This isn’t new information, but it’s good to see it being proven out in yet another report: Health outcomes often better in Canada than U.S.: review.

But, don’t just read the title of that article, read the whole thing. This is the key data point: the US spends 2.4x for the same quality of health care, or worse.

This is important because:

  1. Americans are fed a lot of propaghanda that their private health system is cheaper than Canada’s semi-public one.
  2. Canadians pushing a private or 2-tier system try to feed this same propaghanda.

So, next time you hear someone say the American system is cheaper, call their BS. As someone who lived in the US for 4 years I really thing every Canadian should have to live there for a year, then they’d stop complaining about our health care. I didn’t find the care there any better, and on top of that everyone’s always trying to upsell you on stuff you don’t need. Ours definitely has problems, but we should definitely NOT be using the US as a model to replicate.

Now, the one thing that is true is rich people likely get better care in the US. But, again, I think we should optimize our system for the other 98% of us.

One interesting example is the health system in France. Their delivery system is entirely private but the government is the insurance provider, guarenteeing it for everyone. This apparently works pretty well there.