Pence has it backward

So, the vice-president of our southern neighbour says Canada’s health system is a failure. We wonder if Mike Pence is familiar with the old saying about the pot calling the kettle black.

Pence made his critical comments in an interview with an Alaskan radio station. Among other things, he said: “You know, somewhere in between where I’m sitting in Washington, D.C., and Alaska, is a place called Canada. I probably don’t need to tell the people in Alaska about the failings of national socialized health care because it’s right in our neighbour and you see the results every day.”

Happily, most Canadians, and a growing number of Americans, know the truth. The Canadian system is far from perfect. Wait times continue to be a serious problem. Elective surgery lists are unacceptably long. Too many parts of the country have a shortage of physicians. And the system, which never was truly universal, is now even less so with two-tier services increasingly a part of the health landscape.

But do the Americans have a better idea? They pay far more for their health care. And theirs covers far fewer citizens. Many without the means to pay go without — without MD visits, without prescription drugs, without pre-screening.

Here, we pay less and our life expectancies are longer. We have no laurels to sit on, to be sure. We have a long way to go. But on health care, we’re far ahead of our polarized neighbours.