Universal health care: Is it worth the long waits?

The Buffalo News reports:

After battling brain cancer, Lindsay McCreith is ready for his next fight: He’s taking on the Canadian health care system.

His case has potential repercussions on both sides of the border as pressure grows for health reform.

It started when McCreith, a resident of Newmarket, north of Toronto, suffered a seizure last year. He was told in Canada he would have to wait more than four months for an MRI to rule out a malignant tumor.

Rather than wait, McCreith, 66, quickly arranged a trip to Buffalo for a scan. The MRI confirmed his worst fears — a cancerous growth that a Buffalo neurosurgeon removed a few weeks later.

“If I had been patient, I’d probably be disabled or dead today,” McCreith said.

Now, McCreith is suing the Ontario government in a closely watched constitutional challenge that could reshape universal health coverage in the province by striking down the prohibition against patients buying private insurance.

On this side of the border, advocates of universal health insurance champion Canada’s popular public program as a fairer system that the United States should emulate, as seen in Michael Moore film, “Sicko.” Yet critics see the long waits for some services in Canada — mainly for non-emergency surgery — as an argument against an increased role for government in health care.


In Canada, McCreith’s story reflects a debate, intensified by the long waiting times, between those who want more for-profit, private care and those who fear the rise of two-tier medicine that undermines the public system.

McCreith offers little doubt about where he stands. “We have universal health coverage,” he said. “But it failed me when I needed it the most.”

Socialism means waiting in line.