Posts from — January 2007

Canada is moving on to the gold medal game in the World Junior Hockey Championship, after what was a thrilling game against the USA (Canada won 2-1 in a shootout following a scoreless overtime). Of course, I just now discovered that you can watch the games online at tsn.ca (argh. It appears that only works if you live in Canada. What about if your brain lives in Canada and your body lives elsewhere, eh? What about that?! Sigh.)

In other hockey news, the Oilers finally got their 1000th win as a team last night, making them the third fastest team in NHL history to reach that mark. It’s also important to note that the two other teams to do that, Montreal and Philadelphia, accomplished that feat when there were only six teams in the league.

Need I say more?

(Update: Heidi asks if I mean “drunk and nutty.” Not drunk, though I wish I had a Guinness right now….)

I was looking for some stats on the largest cities in North America the other day (it’s easy to assume that New York is the largest city in North America, when it’s actually #2) and came across this rather stunning list of the populations of the one hundred largest cities in the world. Take a long look at that list and notice how few cities there are from Europe and North America. That really puts things into perspective about the size of the world.

I also was struck by Doug Saunders column from this past weekend’s Globe and Mail. In it, he pointed out a number of important shifts that have occurred over the last year:

From a future historian’s viewpoint, there were two huge developments that will define 2006.

China alone is undergoing the largest migration in human history. The shift is already having profound implications.

Lots to ponder from those facts alone. Aside from the huge issue of global warming, something I wrote about in an earlier post, It’s easy sitting where I am to think that the world is not changing all that much. Clearly, that’s not the case!

I’m currently part-way through another round of my winter session online course on Michael Ondaatje and was responding today to a discussion board thread in which my students were talking about some of the things they know about Canada. One student brought up the health care system and I responded as follows:

As I often tell my students, learning more about another country (and

particularly one that’s as close to home geographically, culturally, and

historically as Canada) can teach Americans a lot about their own

country as well. As D…. pointed out, I think one of the things that

should really make Americans look more critically at their own

healthcare system is the lack here of universal health care, something

that every other well-off country in the world enjoys. Universal health

care is not “free” health care at all. Canadians pay for it in taxes and

employers also pay health care premiums. However, the Canadian

government still pays less per capita than the American government and

the premiums paid by businesses per employee is about 10% of what UVM

contributes towards my insurance. As D… also rightly pointed out,

though, the Canadian system is also far from perfect (very long wait

times for particular tests, specialists etc). Knowing about how another

system works, though, is crucial to being able to see what works and

doesn’t work well enough in your own system. Canadians often use the

American system in that way to both argue for what we should be doing

(better access, shorter wait times etc) and shouldn’t (privatized

insurance etc).

Who knew that this would also be the subject of a couple of really interesting NY Times pieces over the last couple of days. In Paul Krugman’s editorial “A Healthy New Year” (which you might not be able to open without being a TimesSelect subscriber) he states that “The U.S. health care system is a scandal and a disgrace. [. . .] In 2005, almost 47 million Americans — including more than 8 million children — were uninsured, and many more had inadequate insurance.” Krugman goes on to bring up some of the points I always tell my students:

Some say that we can’t afford universal health care, even though every year lack of insurance plunges millions of Americans into severe financial distress and sends thousands to an early grave. But every other advanced country somehow manages to provide all its citizens with essential care. The only reason universal coverage seems hard to achieve here is the spectacular inefficiency of the U.S. health care system.

[. . .] The truth is that we can afford to cover the uninsured. What we can’t afford is to keep going without a universal health care system.

Krugman, like Anna Bernasek’s article from this past Sunday’s NY Times entitled “Health Care Problem? Check the American Psyche,” says that “If it were up to me, we’d have a Medicare-like system for everyone, paid for by a dedicated tax that for most people would be less than they or their employers currently pay in insurance premiums. This would, at a stroke, cover the uninsured, greatly reduce administrative costs and make it much easier to work on preventive care.” As Bernasek points out, the greatest obstacle to such a plan is not really the logistics of making such a drastic change but rather convincing Americans that such a system would be possible and that it would actually be to their own benefit.

Even though “the economic case for a single-payer system is surprisingly strong” and “as demonstrated in France, Britain, Canada, Australia and other countries with functioning single-payer systems, significant savings can come without hurting the overall health of the population,” the case for a single-payer system is a hard one to make here. “Most Americans just don’t believe it can be done,” Bernasek writes. “The health care crisis may turn out to be more of a problem of ideology than economics.”

Canada, interestingly enough, proves to be one of the key examples Bernasek offers as to the positive aspects of the single-payer system and to people’s aversion to this idea here, which Bernasek seems to find as hard to fathom as I do.

Consider Canada’s system. Professor Anderson points out that in the 1960s, Canada and the United States spent roughly the same per person on health care. Some three decades later, though, Canada spent half as much as America. How did Canada manage this? By controlling the use of medical equipment and hospital resources, which statistics show has helped Canadians keep a lid on costs without measurably compromising the overall health of the population.

Victor R. Fuchs, an economics professor at Stanford and a specialist in health care economics, explained it this way: “The Canadian system is a nonstarter for the U.S. even though it’s a good system for Canadians. You’re dealing with two very different countries. We were founded on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They were founded on peace, order and good government. It’s a difference of values.”

I, frankly, don’t see how life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (they sure were a great band, weren’t they?) can make the idea of giving everyone in the US access to much more affordable health care while still positively affecting the bottom line a “non-starter.” But maybe that’s just my Canadian “difference of values”…. I don’t think so.