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Monday, October 13, 2008

Where will Canadians go for health care?

A Canadian commented on a previous post that - even though he had to come to the US to receive health care - the Canadian system is better because it "cares more" (i.e. it paid for his treatment).

But where will Canadians go for health care if the US adopts a Canadian-style health care system? For that matter, where will the Italians, French, and British go if we adopt their models?

As to the notion that the US doesn't care about its poor, you will note that US taxpayers spend more on Medicare and Medicaid for the elderly and poor than they do on their own insurance (note that like Social Security, Medicare taxes are taken from the "trust fund" to pay other expenses). Indeed the $3,200 spent per US resident on government health care is nearly what the Canadian government spends - though government health care in the US covers only a fraction of our residents.

We have noted previously that Medicaid and Medicare - like Canadian health care - are inferior in quality (despite the exorbitant cost). In that regard, we can agree that there are flaws in the US health care system.

But our solutions to the problem, along with reforms to Medicaid, are better than imitating the Canadian failure.

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