By: Ellen Oxfeld, Member of Addison County Citizens for Single Payer
On November 4th, Addison County Citizens for Single Payer sponsored a forum on Canadian health care. Professor John Seavey, of the University of New Hampshire recounted the history of the Canadian health care system. If you would like your cable station to show this lecture, it is available on Vermont Media Exchange. Just call your local station and ask them to download this video: Canadian Health Care: Speaking from Experience ( http://middleburycommunitytv.org/vindex.php).
Canada’s health care system started in one province, Saskatchewan, and then was so successful that it was adopted nationally. That might be a good model for the United States as well – why not start single payer in Vermont and show that it can work?
Professor Seavey explained that the Canadian model has five key features. If Congress had used these, we would have had real health care reform, but let’s use them here in Vermont as our guides! The best part of this is that these principles not only ensure universality but cost control. As Professor Seavey explained, Canada’s costs were rising at the same rate as the United States until they enacted their single payer system. After that, they contained the rise in costs. Yet their medical outcomes are as good or better and everyone has access to comprehensive care.
Here are the principles of single payer in Canada:
- Universality (everyone must be covered)
- Comprehensiveness(everything medically needed must be provided)
- Accessibility (both economic – no copays or deductibles, and geographic)
- Portability (it doesn’t matter where you work or live)
- Public administration (has to be publicly administered).
Why not use these principles as our guides and goals in Vermont?
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