DUNEDIN, FL-- When we hear about Canada's health care system we often hear about socialized medicine, rationed care and long waits.
But, Bill Price has another.
"Excellent, you can't beat it. When you're working, it is 100% covered. You only pay like a .35-cent deductible for medications and stuff like that," he says.
Reporter Kerry Kavanaugh found Bill and his wife Sylvia, from Ontario, vacationing in a Dunedin RV park. Now retired, they each pay a low annual premium and a flash of a medical identification card covers them across their country
Canada offers universal health care. Every one who lives there is covered and it’s paid for through sales and income taxes. The system has been in place since 1984.
If you compare some basic stats, the country seems to be doing okay. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says at birth, life expectancy in the United States is 78.1 years. In Canada , it's 80.7.
Our infant mortality rate is 6. 7 per thousand live births. Theirs is 5.
"When I was first married we did not have health insurance in Canada and it was such a relief when it came through," says Shirley Orr who now lives in Madeira Beach,
She still lived in Canada when the country started introducing universal coverage in the 1970s She says while the system there is strong, but not perfect.
"When you first put a system like this in, everybody decides they have to see the doctor they all need a check up," she says.
Throughout the past three decades, the Canadian health care system has seen its struggles. Chief among them is a shortage of doctors and testing equipment.
"If I need an x-ray of any kind, MRI whatever it is, the doctor sends you over you get it done almost immediately. You know what the problem you can correct it. That's not happening to Canadians," Orr says.
In the United States, we have 25.9 MRI units per million people. In Canada , there are only 6.7. And, one in 12 doctors born and trained in Canada now practices in the United States, coming for money, availability of facilities and jobs.
"There are more MRIs and CT scans in the Tampa bay area than there are in all of Canada but the people in our community are no healthier," says Dr. Jay Wolfson, a public health policy expert at the University of South Florida. Wolfson says more technology doesn't necessarily lead to a healthier population. He notes we have more cases of hypertension, diabetes, obesity. He says that can be due, in part, to a lack of access to preventative care, something Canadians don't worry about.
And Wolfson says it's important to keep in mind, most lawmakers aren't proposing we copy Canada ’s system.
Theirs is a single payer, the Canadian government is that single payer. It is not a system with a public option.
Under a public option, not everyone is covered, no one is required to pay into it, and you have the choice of public and private insurance
And despite the problems with the Canadian system, both Bill and Shirley see the benefits of expanding access to health care in the United States.
"I like to know that my neighbors don’t have a problem going to see a doctor," Orr says.
"I think they're coming in along the lines they are following what Canada has been doing, which I find is very good. It's good for the every day person," Price says.
