(The piece is from April 2012, but I felt it was worth posting on account of the ongoing "conservative" disinformation over Obamacare. I found it linked in an article by the Daily Beast, which took to task the recent driveling of actress Suzanne Somers in a Wall Street Journal blog.)
In short:
1. Canadians are not flocking to the United States for healthcare.
2. Nor are Canadian doctors to practice medicine; as of 2004 more doctors have been moving into Canada.
3. "Canada doesn’t deny hip replacements to older people."
4. The increased wait times in Canada are the chosen result of a more fiscally conservative system, "by limiting supply, mostly for elective things.... Their outcomes are otherwise comparable to ours."
5. The "Canada rations healthcare" argument, which could be made on account of increased wait times, needs to be compared to US healthcare costs. These costs function as a ration, and a severe one at that.
See also my May 31 blog post on Canada's healthcare and its approval ratings.
http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-03-2012/myths-canada-health-care.1.html
