Pence calls Canadian health care ‘socialized’
Running mate’s comments reflect Trump’s own flip-flop
KING OF PRUSSIA, PA.— The latest villain of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign: Canada’s health-care system.
Trump’s Republican running mate, vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence, knocked the Canadian system during an appearance with Trump on Tuesday.
Canada’s government insurance program has emerged as a late-campaign foil for the Trump campaign even though he has expressed strong support for it in the past.
He has begun targeting Canada’s program to turn public attention to problems with Obamacare, a much different program that involves government subsidies for insurance plans purchased from corporations.
Speaking in an important suburb of Philadelphia, Pence falsely suggested that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is proposing a Canadastyle “single-payer” system.
“She told Canadians and business groups that she wanted to get, and I’m quoting, ‘universal health-care coverage like you have here in Canada.’ Well, we don’t want the socialized health care they have in Canada. We want American solutions.”
In that January 2015 speech in Saskatoon Clinton did not seem to be suggesting she wanted America to adopt Canada’s system.
Rather, while defending Obamacare, she said she wanted all Americans insured.
“I’m hoping that whatever the shortfalls and glitches have been ... those will be remedied and we can really take a hard look at what’s succeeding, fix what isn’t, and keep moving forward to get to affordable, universal health-care coverage like you have here in Canada,” she said, The Canadian Press reported at the time.
Clinton is proposing a “public option,” or a government-run insurance plan, to the current system, but it would supplement, not replace, existing private and public insurance.
Speaking to Rush Limbaugh last week, Trump falsely said Canada’s system is a “disaster in terms of cost” — America’s is far more expensive — and that, when Canadians “want an operation, they come to the United States to get the operation.” Fewer than 1 per cent of patients leave the country for operations.
During the first Republican primary debate in August 2015, Trump said, “As far as single-payer, it works in Canada.”