Close The Border To Canadian Health Care
TORONTO, ON- OCTOBER 29 – American Senator Bernie Sanders talks at Convocation Hall to talk about … [+]
Toronto Star via Getty Images
Next week, the U.S. Senate will return to work in Washington. Several key committees will welcome new leaders, including the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which will be led by Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sen. Sanders has promised to make “universal health care” a focus of his tenure atop the HELP Committee. He’s long been a fan of Canada’s single-payer system, wherein the government has a monopoly on paying for medically necessary care.
But that system is crumbling. Canadian patients face record waits for both routine and emergency care. And they pay dearly for the privilege.
Canada’s healthcare system, called Medicare, was once the country’s pride and joy. But as the program enters its seventh decade, public opinion is starting to turn. Just over half of Canadians said they were satisfied with their healthcare system in 2022, down from nearly 70% in 2020.
It’s easy to see why. Waits are interminable. In 2022, Canadian patients waited a median 27.4 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment from a specialist, according to the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver think tank. That’s nearly two weeks longer than the median wait time in 2021—and almost triple the 9.3 weeks Canadians waited on average in 1993.
And since private health insurance is illegal for care the government deems medically necessary, patients can’t pay a premium to escape the queue.
Nor, for that matter, can doctors. They have one customer—the government. And that customer is committed to keeping a lid on costs. Canada spends 12.2% of GDP on health care; health care accounts for 18.3% of U.S. GDP, by comparison.
So Canadian doctors have to do more with less. And that’s pushing many to the brink. More than half of Canadian doctors reported burnout in 2021, up from just 30% in 2017, according to a recent Canadian Medical Association survey.
Another survey found that over 75% of Canadian nurses “qualified as burnt-out in 2021.” And while doctors work an average of 52 hours a week, they spend just 36 hours treating patients, devoting a total of 16 hours to paperwork and other bureaucratic tasks.
Facing these onerous conditions, Canadian doctors are quitting the business. Nearly 20% of family doctors in Toronto are planning to shut their doors in the next five years, according to a study published in the journal Canadian Family Physician. Many are citing burnout as their reason for doing so.
The Canadian Medical Association estimates some 5 million Canadians did not have a primary care provider in 2021. The Children’s Hospital of Recent Ontario was so short-staffed this winter that the Canadian Red Cross needed to send reinforcement doctors.
To add insult to injury, this shoddy “free” care actually costs Canadians a pretty penny. A typical family of four paid a whopping $15,847 in taxes just to cover the cost of public health insurance, according to research from the Fraser Institute.
The Canadian health tax burden has surged in recent years. A childless couple who paid $8,225 in taxes for public coverage in 1997 pays around $15,229 today — an 85% increase.
Not even these hefty taxes can keep Medicare running smoothly. Provincial leaders are asking the Canadian government to cover 35% of healthcare costs, up from the 22% they currently cover. But 57% of Canadians say the current spending rate is already unsustainable, and experts agree. As Steven Staples, national director of policy and advocacy for the Canadian Health Coalition, put it, increasing funding to Medicare at this point is like “pouring hot water into a leaky bathtub.”
Rather than doubling down on failed and expensive socialized medicine, Canadian leaders need to consider lifting the ban on private health coverage and allowing market forces to repair some of the nation’s broken healthcare system.
Single-payer may be Bernie’s dream, but it’s rapidly becoming every Canadian’s nightmare. Perhaps some of his colleagues on the HELP Committee can invite some of the Canadians waiting for care to offer a firsthand perspective on the crisis plaguing their healthcare system.
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