A Health Care Checkup On Justin Trudeau’s Canada
https://issuesinsights.com/2023/12/29/a-health-care-checkup-on-justin-trudeaus-canada/
For decades, Americans have been told that the only humane, decent health care system is one run by the government. The oft-uttered complaint is that it’s a shame that the richest country in the world doesn’t have universal medical care. The reality is that the universal systems in other wealthy nations are cruel, cold bureaucracies.
If there are any doubts that this is true, look northward, to Canada, where waiting lists for treatment are leaving “patients frozen in line,” Pacific Research Institute President and Chief Executive Officer Sally Pipes recently wrote in Forbes.
“When everyone within a country is trapped in a public health insurance system,” says Pipes, patients suffer through a median waiting time “for medically necessary treatment from a specialist after being referred by a general practitioner” for an average of 27.7 weeks.
“That’s over six months – the longest ever recorded,” she adds.
Pipes cites data from Canada’s Fraser Institute, which in its most recent health care report found:
- The waiting time from a referral by a general practitioner to consultation with a specialist “increased from 12.6 weeks in 2022 to 14.6 weeks in 2023.”
- That while the “waiting time from the consultation with a specialist to the point at which the patient receives treatment” actually decreased “from 14.8 weeks in 2022 to 13.1 weeks this year,” it “is still 133% longer than in 1993 when it was 5.6 weeks.”
- The “waiting time from the consultation with a specialist to the point at which the patient receives treatment” is still 4.6 weeks longer than what physicians consider to be clinically ‘reasonable.’”
The American version of government medicine is no great achievement, either. Pipes points out that patients covered by our country’s “free” care – Medicaid – wait “1.3 days longer than commercially insured ones” to see primary physicians.
At the same time, it’s been determined that Medicaid beneficiaries are “1.6 times less likely to successfully schedule a primary care appointment than those with primary insurance – and 3.3 times less likely to secure an appointment with a specialist.”
Though he didn’t launch Canada’s failing system – it was established in 1984 during the final term of his prime minister father Pierre, who “duped Canadians into taking pride in their substandard health-care system” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau defends the indefensible as many before him have. To his credit, he admits “our health care system isn’t living up to” the “promise that no matter where you live, or what you earn, you will always be able to get the medical care you need.” Yet he believes that all it needs is more money – nearly $200 billion more.
Clearly Canada needs to put a sharper focus on the mental health of its “leaders,” since they’ve been exhibiting signs of insanity by constantly making the same poor decisions over and over and expecting a different result.
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