OregonLive.com
01/09/03
In her column of Dec. 29, Debra Saunders discusses the crisis in American medical care and suggests that the Canadian single-payer system is a failure.
I am a college professor at a university just south of the Canadian border in New York. In my advanced honors class, “The Scholar as Citizen,” the students are required to conduct research.
Last spring, one of the students researched the notion, accepted by most Americans, that Canadians do not receive adequate medical care. She interviewed 50 Canadians and 50 Americans and asked them if they were satisfied with the medical care they are receiving and whether they would prefer a system like that of the other country.
The student was surprised to find that all 50 Canadians said they were completely satisfied with their own medical care in particular and the Canadian single-payer system in general. None said they would prefer an American-type system. Of the Americans interviewed, most said they were not satisfied with their medical care (40 percent had no care at all).
LAUREL SHARMER Potsdam, N.Y.
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