Monday, October 5, 2009

The Canadian "Private Option"

Ari Armstrong alerted me to two recent stories about the "private option" in Canadian health care:

"In Canada, a move toward a private healthcare option"
By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, 9/27/2009

"Canada's lack of special care empowers brokers"
By Valerie Richardson, Washington Times, 9/28/2009

From the first article:
...More than 70 private health providers in British Columbia now schedule simple surgeries and tests such as MRIs with waits as short as a week or two, compared with the months it takes for a public surgical suite to become available for nonessential operations.

"What we have in Canada is access to a government, state-mandated wait list," said Brian Day, a former Canadian Medical Assn. director who runs a private surgical center in Vancouver. "You cannot force a citizen in a free and democratic society to simply wait for healthcare, and outlaw their ability to extricate themselves from a wait list."
At a time that more Canadians are recognizing the merits of private health care over the public system, too many American politicians are trying to push our country towards a "public plan".

Do Americans really want to give their lives over to the government like that?