Canadian Critique: A Response

One hardly knows where to begin. Although he claims to be Canadian, Mr Bugos apparently remains ignorant of the fact that Canadian health care is not socialized. Of course, he also believes that anyone disagreeing with him is either a socialist or -- worse -- a Soviet. 


I appreciate that Mr Bugos is Canadian and that I am not; however, this renders his at times factual mischaracterization of Canadian health care all the more baffling. Essentially, his argument is one long assertion without supporting data; also, he states things like “economics teaches us” as if he were advancing a truism rather than a debatable point. A couple of observations:

• Unlike the Veteran's Administration in the United States, Canadian health care is not socialized: The government does not own and operate the means of production or service. Instead, the thirteen provincial and territorial governments administer tax-financed insurance a la Medicare (the name of the Canada’s health care system) to reimburse private providers. Thus, there is no "state monopoly in the provision of Medicare." The national government serves to set standards and to negotiate on behalf of the Canadian people. That's a good thing;
• The genesis of the Canadian health care system goes back to the mid 40s. It arose as a result of need, not a left-wing scheme to undermine the free market. Canadians believed that the free market had failed to provide equal access to quality care. The system that emerged is a statement of pragmatism, not ideology;
• Government regulation of health care is the common denominator of the health care systems of every developed nation. All -- even the United States -- have concluded to varying degrees that the health of their country and the people who reside there cannot hope to succeed based on rates of return;
• Canadians like their health care system. In 2003, 57% of Canadians reported satisfaction with their health care, compared with 25% of Americans. (Danes, who have a true socialized system, register the highest degree of satisfaction at over 90%);
• The World Health Organization does not share Mr Bugos' assessment of the poor quality of Canadian health care: It ranks their system ahead of ours (30th to 37th). Canadians live longer than Americans and have a healthier life expectancy. Their maternal mortality rate is lower than ours, and they even smoke less. And, of course, Canada accomplishes this while spending less than we do. Mr Bugos' understanding of quality seems to have the same relationship to reality as the Land of Oz;
• Canada’s health care system reflects a national egalitarian ethos that exceeds that of the United States or even France;
• The argument that American health care somehow serves as a safety valve to relieve pressure on other systems is a canard never accompanied even by anecdotes, much less actual evidence. I am immersed in this stuff, and have yet to see this particular claim seriously advanced. Here is an anecdote: One of my MHA colleagues is an interventional cardiologist, i.e., a heart surgeon. By no means is he the class liberal. Someone asked him if he had many Canadian patients fleeing the supposed inadequacies of Canada’s secondary care. He was genuinely puzzled by the question. Even someone extremely wealthy, he explained, would think twice about paying 100K for a procedure that would be performed in Canada both free and perfectly well;
• Why does Mr Bugos cite 1904 AMA restrictions as an example of unwarranted state intervention? The AMA is a private organization. This is a case of the market imposing artificial controls, not the state;
• American history suggests that when the money gets big enough (i.e., railroads, oil, telecommunications), unregulated markets will consolidate until a few major competitors emerge as price setters, a development in health care that most Americans would find unacceptable. Mr Bugos does not address this as even a possibility even though history suggests that it is a likelihood;
• Mr Bugos writes that the United States government "forced" employers to contribute to health care, the presumes to lecture about what "economics teaches us." Had Mr Bugos passed his freshman Econ class, he would know that payroll taxes are inevitably passed on to consumers. Moreover, Mr Bugos ignores altogether the impact of the Revenue Act of 1954, which established a tax exemption for employer-provided health care benefits. In what way is that government coercion?
• In the same paragraph. Mr Bugos accuses the United States government of sabotaging the free market, then touts its relative freedom. Admittedly, by then I didn't know whether he was coming or going either.

Overall, Mr Bugos makes an argument typical of the ones advanced by privatizers: It assumes a debatable premise and proceeds from there, rather than constructing a theory supported by underlying data. The result consists of cherry-picking, ad hominem attacks, and straw men.