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The oxymoron of 'universal health care'

© Francois Tremblay

Health care is a vital area of society, and there is no wonder that it receives so much attention. Here in Canada, health care is almost completely public and syndicalized, with disastrous results. Everywhere that public health care exists, it results in lower technology, higher waiting lists, and higher costs for society. And yet many Americans, and other people around the world, have not experienced it and do not understand why taking away health care from private competition is such a bad idea.

There is a pervasive assumption about public health care, that it is "one-speed", "universal" and equitable. This is used as a justification that overrides all practical consideration. After all, as long as everyone "gets the same chance", any amount of disadvantage is irrelevant, at least in democracy-based thought. So they refuse to permit private hospitals, which would relieve some pressure off the public system and ensure a better service. Given the importance of public health, such negligence is criminal.

This is perverse thinking, but the premise itself is utterly wrong. Public health care is not "universal". The masses are stuck with a sub-standard health care system, and the rich pay to go to the United States, or other countries, for better treatment. Doctors also leave in droves because of the lower salaries and bad working conditions. The system is only universal insofar that the state has universal control either way (through immigration control, if you leave). If the United States sabotages its own health care system by socializing it, the same thing will happen.

I've made some bold claims, which people who do not live in Canada, the UK, Sweden, or a country where socialized medicine is prominent, might doubt. But Canada is a good example of its failure, since it is the country that monopolizes health care the most. Also, Canada spends the most on health care of all OECD nations (on an age-adjusted basis). But it has inferior technology available.

"Although Canada is the fifth highest among OECD countries in terms of total spending on health (as a percentage of GDP), it is generally among the bottom third of OECD countries in availability of technology. (...) The local comparison is equally unfavourable. CT scanners, nuclear medicine facilities, MRIs, lithotriptors, positron emission tomography (PET), specialized intensive-care facilities, and cardiac catheter labs are all less likely to be found at a community hospital in British Columbia than at a similar hospital in Washington or Oregon. Angioplasty and transplant facilities are mainly restricted to the University teaching hospitals in British Columbia, while they are more widely dispersed in the two American states.

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