Don't look north for solutions

Inter Lake editorial

As the debate over the public option in health-care reform continues to boil, it's always instructive to keep an eye on news from the north.

This weekend, the Canadian Medical Association will meet to discuss urgently needed health-care reforms for the country's single-payer system.

We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize, the association's incoming president, Dr. Anne Doig, told the Canadian Press.

Come again: The system is imploding?

The U.S. reforms being considered by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have raised serious concerns among many Americans largely because of potential for the federal government to offer a taxpayer-funded insurance option.

Obama insists that he does not want a single-payer system and Montana Sen. Max Baucus is working toward what he describes as uniquely American reforms aimed at reducing health-care costs in a fashion that eventually would reduce government spending on health care.

While those are the stated intentions, concerns with the public option are rooted in a fear that the federal government will steadily drive private insurance competitors out of business, incrementally and relentlessly drifting toward a Canadian-style system.

Even if it takes years, it would be a change in which many Americans do not believe.

News that the Canadian system is implodingcertainly fuels concerns about the U.S. government going into the health-care business more than it already is with Medicaid.

AND THERE'S more news, too, from Canada this week: The Vancouver Sun reports that a regional health authority is considering closing operating rooms, cutting medical staff and limiting services to meet a $200 million budgetary shortfall this fiscal year.

Those measures are expected to result in a reduction of 6,000 surgeries, which translates, of course, into longer waiting lists for needed operations. That's a pretty good description of health-care rationing.

And presumably, the issues of health-care costs and wait lists are at the top of the agenda for the Canadian Medical Association.

According to Dr. Doig, Canadians have to understand that the system that we have right now if it keeps on going without change is not sustainable.

That sounds familiar.

Interestingly, the association's current president, Dr. Robert Quellet, says private insurance competition should be welcomed, not feared as a way to reform the Canadian health care system.

We hope Sen. Baucus can find the way to uniquely American reforms that don't send us in the direction of Canada.