A lot of voters during this election season who would otherwise vote Republican are concerned enough about the availability of affordable health care services that they are considering a vote for Obama. Why? Because he is known to favor a Canadian-style single-payer health system. And the liberal media has made single-payer the panacea for all that ails American health.

But now, one of the architects of the Canadian system has the courage to speak the truth: it's in shambles and there's now no way to fix it. Unfortunate Canadians who can't get health care through their own system can cross the border for American care; but how many Americans know that obtaining private health insurance in Canada is illegal? And guess what...it's now being proposed as the only remedy for the Canadian crisis:

"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."

Castonguay advocates contracting out services to the private sector, going so far as suggesting that public hospitals rent space during off-hours to entrepreneurial doctors. He supports co-pays for patients who want to see physicians. Castonguay, the man who championed public health insurance in Canada, now urges for the legalization of private health insurance.

In America, these ideas may not sound shocking. But in Canada, where the private sector has been shunned for decades, these are extraordinary views, especially coming from Castonguay. It's as if John Maynard Keynes, resting on his British death bed in 1946, had declared that his faith in government interventionism was misplaced.

What would drive a man like Castonguay to reconsider his long-held beliefs? Try a health care system so overburdened that hundreds of thousands in need of medical attention wait for care, any care; a system where people in towns like Norwalk, Ontario, participate in lotteries to win appointments with the local family doctor.

When it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true. May God save us from trying to emulate a failure.

Read the whole article here:

Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies In Ruins, Its Architect Admits

hat tip: Marty Nemko's blog

Labels: Health, Political Observation, Social Observation