This election year, many will call for "universal health care" promising that it's a simple solution to problems we face. But the facts prove otherwise.
Those who advocate a government-run health system for the United States often point to the British National Health Service and the Canadian health system as models of state-financed -- and high-quality -- health care. Just look at the statistics and international rankings from groups such as the World Health Organization, they say.
Don't be fooled. As the saying goes, statistics are like a bathing suit. What they show you is interesting, but what they conceal is essential.
And what does the World Health Organization's data conceal? That the United Kingdom and Canadian health care systems focus more on saving money than on caring for patients. As a result, citizens of these countries experience long wait times, a lack of access to certain treatments and, in many instances, substandard medical care.
For example, a typical Canadian seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment had to wait 18.3 weeks in 2007 -- an all-time high. Approximately 875,000 Canadians are currently on waiting lists for medical treatment.
Many Canadians can't even get routine care. Of those who sought routine or ongoing care in 2005, one in six had trouble even getting into a doctor's office for a routine procedure or check-up.
It's no better across the Atlantic. Patients with serious illnesses such as cancer face much longer odds of survival in government-run health care systems. In the United Kingdom, the five-year survival rate for patients diagnosed with breast cancer early on is 78 percent -- compared to 98 percent for similar patients in the U.S.
It's easy to understand why the public doesn't know the truth about universal health care. Politicians and polemicists have clouded the issue, deliberately ignoring the major problems with government-run health care and promising that "universal health care" will be "free."
But when it comes to health care, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Here’s the rest of the story from a newspaper serving a part of the country that’s going to get a lot of attention in the weeks leading up to November 4th -- The Saginaw News:
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Our national conversation about health care has to advance beyond vague concepts and convenient political rhetoric. Government guarantees of universal care may sound appealing, but as universal systems elsewhere have shown, those guarantees are little more than hot air.
