TV shows us the benefits of Canada - From the Cluttered Desk with Keith Roulston

Our evenings often include watching a new series on Netflix and recently that has included two shows that have made us totally uninterested in the U.S. President’s suggestion that Canadians should be delighted to be asked to join the United States.

 

Both shows involved healthcare - one Canadian, one American. In the Canadian show, the long-running CBC hit Heartland, with past seasons now broadcast on Netflix, a couple goes to the hospital to deliver a baby. Cost of the hospital stay is never an issue. We, in Canada, have free medical care.

 

In the other U.S. series, administrative staff and medical staff conflict about whether people who do not have health insurance should receive treatment. In one case, a young patient dies because she is sent home from the hospital because she can’t afford the treatment.

 

Such is the difference in the way the two countries view medical care. Government-provided medical care has been part of our Canadian expectations since Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson introduced it Canada-wide in the late 1960s after seeing the success of Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas’ introduction of the system in his province. Other countries like Britain had led the way.

 

I remember the hesitation of other political leaders at the time, since medical coverage was a provincial, not federal, responsibility. But the public was so supportive of the system that, sooner or later, provincial governments came onboard.
Still, even 60 years later, provinces are rebelling, since the federal government has not increased its share of the healthcare bill, even as the increased costs of medical care have soared. Here in Ontario, Premier Doug Ford has turned to more private health clinics to provide some medical services, even though they charge more, and the professionals who work there, both doctors and nurses, earn substantially more.

 

And yet, Canadians who have seen public healthcare at work, support it. Recently there was a case in British Columbia of a young girl who needed to be treated with a new drug, not yet registered with the government health plan. The parents were facing charges of $850,000 a year to have their daughter treated. Word got out and the public reacted vehemently, and the government gave in and picked up the cost.

 

And yet Canadians, though they support public-subsidized healthcare, complain about the cost of their taxes and want them reduced.

 

Meanwhile, billionaire U.S. President Trump  has introduced a new budget that will mean more people who previously had public health coverage will lose that coverage and must either find employment with companies that provide coverage or will have to pick up the cost themselves.

 

Part of the increasing cost of our medical system is that it can do so much more than it could when medicare was introduced 60 years ago. New drugs are being introduced nearly every day and the medical companies expect to be rewarded in the payments they receive. Countries like Canada, that have public health care, often refuse to pay the exorbitant fees companies expect and agree to reduced fees.

 

And yet the silliness of these expectations sometimes gets carried away. In 1921, more than a century ago, Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered the treatment of diabetes in London, Ontario, but a couple of years ago some young American entrepreneur got the patent and wanted a ridiculous amount of money for the medication’s use.

 

American movies and TV shows have found rich material in the cost of medicine in the U.S. I recall a long-ago TV show about a hospital. When doctors needed more information in treating a patient, they ordered new tests, and we saw the computer printing the cost of the test on his or her account; charge after expensive charge as the tests mounted.

 

I recall movies in which indigent patients were refused payment as their insurance company tried to save money. Young lawyers took the case to court and eventually won. But how many needy people aren’t so lucky?

 

We don’t have such concerns in Canada with medicare, but we would if we were absorbed into the U.S. Such is the ignorance of Americans that President Trump probably doesn’t know the safety net that medicare provides for Canadians.

 

We have so many things to be grateful for as Canadians. No doubt we are ignorant, on the other hand, of how much protection we get being the next-door neighbour of the powerful Americans.

 

Still, Americans need to realize that there are things, like medicare, that they do without while we Canadians, and the British and many Europeans are grateful to receive. Americans need to know more about the outside world.