Can we talk about France or England or Japan if we want to talk about better functioning single payer systems? The Labor governements of the UK have largely fixed their waiting times issues and France and Japan have no waiting times.

We keep asking Congress and the public to look at Canada and Britain as the examples for us to follow and they clearly are not. They are nearly as bad as us in WHO and other rankings, for goodness sakes!

When they criticize Canada and Britain, we should say we wish to learn from their flaws and emulate the best performing systems in the world, not those lingering at the bottom with the US. We don’t want global hospital budgeting that is contributing to Cnada’s waiting time problems, we don’t want to completely eliminate private health care, as in Canada, and we don’t want the government owning all our hospitals and salarying all our providers as in the UK !

Let me quote TR:
“It is a mistake for any nation to merely copy another; but it is even a greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness in any nation, not to be anxious to learn from one another and willing and able to adapt that learning to the new national conditions and make it fruitful and productive therein.”

Cheers,