Don’t be distracted by the noise; support President Obama’s health-care reform bill

EDITOR:

Along with the 47 million Americans who have no medical insurance there’s a group of 33,212,696 other people who must be sick and tired of our nation’s dysfunctional health care delivery system: Canadians.

Like the ugly, noisy cicadas that pop out of the ground once every 17 years to annoy everyone within earshot, opponents of health care reform begin chirping about the Canadian health care system every time it appears that progress is being made. It happened in 1993 and it’s happening again as President Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress draw closer to making the dream of universal coverage a reality.

The cacophony of lies being told by Fox News fibbers like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck and talk radio con artists Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and the Valley’s own Dan Rivers about the Canadian system is nearly inescapable. They lie about costs, they lie about access, and they lie about quality. If you listened to these guys long enough you’d believe that millions of Canadians are lined up at the border waiting to get into the United States so they can have a leg that’s been broken for a year set or get their hands on a couple aspirins.

One thing is clear: Canadians wouldn’t recognize the health care system being vilified every day. In a recent poll conducted by Harris/Decima, 70 percent of Canadians say their system works well and 82 percent say it’s superior to ours. It’s easy to see why. They spend 9.7 percent of GDP or $3,430 per person per year for health care while we spend 15.9 percent of GDP or $6,460 per person. Yet by every measure used by the World Health Organization, Canadian’s are healthier than Americans.

No one in Canada goes to bed worried that they might wake up sick and have no way to see a doctor. No one in Canada has to file bankruptcy because they owe thousands in medical bills they can’t pay. An American without insurance is much more likely to become seriously ill and die because they have no access to care than a Canadian because they have to wait a few months to have an operation. At least when the few months passes, they can have the operation.

Why does Canada become a target whenever America debates health care? The answer’s simple: the insurance industry, the AMA, drug companies, the Chamber of Commerce, and the NFIB believe scaring Americans is the easiest way to derail reform — even though nothing President Obama or Congressional Democrats have proposed would even come close to establishing a single-payer system similar to Canada’s in our country.

Unfortunately, the truth doesn’t matter to those who make billions each year from our broken system — they’ll do anything it takes to preserve the status quo.

That is why it is important for the rest of us to contact Congressmen Ryan and Wilson and urge them to support the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act that was passed out of the House Education and Labor Committee.

Atty. DAVID J. BETRAS

Canfield

X The writer is chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party.