Yes Canada, I prefer American healthcare 

By Pete Vere
web posted September 1, 2003

My father was aghast. While discussing my wife's current
pregnancy, our second, I told him that under our current health
insurance plan, my wife and I would be responsible for
somewhere between a thousand and two thousand dollars as our
portion of the medical bill. "You pay thousands of dollars a year
for family coverage in Florida," he said "And they still make you
pay? Can't you just come home to Canada?"

Even if I could, I likely would not. From a purely financial
perspective, good health coverage in the United States is still
cheaper for my family. Of course, my father's perception of
American healthcare is no different from that of most Canadians.
In fact, it is no different than my own tainted opinion of American
healthcare before our family moved south of the 49th parallel.
The Canadian media simply demonizes American healthcare at
every opportunity.

Yet Canadians forget that our universal health system is not free;
it comes from the high taxes our government collects. In contrast,
I pay no Florida state income tax under Governor Jeb Bush.
And what about President George W. Bush, the Governor's
brother, who recently lowered my federal tax rate? Dare I
mention that before President Bush's tax cuts, I still paid a lot
less in taxes each year than what my best friend and former
accountant from back home tells me I would have paid as a
Canadian resident under Jean Chretien's regime?

Now add the fact my wife is a stay at home mother and the U.S.
tax code permits joint tax returns for married couple. In contrast,
as many Canadian social conservatives so aptly point out, the
Canadian tax code penalizes married couples. And the premiums
I pay for family health coverage in the United States are
deducted from my taxable income. Thus when my wife and I add
up what we pay each year in taxes, health insurance premiums
and deductibles for medical services, we would pay more in
taxes if we still lived in the Dominion of Socialized Healthcare.

Yet healthcare is not merely a matter of finances. While this may
shock many of my fellow Canadians – as both our government
and our popular media constantly lead us to believe otherwise –
the quality of American healthcare is noticeably superior to what
our family previously experienced in Canada. Please do not
misconstrue this observation as an insult toward the men and
women who tirelessly serve within Canada's healthcare system. I
would never suggest that these folks are to blame, or that they
are less capable in their training than their American
counterparts.

Nevertheless, these good nurses and doctors can only work with
the technology to which they have access. From my experience
with both healthcare systems, American medical technology is
both more advanced and more readily available. And one must
also assume the availability of such qualified medical
professionals. In reality, Canada's socialized healthcare system is
notoriously understaffed. American healthcare professionals, on
the other hand, are also more accessible.

This last point hit home the first time we brought our oldest
daughter back to Canada for a family visit. As far as numbers
are concerned, our hometown is similar in population to where
we live now. The climate is much colder, however, and our
daughter came down with something while visiting my parents.
So we brought our daughter to the local walk-in clinic.

The experience was typical of most of my previous experiences
growing up in Canada under socialized healthcare. After a three-
and-half-hour wait in a small room overcrowded with sick
children, we finally saw the lone doctor on staff that evening. The
examination room was no where as spacious as what I had
become accustomed to in the United States, and even more
tellingly, no where nearly as well equipped. Unlike my previous
experiences growing up in Canada, now that I had tasted
American healthcare both the wait and the quality of service
seemed unbearable. In the United States, I have never waited
longer than fifteen minutes when visiting a healthcare provider.
Over the next few days, my wife and I wondered whether
spending nearly four hours in a closely confined space with other
sick children would make our daughter's condition worse.

Yet this incident is nowhere as egregious as that of a relative of
mine. Speaking of the cost of healthcare, he spent over a year on
Worker's Compensation as he waited for the necessary surgery
to get him back to work – surgery that would have taken less
than a month to schedule in any American city where I have
lived. Only one full-time medical specialist, assisted by a part-
time out-of-towner, practiced in my relative's community. This
medium-sized city on the Canadian side of the border required
six of these types of medical specialists Had my relative lived
across the river, he would have been back to work and paying
taxes in no time. Instead, he collected from the government for
over a year as he waited for the necessary operation. His
patience was not even rewarded with a private room during his
stay in the hospital.

The difference in quality even extends to dentistry. My wife's last
root canal was literally painless. Again, this says something about
the quality of American medical technology. Yet a more recent
example comes to mind with my wife's ultrasound in Sarasota. A
little over three years' ago, my wife had gone for a similar
ultrasound in Ottawa when we were expecting our first child.
The contrast could not differ more. Unlike our experience in
Canada's capital, our experience in this medium-sized American
city involved little waiting in the waiting room. The ultrasound
technology allowed us to clearly identify our daughter in the
womb without being medical experts, and the technology
allowed the medical staff to manipulate the monitor quite easily in
order to obtain the necessary measurements. With my oldest
daughter, on the other hand, the ultrasound was often delayed as
the medical staff waited for her to get into the proper position.
Afterward, my wife and I compared the photo print-outs of the
two ultrasounds. We could not help but notice that the Sarasota
prints were larger, glossier, and clearer.

In the end, I suppose the above represents only the anecdotal
evidence of one Canadian family now living in the United States
of America because of what our current prime minister considers
a fictitious brain drain. Certainly American healthcare is not
without its problems; yet these problems are nowhere as serious
as the Canadian political and media establishment would lead us
to believe. Having now experienced the healthcare system in
both countries, I prefer the American when given the choice.

Yet I cannot but wonder why the superior quality of American
healthcare is kept secret when comparing the two systems. Like
individuals, a healthcare system will succeed or fail based upon
its own merit. When a healthcare system begins to fail, we must
examine it honestly and ask tough questions. This par for the
course in the United State where a public debate now rages over
the escalating costs of prescription drugs as well as tort reform
and medical malpractice premiums. Yet in Canada such a candid
self-examination remains taboo. Our Canadian cultural and
political elite prefer demonizing the healthcare system south of
the border to acknowledging the growing failures of socialized
healthcare at home. Until this problem is acknowledged, it
cannot be fixed. Hence the reason this Canadian does not mind
making due with American healthcare.
 
Pete Vere, JCL is a canon lawyer and a Catholic social and
religious commentator from Sudbury, Ontario. He now writes
from Nokomis, Florida, where he and his family enjoy no state
income tax along with life within walking distance of the Gulf of
Mexico. His work has been published in numerous Canadian
and American Catholic publications.

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