Canada

1. To what degree do Canadians love their health care?
          Huge! 85-86%! Some polls indicate 92% or higher.

An August 2009 National Union poll of Canadians gives us a measurement of the overwhelming degree to which Canadians love their national health insurance. The question related to whether Canadians want public solutions or private solutions to whatever problems with Canadian health care.
The August 2009 response is 86% support for public solutions.

In previous polls Canadians were asked if they are satisfied with health care services overall. That level is 85.2% from a 2008 poll, “unchanged from 2005” as documented in the source article.

In the video, below, they state that 92% of Canadians like their health care.

Experiences of Canadians with Canadian health care

Video. Below is a video of Canadians talking about their health care experiences and opinions: eleven Canadians ranging in age from 40 to 90 years old (Ona, Bob, Dave, Susan, Sally, Doug, Stan, Tamara, Janet, Richard, Emily). If you cannot play the video, then you can read excerpts of what they said.

2. Experiences of Americans with Canadian health care

Documentation: experiences of Americans who live and work in Canada. This includes a video of two families that consider themselves exiled in Canada due to the excellent health care there. They cannot move back to the USA.

3. What U.S. Improved Medicare for All will be like compared to Canada’s system.

Definitely better.

• They have about a dozen health insurance plans for their country. We will have only one.
• Their population is much smaller than ours. Our large population means we will have the lowest risk among all of the free-market countries. We will also, therefore, have the ability with our size to negotiate the best prices with global corporations for drugs and equipment.

We will no longer be subsidizing the entire world by us paying the high prices and them paying negotiated prices.

Sources

“Canada overwhelmingly supports public health care — National Union

Additional Information

History of Canadian Health Care Acts

— Medical Care Act of 1966
— in all provinces and territories by 1972, which is the year used at this Medicare for All website
— then refinements were made, such as the Canada Health Act of 1984
For a more complete background of Canada’s Health Care System start here at the “Background” description at the Health Canada website www.hc-sc.gc.ca

Excerpts of the source information

Canada overwhelmingly supports public health care

Nanos Research poll on eve of CMA (Canadian Medical Association) convention shows that 86% of Canadians support “public solutions” to make public health care stronger.

Ottawa (13 Aug. 2009) - A new poll on the eve of the national convention of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) in Saskatoon shows an overwhelming 86% level of public support for “public solutions” to improve Canada’s national health care system.

Commissioned by the Canadian Health Coalition (CHC), and conducted by Nanos Research, the poll counters a national survey on privatization that the CMA is expected to release later in the week as doctors debate measures to increase the level of for-profit medicine in Canada.

The coalition says it was necessary to carry out the poll because the CMA poll has been manipulated by “vague and misleading” language to produce results showing a misleading level of support for privatized medicine.

“With more than eight in 10 Canadians supporting public solutions to make public health care stronger, there is compelling evidence that Canadians across all demographics would prefer a public over a for-profit health care system,” says Nik Nanos, president of Nanos Research.

Nanos, one of Canada’s most respected pollsters, surveyed 1,001 Canadians between April 25 and May 3. His poll has a margin of accuracy of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Direct question

Respondents to the CHC poll were asked the following question:

“Thinking about the future of Canada’s public health-care system, would you support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or oppose public solutions to make our public health care stronger?”

A total of 86.2% of respondents said they support or somewhat support public solutions, while 8.2% said they oppose or somewhat oppose the approach. The balance, 5.7%, said they were unsure.

The results are also in sync with a recent health Canada report entitled Healthy Canadians – A Federal Report on Comparable Health Indicators 2008. It found that 85.2% of Canadians were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with health care services overall. That level was unchanged from 2005, the last time the survey was conducted.

China

Shift to privatized healthcare brings long lines and frustration — February 2010

“In China, shift to privatized healthcare brings long lines and frustration”
Excerpts of February 11, 2010 Los Angeles Times article

Excerpts: (bolding and parenthetical text added)

Reporting from Beijing - The frigid morning was still blanketed in darkness, but Nie Xiaojuan was awake and holding tightly her place in line. She had just spent her fifth straight night sleeping on the floor of Beijing Union College Hospital’s registration hall, which was minutes away from its 6:30 a.m. opening.

Appointments for the best doctors are normally snapped up before sunrise. Lines begin forming in front of the hospital’s six registration counters at least a day in advance. Nie’s father, who was too weak to join the queue, needed to see several specialists. Nie had no choice but to stake out a place night after night so that each morning she could arrange a single appointment.

Around her hundreds of patients and family members filled the hall, a dimly lighted space about the size of a tennis court. Each evening it turns into a campsite. A woman from a coal town seeking an appointment with a liver specialist dozed on a pile of jackets. A janitor sat on a copy of the Beijing News, holding a place for his cousin with kidney problems. Many in line passed the time by playing cards, knitting or dozing. When people needed to use the toilet or run to buy food across the street, neighbors in line held their place.

Nie, who traveled 250 miles from Inner Mongolia by train, was lucky to be first in her line, boosting her odds of getting an appointment with one of the hospital’s coveted medical experts. But even that was no guarantee. Patients with pull – and plenty of cash – don’t bother with queues. Scalpers who line up as if they were patients or collude with shady registration clerks snatch up many of the slots and sell them to the highest bidder.

“The whole week we’ve been lining up,” said Nie, 20 (who quit her job to help her father). “What else can we do?”

At a time when the United States is grappling to overhaul its healthcare system to provide more Americans with coverage, China is struggling with the fallout of abandoning its socialist model in favor of Western-style privatized medicine. Government efforts to modernize China’s healthcare system and reduce Beijing’s role have led to deep funding cuts for public hospitals. Rural clinics have been hit especially hard.

(Reference to the United States …)

The results are familiar to many Americans: Patients with good health insurance or ample savings can get first-class treatment at the best medical facilities, while millions of the uninsured and poor live in dread of a serious illness that could bankrupt their families. Hospitals are focusing ruthlessly on the bottom line to stay afloat. Costs are soaring, in part because of perverse incentives that encourage doctors to prescribe pricey drugs and needless tests.

Concerned that its rickety healthcare system could destabilize social harmony, China’s central government has launched a $124-billion overhaul, chiefly to improve service in rural areas. Failure to address the nation’s health woes could be disastrous not only for China – home to about a quarter of the globe’s population – but also for the rest of world because of the threat of rising communicable diseases such as H1N1 flu.

“The issue in China is ultimately about access to healthcare,” said Jonathan Samet, director of the Institute for Global Health at USC. “China, as a rising power, has to figure out how to care for its citizens.”

(… more about Nie’s personal story …)

For decades, Beijing Union, in the heart of the capital, has been considered the gold standard in China. The storied institution was founded in 1921 by the Rockefeller Foundation and is attached to a prestigious medical school whose colorful tiled roof evokes China’s imperial past.

… the healthcare system has broken down in rural areas, (and) peasants have flocked to the cities, overwhelming medical centers …

… The surge in demand feeds a black market for medical care. Packs of scalpers roam China’s major hospitals, peddling appointment tickets for hundreds of dollars – equivalent to months of earnings for a typical peasant. …

(… more about Nie’s personal story …)

Source

L.A. Times article by David Pierson; February 11, 2010