According to a research study from Harvard University, researchers rate the Canadian healthcare system higher than that in the United States. According to these researchers, reports of the inadequacies of Canada’s great social experiment are misleading. If ever it were true that “researchers” will manipulate studies to produce a desired result, this is the case…This hardly empirical telephone survey of US and Canadian adults bases its findings on a stark reality, people in Canada, as a whole are healthier than their American counterparts…so therefore the healthcare system in Canada is superior. A seemingly logical conclusion, but is it?

According to the study, Americans are far more likely to have ailments like diabetes and heart disease. In reality the quality of US healthcare has little if anything to do with diseases like diabetes or heart disease. These diseases are a direct byproduct of lifestyle and eating habits, something for which it is entirely justified to criticize Americans, as this country is home to an ever growing number of fast food junkies, beginning at a very young age. There is no question that Americans are increasingly obese while leading increasingly sedentary lifestyles, a direct result of culture, not a lack of quality healthcare.

Lifestyle choice, however, does not change the fact that healthcare in this country remains one of the best systems in the civilized world and that can be largely attributed to fact that our system differs fundamentally from the Canadian model. Researchers attempted to reconcile this glaring reality by arguing that lack of access to healthcare (for uninsured Americans) accounted for the higher disease rates, as Americans were less likely to receive preventative care. This explanation, however, is sorely lacking. There is no preventive care a doctor can provide in the US or Canada to stop an individual from encouraging fast food or consuming large amounts of sugar, calories and fat, short of affixing a muzzle to their face.

As James Smith, a researcher with the RAND Corporation noted, even among Americans with insurance and access to health care, their was no discernable difference in the disease rate, compared with uninsured Americans. Even if uninsured Americans did have higher disease rates, it wouldn’t necessarily vindicate the Canadian system at the expense of the US model.

Americans who are uninsured are generally those with substantially lower incomes, these individuals with substantially lower incomes (and less education) are far more likely to consume large amounts of fast food and other unhealthy food products, the key lifestyle factor influencing the disease rates in this study.

Clearly the architects of this study have an agenda and that agenda is socialized medicine and therefore it is in their best interest to downplay the obvious and well recognized short comings of Canada’s tax payer sponsored universal health care system, while decrying the American experience. It is also in their best interest, given their motivations, not to explore other casualties that influence health, particularly lifestyle. If this is what passes for research at Harvard Medical, one would hope their physician studied somewhere else.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/cst-nws-health31.html