Opinion Editorial | |
| Wednesday, November 24, 1999 | |
Trump Wants Canadian Style Health Care |
A few weeks ago, New York real estate developer Donald Trump entered the race for the Reform Party's presidential nomination. His first campaign promise was to pay off the national debt immediately by imposing a new wealth tax on all Americans with more than $10 million. This idea was universally ridiculed by experts as both unworkable and unconstitutional. It is clear that Trump had given the plan absolutely no serious thought whatsoever. Unfazed, he has gone on to propose a Canadian-style national health insurance program. His political adviser, lobbyist Roger Stone says, "We'll put out a health care plan that will make Ted Kennedy blush."
Most people in Washington think it is impossible to make Senator Kennedy blush, because that assumes he is capable of feeling shame. Nevertheless, it will be easier to make him blush than it will be to make a Canadian-style national health care system work here. It doesn't even work in Canada.
Liberals in America have long favored national health insurance. Although it would expand medical coverage for those currently not insured, they say it could be financed with administrative savings that would offset the costs of additional coverage. A widely criticized 1991 report from the U.S. General Accounting Office found net savings of $3 billion per year if a Canadian-style system were implemented here.
Thus liberals have always thought that national health insurance is a kind of free lunch: expanded care at no additional cost. That is what drove Bill and Hillary Clinton to propose such a scheme for the U.S. in 1993.
The main problems with any kind of national health insurance are two. First, when you give people something for nothing, they invariably demand more of it. Consequently, costs are always far higher than anticipated, as we have found with the Medicare system, which is a kind of national health insurance for the elderly.
Because costs are always higher, states must continually search for ways to cut them. These may involve longer waiting times for doctors and surgery, lack of access to the latest medical equipment and procedures, emigration of a nation's best medical personnel and other means by which quality and service are reduced.
Canada's health system suffers from all of these problems. Rising costs for health care are a key reason why total government spending is 42 percent of the gross domestic product in Canada, versus 33 percent in the U.S. In short, although Canadians pay less for health care than Americans, they pay significantly higher taxes instead.
At the same time that costs are exploding, the quality of medical care in Canada is falling. A recent study by Vancouver's Fraser Institute found that the time Canadians must wait for surgical procedures has steadily grown. In 1998, the average wait was 11.9 weeks, up from 9.3 weeks in 1993. For some procedures the wait can be almost half a year. This is simply a form of rationing.
As a result, there are growing reports of Canadians dying while waiting for treatment. Many now cross the border into the United States where they can receive immediate treatment for a fee. While in American hospitals, Canadian patients are often treated by Canadian doctors, who have fled the high taxes, low wages and out of date equipment in Canadian hospitals. Thus even the New York Times says that the Canadian health system is no model for the U.S. to follow.
Members of the Reform Party, accustomed to goofy policy pronouncements from its founder Ross Perot, may not find Trump's half-backed policies any worse. The rest of the electorate is not likely to be so tolerant.
Source: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis, November 24, 1999.
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