The system of COVID vaccine distribution is giving Americans a taste of what universal healthcare is all about. For obvious reasons, advocates of M4A usually draw attention to the way that universal healthcare solves the problem of the uninsured and the underinsured, not to mention problems of medical bankruptcy and so forth. However, vaccine distribution is also demonstrating that a universal healthcare system is a fundamentally rational system of healthcare while a privatized system is a fundamentally irrational one.
Read MoreCanada's healthcare is becoming more privatized, while America's is becoming more public.
As a dual citizen, someone who grew up in Canada but who now lives in the United States, healthcare has always been one of the biggest sacrifices. Even with a good insurance plan, which I luckily have, it's hard for me to imagine how anyone who had experienced both could in their right mind choose the American system. And while I thought this would always be true, I can now imagine a time when the American system is better than the Canadian. It might not happen, but it's now within the realm of my imagination.
Read MoreI keep seeing posts about Bernie Sanders’ trip to Toronto in my Facebook feed. First, they came through the University of Toronto page, then, through Canadian media, and now, from Sanders' own page. And the message has been the same throughout - Bernie travels to Canada to tell Canada how wonderful Canada is. Don't get me wrong, Canadian healthcare is far and away superior to the disaster of US healthcare, and the purpose of Bernie’s trip was to learn about the Canadian system. And I've written a little about this superiority, and I’d also argue that in a few other really important areas, America would be wise to learn from Canada too.
However, these headlines also point to one of the things that really drives me nuts about Canada. We're too self-congratulatory
Read MoreThe healthcare debate is a good example of the way that neoliberalism uses "choice" to hide its absence. The choice that's always offered is a choice between different insurance plans, where having more choice is somehow meant to be a good in itself. And this is an argument often deployed against a single payer/universal systems, i.e., that it eliminates choice. However, in Canada, I have no choice about my insurance plan, but I have unlimited choice in the doctors I get to see, i.e., I can go to any doctor without any out-of-pocket expense. That's the choice that matters. But this type of choice is antithetical to the other type of choice.
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