Posted At Des Moines Register

BY : Andie Dominick

Those who oppose a taxpayer-financed system of health care in the United States frequently point to Canada as an example of a government system with problems. What Americans hear about Canada: long waits, Canadians coming to the United States for care, rationing and costs that increasingly burden the government.

But the irony is that in the United States an uninsured person not only waits for care, but may never get it. Americans venture overseas and to Mexico, where procedures are cheaper and the dollar goes further. Americans flock to Canada for cheaper prescription drugs.

Rationing? Private insurance companies ration care to Americans by telling them which doctors to visit and refusing to cover certain drugs and procedures. And when it comes to escalating costs, well, the United States wins hands down.

Yes, Canada has health-care problems. But the country provides basic insurance to all residents. The United States has about 45 million people who are uninsured. Canada doesn't tie health care to jobs. The U.S. employer-based system keeps people in dead-end jobs, burdens companies and prevents people from starting businesses because they can't afford health-care coverage.

A recent study suggests Americans should rethink their misperceptions about the two systems.

"The Joint Canada-United States Survey of Health" was conducted by Statistics Canada and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Telephone surveyors questioned approximately 3,500 Canadians and 5,200 Americans in 2002 and 2003. Results were released in 2004. The survey, the first of its kind, asked Americans and Canadians the exact same questions.

Here's some of what was found:

1. 88 percent of Canadians reported they were in good, very good or excellent health, compared to 85 percent of Americans.


2. 12 percent of Canadians reported their health as poor or fair, compared to 15 percent of Americans. Among low-income Americans, that number jumped to 31 percent, compared to 23 percent of low-income Canadians.


3. 42 percent of Americans ranked health-care services as excellent, compared to 39 percent of Canadians, but that number dropped to 28 percent among Americans without health insurance. All Canadians have health insurance.


4. 13 percent of Americans reported unmet medical needs during the past year, compared to 11 percent of Canadians. Americans identified cost as the primary barrier, and Canadians reported waiting for care.


5. 85 percent of Canadians reported having a regular medical doctor, compared to 80 percent of Americans.


6. Prescription-drug use in both countries was similar, yet there was higher drug use among Americans ages 45 to 64 than Canadians in that age group.

Then there are the differences between the countries the survey doesn't address. Canadians enjoy longer life expectances, even though more Canadians smoke. Infant mortality rates are better in Canada.

Canada doesn't have a perfect system. No country does. Health care is complicated and expensive. Yet other countries' systems aren't the nightmare some have portrayed them to be. Countries such as France do a much better job of delivering care in an organized way. Health care in other industrialized countries doesn't result in hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies. It doesn't leave the middle class without care. It doesn't tie care to jobs.

America could learn a lot from countries such as Canada ---- what does work and what doesn't.

But mostly we could learn from the basic principle behind the health-care system in every other industrialized country: Provide everyone with basic health care.

Unfortunately, that's an ethic seemingly absent in the United States.