Canadian Health Service Smackdown

Here's a useful article debunking popular myths about the Canadian Health Service.

Since I'm a fan of irony I'll offer the following sample: wouldn't it be awful if insurance company government bureaucrats interferred in our health care!

Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.

While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks - unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

Now I'm sure, like all human systems, the Canadian Health Service is not perfect and that it can use reform from time to time. That's not the issue. The issue is the fantasy that our system, whatever its faults, is without question the best of all possible systems. Too many of our fellow citizens seem enthralled by this fantasy.

Read the whole thing if you need a refresher.