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Canada has socialized medicine and a government run, single payer insurance system.  I work in healthcare in the US and have heard several times that the US can’t go the way of Canada. I have also heard talk radio saying that the Canadian model doesn’t work.

I am writing this post to defend the Canadian healthcare model. Here are 5 positive and 2 negative observations about Canadian healthcare.

Positive.

1. In all my years of growing up in Canada, I have never once had a problem with getting quick primary and catastrophic care in Canada. Whenever I called my primary care physicians, I was in the doctors’ offices within 0-3 days. When a surgeon and I agreed that I needed elective surgery, that surgery was scheduled within 3 weeks. And whenever I went to the ER, I was seen within 1-2 hours, sometimes less.

2. Canadian healthcare is not free. Everyone pays a premium because fair and equitable premiums are automatically deducted from your paycheck. I think this is a good way of ensuring that everyone pays into the system – there are very few freeloaders in Canada. Also, premiums are automatically adjusted based on income, so poor families pay less. Making sure that everyone pays something into the system prevents the “entitlement” mentality (“I deserve care even if I don’t pay for it”).

3. If you get real sick in Canada, you don’t lose your home and risk bankruptcy.

4. If you require catastrophic care in Canada, you get it quickly. Last year my uncle had a massive heart attack. He was flown to Vancouver and in surgery with a specialist the very next day. He had follow up surgeries a few weeks later in a timely fashion. 

5. The story about the Canadian premier from Newfoundland who recently went to Florida for heart surgery that we keep hearing about was not denied heart surgery nor was he placed on a long waiting list in Canada. He was offered surgery in Newfoundland that would have saved his life, but he opted for an alternative, less invasive procedure by a specific physician in Florida who was recommended to him by someone else. So this is not a case of someone not being able to get decent care in Canada. It is a case of a wealthy politician shopping around for a specific doctor and procedure that was more to his liking.

Negative.

1. Last year I attended a healthcare conference where data were presented showing that the cost of healthcare is rising at an alarming rate in nations with socialized care. So Canada’s socialized medicine is not controlling costs very well. Obama’s insurance reforms will not, in all likelihood, bring rising costs under control. I believe that controlling rising costs can be achieved by changing the culture of healthcare delivery.

2. Canada does not have a co-pay system. Absence of co-pays leads to unnecessary visits at primary care and ER facilities. A co-pay is needed in Canada. It would force some Canadians with mild conditions like sore throats and coughs to think twice about whether they need to see a doctor, assuming they tend to run off to the doctor at the first sign of a cold .

So there you have it - one person’s viewpoint. Whether the Canadian model would work in American is unknown, but it works fairly well for Canadians.
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“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).

During the 19th century, chemists struggled with discovering how identical carbon atoms combined to form different compounds. This mystery was solved in a most wondrous manner by a chemist named Friedrich August Kekule (1829-1896). 

Kekule was returning home late one night after discussing chemistry with his friend, Hugo Muller. While riding home on an open bus through the deserted streets of London, he said:

I fell into a reverie, and lo, the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. . . . I saw how, frequently, two smaller atoms united to form a pair; how a larger one embraced the two smaller ones; how still larger ones kept hold of three or even four of the smaller; whilst the whole kept whirling in a giddy dance. I saw how the larger ones formed a chain, dragging the smaller ones after them but only at the ends of the chain.

Kekule spent much of that night drawing the shapes he saw in his dream. His sketches illustrated how carbon atoms create different substances by forming links and chains. This vision led to Kekule’s theory of organic molecular structure.

Sometime after this discovery Kekule dedicated himself to studying aromatic benzene, a hydrocarbon found in aromatic substances such as scented oils and spices. Benzene does not follow the same rules of organic molecular structuring that Kekule had discovered in his first dream. After laboring for seven years to unlock the secrets of the structure of benzene that accounted for different aromatic properties, Kekule had another revelatory dream. He recalled:

I was sitting writing at my textbook but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My mental eye, rendered more acute by repeated visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformation: long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together all twining and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this time also I spent the rest of the night in working out the consequences of the hypothesis.

This dream led to Kekule’s discovery that carbon atoms also form rings. 

Kekule’s dreams of carbon atoms forming chains and rings answered the question of how identical carbon-based compounds produce different substances. This discovery spawned an organic chemistry industry which today provides indispensable coal-tar products such as dyes, plastics, detergents, and drugs. His dreams also unlocked mysteries of life on earth, for all organic life depends on the capacity of carbon atoms to form molecular chains and rings as they did in Kekule’s dreams.

(Source: Truth and Science: An LDS Perspective)
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Statement from Joseph Fielding Smith:

"CANNOT BELIEVE BOTH GOSPEL AND EVOLUTION. I say most emphatically, you cannot believe in this theory of the origin of man, and at the same time accept the plan of salvation as set forth by the Lord our God. You must choose the one and reject the other, for they are in direct conflict and there is a gulf separating them which is so great that it cannot be bridged, no matter how much one may try to do so."

"If you believe in the doctrine of the evolutionist, then you must accept the view that man has evolved through countless ages from the very lowest forms of life up through various stages of animal life, finally into the human form. The first man, according to this hypothesis known as the "cave man," was a creature absolutely ignorant and devoid of any marked intelligence over the beasts of the field."

Source: Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 1
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Evangelical Albert Mohler's comment communicates my thoughts on the matter of Tiger's return to Buddhism very well.

“[T]he statement by Tiger Woods points to the radical distinction between Christianity and Buddhism -- between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the dharma of the Buddha. . . .  [T]he most remarkable aspect of his confession is its Buddhist shape. American Christians should look at those words with care.”

“A Christian looking at those words sees just how distant they are from the Gospel. The distinction between the Christian and Buddhist worldviews is laid bare for all to see. Tiger Woods should be taken at his word when he grounds his apology and confession in Buddhism. . . . Christians should see this as further reason to pray for Tiger Woods. We should respect the integrity and honesty of his statement, but hope and pray that he will one day come to know the salvation and forgiveness of sin that comes only through faith in Christ. We believe that he will not find salvation in renouncing all desire. We would hope instead that he might hear the Gospel and desire Christ.”
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