A National Healthcare System

Many health analysts say that Barack Obama's healthcare program would bring the U.S. dangerously close to Canada's healthcare system. Here are some facts to consider:

1. 70.3% of Canada's system is funded by the government, the remainder by the private sector.
   
2. One of the major complaints about the Canadian system is waiting times, whether for a specialist, major elective surgery, or specialized treatments.
3. 57% of Canadians reported waiting 4 weeks to see a specialist. A March 2 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal stated, "Saskatchewan is under fire for having the longest waiting time in the country for a diagnostic MRI — a whopping 22 months."
4. A February 28 article in The New York Times quoted Dr. Brian Day as saying, "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years. In a 2007 episode of ABC News John Stossel cited numerous examples of Canadians who had difficulty accessing health care.

Some residents of Canada travel to the United States in frustration with the limitations of their own health care system, as illustrated by the following examples:

• According to a September 14, 2007, article from CTV News, Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stonach went to the United States for breast cancer surgery in June 2007. Stronach's spokesperson Greg MacEachern was quoted in the article saying that the U.S. was the best place to have this type of surgery done. Stronach paid for the surgery out of her own pocket.

• When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, needed cancer treatment, he went to the U.S. to get it.

• In 2007, it was reported that Canada sent scores of pregnant women to the US to give birth.

• Champion figure skater Audrey Williams needed a hip replacement. Even though she waited two years and suffered in pain, she still did not get the surgery, because the waiting list was so long. So she went to the US and spent her own money to get the surgery.

• A January 19, 2008, article in The Globe and Mail states, "More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here. Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care."