Why on Earth Do Canadians Love Waiting for Health Care?
As
the U.S. Senate argues about how best to take over the American health care
industry, it is worth taking a look at how government health insurance works
here in
Yet
these poll results are frankly surprising, because universal coverage in
To
be fair, roughly one third of respondents in the Nanos poll mentioned above
identified “waiting times for treatment / lack of accessibility” as our
system’s key weakness. Another 14 percent thought the fact that there are “not
enough doctors, nurses and/or personnel” was its number one failing. Still, in
spite of these defects, most Canadians support our system. Why aren’t more
Canadians more upset about having to wait for health care?
Please
Remain Standing—the Doctor Won’t See You Shortly!
There
are surely many reasons Canadians support our flawed system, warts and all. One
of the foremost is that we really do want everyone to have access to health
care. We have big hearts, and we can’t stand the idea of someone going without
just because he can’t afford to pay. This is all well and good, even if we are
a little misguided about how to reach this goal, as I will discuss below. But on
the flip side—and far less flattering to our national self-image—many Canadians
also can’t stand the idea of someone jumping to the head of the queue just
because he can afford to pay. Everyone must be equal, even if it means
being equally miserable. Of course in reality, some people (i.e., those with
pull) are much more equal than others. And notice how the existence of a queue
is not even called into question by this line of thinking.
Some
people, though, are probably unaware of just how long waiting times are. They
may not know anyone who has been seriously ill of late, or they may know
someone who got lucky and waited “only” four weeks for heart surgery instead of
an average eight (or an above-average twelve).
Conversely,
many of those who do realize how flawed our system is nonetheless
believe that the alternative of free-market care would be worse. They look
south of the border, to the United States, and see a system that, while not as
damaged as some maintain, has some very real problems. But strangely, they
attribute these problems to the market. They ignore the fact that health care
is one of the most regulated industries in the
Toward
a Voluntary Society
In
addition to these economic misunderstandings, though, many Canadians have been
seduced—with language about society and solidarity—into glossing over the moral
issue of force. Taxation is force. Government-funded health care is health care
at the point of a gun. It is more flattering to one’s ego, however, to focus on
one’s generosity than to focus on how one is willing to force others to be
generous, too. Some are willing to bite this bullet, saying that everyone has
an obligation to help others. But by what right does one person impose unchosen
obligations on another? I have never gotten a satisfactory answer to this
question. Most people would rather just talk about something else.
Health
insurance to cover unpredictable and expensive illnesses or injuries is
generally a good thing to have. The important point here is that not all good
things should be provided by government. In fact, when governments decide what
is good for us, they
prevent individuals from making their own individual decisions—for instance,
decisions about how much and what specific kinds of insurance they want. More
essentially, if every individual human being owns himself, then the initiation
of force must be disallowed. Governments need to focus on their proper role,
which is keeping the peace by defending the rights of individuals to live their
lives as they see fit. Governments need to keep their hands off of everything
else, lest they become guilty of the very harm they are entrusted to prevent:
the initiation of force.
A
truly voluntary society would not mandate what kinds of treatments must be
covered by insurers, nor dictate that employers provide health coverage, nor
subsidize employer-provided health care as against individual insurance, nor
prevent interstate commerce—all measures that drive up the price of health
insurance in the United States. A truly voluntary society would allow
individuals to make their own decisions about health care, and about charitable
giving. And a truly voluntary society would allow market actors to provide
health care and health insurance. In so doing, that society would enjoy a
system that was more flexible, more responsive, more affordable, more timely,
and more innovative than any that currently exists anywhere on the planet. It
would be both more just and more efficient, because unlike what we have been
taught for millennia by just about every ethical system under the sun, the
moral and the practical are actually one and the same.
Why on Earth...? is a series of cultural commentaries by Bradley Doucet.
Bradley Doucet is Le Québécois Libre's English Editor. A writer living in Montreal, he has studied philosophy and economics, and is currently completing a novel on the pursuit of happiness. He also writes for The New Individualist, an Objectivist magazine published by The Atlas Society, and sings.
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Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here.Read Mr. Stolyarov's comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.