As Socialist Healthcare System Crumbles, Canadians Are Now Far Less Confident Than Americans When It Comes To Getting Needed Emergency Care

The results of a new Angus Reid poll are devastating, and the remaining defenders of the current Canadian healthcare system are rapidly losing their credibility.

Debates about the Canadian healthcare system almost always descend into some sort of ignorant comparison between Canada and the US.

Defenders of the failed socialist system often act as if the Canadian and US systems are the only ones that exist, while ignoring the fact that most of Europe has a mix of public and private delivery while retaining universal access.

Those who support the draconian Canadian socialist healthcare system make the comparison with the US because the US is – like Canada but in the opposite direction – an outlier when it comes to healthcare.

They can point to the many uninsured Americans, and the many Americans who go bankrupt because of health bills, and claim the Canadian system is ‘better.’ So, it is their preferred tactic.

But now, things are so bad within Canada’s healthcare system that even that tactic is failing.

Increasingly, Canada’s system is ‘universal’ only in that it is widely inaccessible to millions of Canadians.

And according to a new Angus Reid poll, Canadians are far less confident than Americans when it comes to getting need emergency care.

Angus Reid polled both Canadians and Americans, and asked the following question:

“Suppose you had an emergency today – you or someone in your family needed emergency care – how confident are you that you would be able to get care in a timely fashion?”

Just 7% of Canadians said they were “very confident” they would get care. Another 30% said they were “confident.”

Here’s where it gets brutal.

A full 37% said they were “not that confident” they could get timely care, while another 24% said they were “not confident at all.”

That leaves 61% of Canadians – a clear majority – who lack confidence that they could get timely emergency care in our system, vs just 37% who are confident.

And the numbers for Americans are completely different.

29% of Americans said they were “very confident” they could get timely emergency care, while 41% said they were “confident.”

19% said they were “not that confident,” while just 6% said they were “not confident at all.”

Combined, you have 70% of Americans expressing confidence they can get timely emergency care, vs 25% who are not confident.

Let’s compare those numbers directly:

Confident in receiving timely emergency care:

Canadians – 37%, Americans 70%.

Not confident in receiving timely emergency care:

Canadians 61%, Americans 25%.

This is perhaps the most profound indictment of the Canadian healthcare system we’ve seen in quite some time when it comes to polling. The only more profound indictment has been the increasing use of state-assisted suicide as a ‘substitute’ for healthcare.

The poll includes even more devastating information on the crumbling system.

29% of Canadians expressed “chronic difficulty” getting healthcare access, while another 31% said they had “some challenges”.

Just 15% said they had “comfortable access,” and another 26% said they did not need to access the system.

Universal healthcare in Canada is currently dead

We must be honest about what this means.

Canada doesn’t have a universal healthcare system.

That system is dead.

Putting the name “universal” on a system doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t actually accessible.

And now that the Canadian socialist system is less reliable to Canadians than the American system is to Americans, nobody can fairly and honestly appraise the situation as anything other than a total disaster.

The last redoubt of the socialized system defenders has been breached.

It is now not a matter of if Canada is forced to embrace a much larger role for the private sector in healthcare delivery, it is only a matter of when, and the longer it takes, the more Canadians will needlessly suffer in the meantime.

Spencer Fernando

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