Dear Editor:
When I hear that there’s a well-run government program, I become suspicious. And so it was when I read Marco Levytsky’s column “Canada’s publicly funded health care” (March 29). As Mr. Levytsky clearly states, Canada’s health care is paid for by taxes. What I find annoying though is the ubiquitous use of the word “free” in most publications when referring to a government-run health-care program. It’s a clever way of disguising the fact that the consumer actually pays for this service via his taxes.
That Canada’s health-care costs are much cheaper than in the U.S., as Mr. Levytsky points out, is beyond dispute. Part of the problem here in the U.S. is that the administrative costs are ridiculously high, accounting for 35 percent of health-care costs. In addition, Medicare is riddled with fraud and waste. What the consumer cares about, however, is what he pays for this service in taxes, insurance or both.
According to the Fraser Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in British Columbia, for the year 2017, the average two-adult family paid more than $12,000 annually for Canada’s “Medicare” coverage via taxation. The annual cost for the top 10 percent income earners was over $39,000.
In contrast, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American household spent $4,928 on health care in 2017, $3,414 of which was spent on insurance. The U.S. also has employer-sponsored health insurance, 82 percent of which is paid by the employer.
Finally, according to Peter St. Onge, Ph.D., economist of the Montreal Economic Institute, care in Canada is rationed, with waiting times running from months to years. A doctor in Ontario called in a referral for a neurologist and was told that there’s a four-and-a-half-year waiting list for a 16-year-old boy. Underinvestment in facilities has resulted in patients being treated in hallways. Canada has now fewer MRI units per capita than Turkey or Latvia. Every year, more than 50,000 Canadians come to the U.S. to have surgery done because they can get quality care and fast treatment.
As Rudy Giuliani once quipped, “If the U.S. adopts socialized medicine, where will Canadians go to get decent health care?”
Walter J. Dziwak,
Lake Hiawatha, N.J.