Canada's sick system.(Between The Lines)

ITEM: Speaking in Iowa, Jean Chretien, the former prime minister of Canada, praised his country's health care. As reported by KCRG-TV (Cedar Rapids) on September 15, Chretien claimed that Canada's "single-payer health care system works well, but isn't perfect.... He says Canada's health care system, which guarantees treatment for everyone, ensures that someone won't lose their home because they are sick."

ITEM: The president of Canada's National Union of Public and General Employees, James Clancy, told a union audience in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, that the U.S. "could eliminate vast health care inequities and save huge amounts of money by adopting a single-payer system similar to the one pioneered by Canada...." Clancy also said, as noted in a September 22 press release, "I believe that adopting a singlepayer system in America is the right thing to do because it is a perversion of core American values to have a system where money, rather than need, determines who gets access to health care."

BETWEEN THE LINES: What these proponents of nationalized health care are not acknowledging is that their system works poorly and is expensive.

In Canada, the already long waiting times for health services are getting longer. According to annual surveys of Canadian physicians, the median wait for treatment after a referral from a general practitioner jumped by 90 percent between 1993 and 2003--from 9.3 weeks to 17.7 weeks. Robert Cihak, M.D., president of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, notes that 50 percent of Canadian hospital administrators report that the average waiting time for a 65-year-old Canadian male to get a routine hip replacement is more than 6 months. "Not one American hospital administrator reported waiting that long," says Cihak. "Eighty-six percent of American hospital administrators said the average waiting time was shorter than three weeks." Also, the Canadian system is ...