Canadian and U.S. Health Care: See the Difference

   A number of differences must be mentioned when health-care systems of two countries are compared, even if they are neighbours like  Canada and U. S.

Photo: Canadian and U.S. Health Care: See the Difference

Canadian and U.S. Health Care: See the Difference

    There is an opinion that health care is ultimately determined more by national identity and myths.

   The main difference between Canadian and American healthcare is that U.S. has health care for all unlike Canada.

   The reality of the two systems is actually much closer. But Canadians, who have a highly fragile and internationally ignored national identity, understand instinctively that health care says a lot about a country's heart and its understanding of itself.

   Remarkably that while Americans loudly proclaim their opposition to "socialist" health care, right-wing Canadian politicians are the quickest to pledge total opposition to privatization and "two-tier health care."

    Once facts are put aside, the national myths reinforce themselves, even across borders.

Canadian and U.S. Health Care: See the Difference

   As for ads, in Canada they received national coverage and rebuttals and boosted american sense of difference with and superiority over the United States. "An admitting nurse doesn't check your credit card -- she checks your pulse" was the sort of line typical from U.S. unimaginative politicians.

   A year ago, America had a great appetite for change, and a catalyst in candidate Barack Obama, that might have been able to shift the national myth enough to transform American health care, much like Lyndon Johnson established Medicare so firmly that it now needs protection from government hands. But having used up his superpowers on the global recession, Obama is left to slug out the health-care debate with nothing but facts. He needs more than this to overcome a national myth that denies health care as a public good, reported by The Washington Post.