Mandryk: Better utilization of U.S. health care needed

By Murray Mandryk

Long before COVID-19, people were complaining Canada’s public health system was broken.

It isn’t. COVID-19 may have actually proven that.

Yes, our public health system keeps our taxes high. And, yes, it may not always necessarily produce the cutting edge medical advancements that we see from the U.S. … although, why Americans are world leaders in health care advancement is complex.

Perhaps as critical as being the richest nation in the world is having a critical population mass, creating a situation where doctors are allowed to delve into the treatment of rarer conditions that don’t often occur in countries with smaller population bases.

The net result of all this has made the Americans world leaders in medical advancements, so it was hardly surprising that the U.S. would lead the way in developing vaccines for COVID-19.

Perhaps more surprising is that the U.S. — with the world’s best medicine at its disposal — would also lead the world in COVID-19-related deaths.

Ironically, the cost of having the greatest health care in the world is that not everyone in the U.S can afford to access it.

This is evidence of the much steeper human toll Americans have paid after nearly two years of a worldwide pandemic.

We in Canada were admittedly slower in developing and distributing vaccines. Because we have a public system more likely to pinch pennies, provinces like Saskatchewan ran out of ICU space when hit by the fourth wave.

But it’s even more important to note that Canada has only had 29,458 known deaths from COVID-19 or 784 per 100,000 people. By comparison, the U.S. has now registered 762,206 COVID-19 deaths or 2,322 per 100,000 people.

Clearly, our health care system isn’t any more broken than others.

That said, it’s actually very helpful living next door to the U.S. as a health care giant as it is living next to the U.S. as an economic giant. Sometimes, we accept this and better utilize this relationship.

It angers the left and Medicare purists that some people go to the U.S. for certain medical procedures because they can afford to do so. They have done so for years because it avoids waiting in the Canadian queue for non-life-threatening surgeries.

Even more irritating to the left has been governments like Saskatchewan recognizing that maybe allowing some hybrid elements of privatized health care in Canada might help avoid richer Canadians going to the U.S. for treatment and enhance our system here.

But richer or poorer, what we should all agree that on very rare occasions, our still very good health system in Canada cannot provide medical treatments and that e should all pitch in and cover the costs for treatment.

Sadly this hasn’t been the reality for the family of five-year-old Conner Finn, who has incurred an $832,000 bill for surgery only available at the University of Minnesota to deal with his rare and sometimes fatal cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD).

The Finns requested funding for out-of-country treatment for Conner that is available when a procedure isn’t available in Canada. Initially, they were denied by the health department bureaucracy, but that ruling was overturned by the Health Service Review Committee.

“Unfortunately, the ministry decided to ignore that recommendation and still denied our claim a second time,” father Craig Finn said last spring.

Because the surgery was needed immediately, the Finns had to liquidate their retirement savings to pay for it. Last week, they went to the Saskatchewan legislature to plead directly to Health Minister Paul Merriman to reconsider and offer help.

The Saskatchewan Party government should do this. And it should have never come to this.

We have a great health system, but we need to recognize its shortcomings.

Mostly, we need to abide by its very principle — that everyone has the right to health care.