Canadian Healthcare

A favorite tactic of Republicans opposed to healthcare reform is to find a few scare stories from Canada and the UK to try to put the fear of change into the American people. Nevermind that it's easier to find healthcare horror stories from the US. The fact is that Canadians and Britons like their healthcare and don't particularly appreciate having it misrepresented, even if they do see ways that it could be improved. In the Globe and Mail today, a Canadian economist and a former health policy adviser succinctly lay out the reasons why the Canadian system is better. Here's the gist:

So to sum up. We live longer than the Americans do. We are less likely to die at or soon after birth than the Americans are. All Canadians have medical insurance, whereas a huge number of Americans don't. And we pay less as a society for health care than they do in the United States. Four numbers paint a stark picture. And when you strip away the anti-medicare ideological rants and falsehoods on display in Washington, Canada's approach to health insurance would probably sound pretty good to many Americans.

I don't see how anyone could look at these facts and conclude that the US system is better.