Even though its most virulent critics raise the spectre of “Canadian-style” health care, “Obamacare” does little to change the enduring differences between the two health care system. What, exactly, does “Obamacare” look like compared to Canada?…
Not cost containment: The sharpest critics of Obamacare argue it does little to address the fundamental challenge of cost control. The new law includes a review of Medicare reimbursement and the expansion of Accountable Care Organizations to reward cost-effective care. But it doesn’t grapple in a systematic fashion with the overall inefficiencies in health care delivery and financing, the administrative burden of multiple payers, providers and plans, and the cost pressures of defensive medicine. Governments in Canada know that health care is a searing financial responsibility, but they have at their disposal cost containment measures ”“ monopoly fee negotiations with providers, global budgets for hospitals ”“ that remain unfathomable in the American context.
That was a surprisingly good article that fairly points out some of the main differences between Canada’s system of nationalized health care and our system that continues to ration health care primarily on the basis of ability to pay. Obamacare is a disaster that can only be favorably compared with the way things were before. Which is to say that while an improvement, it is almost impossible to imagine a more flawed “reform” of the health care system.
i doubt that it will be “an improvement.” As it looks now, it’s making things worse.