HEALTH CARE NEEDS FIXIN'

As longtime It Figures viewers already know, I’m not political by nature, and I’m certainly not partisan. I vote the candidate, the issues and the platform. A middle class kid born and raised in the south and now living in Canada and Hawaii with my first husband, of 37 years, I honor the wisdom of the old Ozark saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” If the issue on my mind were not critical to the future of my homeland, I would not use this forum to speak out. But, my fellow Americans, my dear smart, discriminating It Figures friends, I think the American health care system needs fixin’.

I’ve benefited from the Canadian health care system since 1975 when Jim and I moved back to North America from England where we first met. He was raised in Alberta and was head hunted by the University of Calgary. I “married” into Canada and am now a dual citizen.

Trust me, the Canadian system WORKS! It’s not perfect, but it works....quite well. Elective surgical procedures are wait listed but acute issues are dealt with in a time efficient manner. Sometimes the delay in elective procedures allows the problem to resolve on its own or with less invasive treatment. And if the patient announces flexibility and gets on the cancellation list, the wait may be very short. My friend Diane got arthroscopic surgery on her rotator cuff a week after seeing the specialist. My friend Linda, who you know from Crazy For Step, had the same experience when she suffered a shoulder injury in a fall on the winter ice. Last Christmas I saw a specialist right before the holidays, announced my willingness to take any cancellation and was in the hospital two days later for all the tests which, thankfully, were negative.

One huge comfort in this system is the continuing review of efficacy. Treatment protocols are studied to determine what is most effective so the system spends the taxpayers’ money in the wisest manner. If a treatment is shown to be ineffective or, God forbid, worse than the problem, it is not covered by the health care system. This weeds out the quacks who, even with good intentions, would prescribe wacky, obsolete or revenue producing procedures on naive patients.

I have a fabulous family doc who, in this system, serves as the quarterback and gate keeper to specialists. No one in our extended family has EVER had a serious complaint about health care in Canada. Do we live forever? No, Would we like to? Yes. Do we expect Howard Hughs-ish end of life heroics? No. Would we want that? Probably not.

The truth is...99% of Canadians whine about the Canadian health care system, but NO Canadians want a system like the American health system. When the risk of expensive, long hospital care is spread over an entire population, no one need worry about selling the farm to care for a family member who is critically ill or injured.

While I only have personal experience with the Canadian health care system , I know enough Europeans to understand that the EU countries enjoy a similar comfort level with their health care. Two of my German friends suffer serious chronic illness and are getting state of the art care in their homeland. Such care in the USA would require a very fine health insurance policy which currently would be out of reach for many Americans.

I’m not a policy maker. I’m not a politician. I don’t know what the American health care system should look like, but I know that medical systems in the rest of the western world spend less for more value than we enjoy in the United States. We Americans are a nation of bright, energetic, well educated, good hearted people. We deserve better than what we’ve got. Surely it’s wise to use common sense, to learn from others when there is better solution.

I’m just here to say that the Canadian health care system works....with no death squads, no denial of effective treatment, no threat of bankruptcy to pay medical bills.