Health care in Canada — “single-payer,” hailed by statists as the sort we ought to have — ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, according to this from the Hamilton, (Ont.) Spectator discussion opinion polls showing more than three out of four Canadians think their system is “in crisis”:
This . . . is illustrated in our own community by a severe doctor shortage. More than 60,000 city residents do not have a family doctor.
Which is typical of a statist program that imposes itself on how people act when buying and selling things.
There’s trouble in Maine too, Cato Institute tells us:
When Maine became the first state in years to enact a law intended to provide universal health care, one of its goals was to cover the estimated 130,000 residents who had no insurance by 2009, starting with 31,000 of them by the end of 2005, the program’s first year,” The New York Times reports. “So far, it has not come close to that goal. Only 18,800 people have signed up for the state’s coverage and many of them already had insurance.”
Have signed up? Can’t sell it, apparently. Two of Cato’s people, Michael D. Tanner and Michael F. Cannon, have another idea — enacting a standard health insurance deduction, expanding health savings accounts, and deregulating insurance markets. These reforms “could . . . expand coverage, improve quality [of care] and make care more affordable.” Don’t know if they’re on the mark or not but strongly suspect it.
Blithe Spirit 