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<H1 id=yiv1588655278headline><A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/matt-miller-canadians-dont-understand-ted-cruzs-health-care-battle/2013/09/25/ee2d6e6e-25d9-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend"
rel=nofollow target=_blank>Canadians don’t understand Ted Cruz’s health-care
battle</A> <BR></H1>
<DIV id=yiv1588655278byline><FONT size=3><STRONG></STRONG></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>
<H3><FONT size=3>By </FONT><A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/matt-miller/2011/02/24/ABBcOYN_page.html"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=3>Matt Miller</FONT></A><FONT size=3>,
<SPAN
class="yiv1588655278timestamp yiv1588655278updated yiv1588655278processed">Wednesday,
September 25, <SPAN
class="yiv1588655278time yiv1588655278special">8:28 AM</SPAN></SPAN>
</FONT></H3>"England’s Margaret Thatcher would have been chased from office for
proposing anything as radically conservative as the Affordable Care
Act."</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG> </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=yiv1588655278dotted-spacer><FONT
size=3><STRONG></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=yiv1588655278dotted-spacer><FONT
size=3><STRONG></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV id=yiv1588655278footer>
<DIV id=yiv1588655278fine-print><BR>
<DIV id=yiv1588655278content>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>When you’re being forced to endure another
</STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-cruz-continues-night-long-attack-on-obamacare/2013/09/25/5ea2f6ae-25ae-11e3-b75d-5b7f66349852_story.html"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=3><STRONG>rabid Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)
soliloquy</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=3><STRONG> on Obamacare’s threat to
human freedom, it’s easy to forget how absurd our health-care debate seems to
the rest of the civilized world. That’s why it’s bracing to check in with
red-blooded, high testosterone capitalists north of the border in Canada —
business leaders who love </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/10/30/using-canadas-health-system-as-model-might-cut-us-costs-study"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=3><STRONG>Canada’s single-payer
system</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=3><STRONG> (a regime far to the “left” of
Obamacare) and see it as perfectly consistent with free market
capitalism.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>Take </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/FacultyAndResearch/Faculty/FacultyBios/Beatty.aspx"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=3><STRONG>David
Beatty</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=3><STRONG>, a 70-year-old Toronto native
who ran food processing giant Weston Foods and a holding company called the
Gardiner Group during a career that has included service on more than 30
corporate boards and a recent appointment to the Order of Canada, one of the
nation’s highest honors. By temperament and demeanor, Beatty is the kind of
tough-minded, suffer-no-fools wealth creator who conservatives typically
cheer.</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>Yet over breakfast in Toronto not long ago, Beatty
told me how baffled he and Canadian business colleagues are when they listen to
the U.S. health-care debate. He cherishes Canada’s single-payer system for its
quality and cost-effectiveness (Canada boasts much </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries.html"
rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT size=3><STRONG>lower costs per
person</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=3><STRONG> than the United States). And
don’t get him started on the system’s administrative simplicity — you just show
your card at the point of service, and that’s it. Though he’s a well-to-do man
who can pay for whatever care he wants, Beatty told me he’s relied on the system
just as ordinary Canadians do, including for a recent knee replacement
operation. The one time he went outside the system was to pay extra for a
physical therapist closer to his home than the one to which he’d been assigned.
</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>It’s just “common sense” in Beatty’s view that
government takes the lead in assuring basic health security for its citizens.
He’s amazed at the contortions of the debate in the United States, and wonders
why big U.S. companies “want to be in the business of providing health care
anyway” (“that’s a government function,” he says simply). Beatty also marvels at
the way the U.S. regime’s dysfunction comes to dominate everyday conversation.
He shakes his head recalling how much time and passion American friends devoted
one evening to comparing notes on their various supplemental Medicare plans.
Talk about your sparkling dinner conversation. </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://rogerlmartin.com/" rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT
size=3><STRONG>Roger Martin</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=3><STRONG>, another
Toronto native and avowed capitalist, spent years as a senior partner at the
consulting firm Monitor before becoming dean of the Rotman School of Management
at the University of Toronto, where he recently completed a 15-year stint. He
advises U.S. corporate icons like Proctor & Gamble and Steelcase. He lived
in the United States for years and has experienced both systems first hand.
</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>Martin told me that Canada’s lower spending, better
outcomes and universal coverage make it superior by definition. Plus, it’s
“incredibly hassle-free.” In the United States every time he took his kids in
for an earache his wife spent hours fighting with the health plan or filling out
reams of paperwork. In Canada, he says, “the entire administrative cost is
pulling your card out of your pocket, giving it to them and putting it back.”
</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>There’s more. Canadian divisions of multinational
firms love Canada’s system because when they bid on projects they have no health
costs to load in. Also, there’s no crazy “job lock” as with the employer-based
system in the United States — where people with (say) a sick child cling to
their job for fear of being pronounced uninsurable. His peers, he says, view the
U.S. debate as “ideological and not based on economics.” </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>“The whole single payer thing just makes sense,”
Martin adds. “You don’t spend time trying to shift costs.” It’s hardly perfect:
a few folks go to the United States to jump the line on certain elective
procedures, and Canada, like others, free rides on American’s investment in
pharmaceutical innovation (funded by higher U.S. drug prices). But, he adds, “I
literally have a hard time thinking of what would be better than a single-payer
system.” </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>The moral of the story? Don’t let the rants of cynical
demagogues like Cruz confuse you — it is entirely possible to be a freedom
loving capitalist and also believe in a strong government role in health care.
Remember, Obamacare features a much smaller such role than does Canada’s
approach — or England’s, where Margaret Thatcher would have been chased from
office for proposing anything as radically conservative as the Affordable Care
Act. </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3><STRONG>One well-known billionaire told me a few years back
that the right answer for the United States was single payer for basic coverage,
with the ability for folks to buy additional private supplements atop that. But
he won’t say this in public; the gang at the club just wouldn’t understand.
Maybe when U.S. business leaders muster the common sense of their Canadian
counterparts, they’ll deliver the message the Ted Cruzes of the world need to
hear: sit down and shut up.
</STRONG></FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>