cost, espeecially at the cost of Ameriacan lives. They want you to think their are long waits here and people actually die from it. NOT TRUE. Perhaps their maybe a small percentage, but dont tell me there are no wait times in the US. Our wait times are not bad at all. Its better than you having to wait for your insurance company to see if they will pay for you get medical trement or not. Yes we do get taxed a portion from our paycheck, but at least we know that when we need medical help we will get it. Americans have to pay insurance premiums and when you claim they will try to find ways not to pay and cover your medical bill. So their is that chance they wont cover, and therefore you having to pay for it. If cant afford it YOU DIE! You see your republican govt makes money from these insurance companies. So how does that help the average american? The way I see it your healthcare system gambles with American lives!

Canadian 1:31AM January 08, 2010

I am a Canadian and Yes ,those figures are frightfully close to true.People haved died waiting for surgery as well as in emergency rooms waiting for medical attention.The fortunate ones that can afford to go and receive much needed healthcare in the USA .The wait times for critical testing such as MRI can be more than 6 months.The health care in Canada is far from substandard.

Maria 3:00PM December 09, 2009

Um, Where is the U.S. data? You compare Canadian wait time to what is a "Reasonable Wait Time".. but not to the U.S.
Totally misleading, and terrible journalism.

Brian Reilly of PA 11:43PM November 22, 2009

Well, I am a MD/PhD in Health Care Delivery Systems and have been educated in both Canada and the United States. First off, this article is is totally slanted. MacDonald et al (1998) state that using wait times as a measure of a health care system is extremely misleading and unethical. Secondly, his sources he used (Fraser Ins.) is a highly motivated (biased) research group that does not release their research methods to any reporting agency (health systems) and recently stated their research methods were randomly selected phone calls to physicians across the country. This is what you call bad research. No researcher in the world would use this data to compare wait times. Moreover, Canada has ranked one of the best countries in the world consistently for years on health outcomes, life expectancy, quality of life, infant mortality rate. By the way, the Fraser Institute report actually stated that the wait times in Canada have improved dramatically and that wait times to not play a contributing role in overall health outcomes (Health Canada, 2007; NIH, 2006; Hall et al. 2006). Canada pays out of taxes on average $484/year. Estimates for Americans can be in the thousands. But most importantly, the WHO ranks the united states as the worst industrialized nation in terms of health outcomes and worse than some developing countries. Hard to believe, but unfortunately, it is true. I worked in both systems as a physician and researcher. This is not a Canada vs. US thing, it is simply most countries have a higher standard of living across a population because more people are educated, lower socio-economic factors, high income, thus, higher health outcomes (France, Germany, Italy number 1,2,3 health care systems in the world).
The unfortunate part is that bad policy dovetails the issue of access for uninsured in US, higher costs, and shrinking providers. event hough Canada has better health outcomes and higher quality, neither system compares to the top three countries mentioned above.
My opinion now: It is unfortunate that this article has been written, this man did not read the report by the Fraser institute and most likely went to an American University with a low standard of education (which costs 1000s).

Dr. Joe Smith of SC 12:47AM November 19, 2009

To start I don't think I should have to pay for the people who don't have jobs or the one who choice not to work cause their lazy and want the government to take care of them.
yes pvt insurance can be costly. but so are the taxes that are going to go in to play to pay for this. NOTHING IS FREE in the world.
those that support this health care are just blinded by the smoke and mirrors the government is using. and no i am not Republican but I am not a Democrat either.
do some research USA think for yourself for once
Shawn I have yet to be declined an services with my pvt insurance here in the US. to be honest in 2004 my Doctors ran a battery of test to find out why I was loosing the feeling on the left side of my body and the ability to be able to walk with out assistance. they ran more test then what was needed. and I wasn't out that much money. I had 4 CT scans in 3 weeks and 10 MRIs in 6 weeks 4 of which were done on the same day at two different MRI centers.
My Private insurance paid for 95% of the cost and I wasn't out any money up front.

Joe of AR 8:13AM November 11, 2009

Kind of funny how you only look at wait times. How about looking at other "hard" data like infant mortality and life expectancy? What are our wait times like? I guess it's fine if you have money or a job that provides health insurance. Oh wait... those poor saps who don't have health insurance don't count in our averages because they don't affect me...

brian of WA 11:31AM October 30, 2009

If you had any sense, you would know that in any statistical comparison you use medians and not means, because means bring into consideration things such as outliers than ruin the average. And if you like Canada so much how about you move back there because we already have too many liberal narrow-minded thinkers here already.

Hunter of KS 7:43PM October 26, 2009

44,000 people die waiting each year for health care in America. Not because services are not available, but because they cannot afford to live. People love to attack Canadian wait times, but what they don't want to say is that no one loses their house because of a medical bill in Canada. According to the World Health Organization, Canada still has a much better system overall than the United States, and they spend less than half per person. We don't get any value for our health care dollar in the United States. This is probably due to the fact that for every health care dollar we give to a private insurance company, $0.25 goes towards administration costs. We need 95% of that dollar going towards making sick people better. The private insurance companies hire adjusters to find loopholes in your policy that allow them to decline your coverage. Please tell me how this is a better system than Canada's.

Shawn of CA 10:49AM October 22, 2009

The author clearly has tunnel vision. His title states that Canadian health care is inferior to the US, but is only looking at time spent on a waiting. It would seem a little short sighted to make such a grandiose claim that the entire health care system in Canada is inferior to the US based on faster service. This is probably one way to look at things if you're comparing fast food restaraunts, but comparing health care systems is a little more complicated than that. He ignores the fact that everyone in the Canada gets healthcare. As opposed to the US, where if you are lucky enough to afford it or have it provided to you, you recieve care after battling through the paperwork and beuracracy of your insurance company. I do not doubt that you have to wait longer in Canada, but that is the only way for every person to get health care.

David of FL 10:56AM October 09, 2009