Why do Canadians so strongly support their single payer system?

Why do Canadians so strongly support their single payer system?

By Don McCanne
February 13, 2015

This week the Forum Club of Sun City Palm Desert (a California retirement community) held a forum on single payer health care. Forum Club Secretary Mike Wedekind, a Canadian, spoke on Canada’s single payer system, and I spoke on the problems with the U.S. system that would be amenable to enactment of a single payer system.

Since it was an after-dinner meeting, I expected the usual laid-back audience with a few partaking of postprandial snoozes. On the contrary, we received great feedback from the attendees. Many attending were snowbirds – relatively affluent and generally politically conservative Canadians who maintain a winter residence in this desert community.

After we each spoke for twenty minutes, the attendees met at round tables to discuss various aspects of U.S. and Canadian health policies. Then a moderator from each table presented their quite astute observations.

I spoke individually with several of the attendees. Even though the Forum Club is explicitly non-partisan, I received no negative comments about a single payer system for the United States. In fact, the reason that I decided to write this commentary was the response of the Canadians. Though most seemed to be politically conservative, there was absolutely no indication that they thought that somehow their single payer system was deficient, especially compared to ours, except for a problem with queues for some elective services such as joint replacement. There was no mention of the need to privatize health care since they already have a private health care delivery system. They certainly see no need for intrusive, wasteful private insurers, other than to provide supplementary benefits outside of their Medicare.

It made me wish that it was as easy to converse on this topic with conservatives here in the United States. A poll last month revealed that 23 percent of Republicans already support “an expanded, universal form of Medicare” (as do 79 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Independents).

Everyone should give some thought as to what the message might be that resonates with the Independents and Republicans who are supportive, but, above all, what is it that causes Canadians across the political spectrum to be so supportive of their Medicare? We have to deliver that message here in the United States.