Affordable health care is important

Canada has a single-payer health care system. The promise of the Canadian system is access. With COVID-19 filling the ERs, elective surgery has become the prisoner of the triage hierarchy. But, there is a magic words that more often than not will get one quickly into the hospital for surgery: cancer.

There were some nasty things going on and in my cheek. Concerned I saw my skin doctor. Yes, I have a skin doctor. To tell the truth, even I'm en surprised that our system can cover such an ongoing cost. My doctor agreed my cheek was suspicious. He took a small plug from my cheek and sent it to the lab to be biopsied. It was cancerous. Today I was in surgery having the cancer removed.

A plastic surgeon did the work. My regular skin doctor prefers to let plastic surgeons tackle jobs like my cheek.If it heals as well as my arm, a cancer was removed from my arm some months ago, the incision will leave hardly a mark.

Years ago I had racing heart incident in Sonoma, California. I was whacked with a defibrillator and given a raft of tests and then released from hospital. The doctors were unable to diagnose the exact cause of my life-threatening incident. The bill? Something north of $35,000 U.S.

My insurance company refused, at first, to cover the cost. I was hounded for almost a year by collection agencies. I had to supply all, and I mean all, my health care records to the insurance company as they scrambled to get out of paying for my treatment. In the end, the insurance company paid. 

My experience with the American system is that it is one of the finest health care systems in the world. The hospital in California was like a hospital right out of the movies. The amount and quality of the equipment was incredible. But my American doctors and nurses made it very clear that one needs excellent insurance or very deep pockets to access the top-of-the-line health care they supplied.

I have had my mitral valve repaired by a da Vinci medical robot. I had a heart problem solved thanks to the use of a T7 MRI. I've had my life saved thanks to emergency minimally-invasive surgery. Everyday I say a quiet thank you for the Canadian health care system because I am only here thanks to it and the pacemaker/ICD it supplied. I'm now on my second.

The funny thing is that almost a hundred years ago, the Rockefeller Foundation wanted to bankroll a health care experiment providing universal access. It found no takers in the United States. Eventually, it gave the funds to a city in Ontario, Canada: Windsor. The Rockefeller money was used to start a  program known as Windsor Medical. 

As a boy living in the days before the Canada-wide single-payer system was born, I never paid a medical bill directly and this was thanks to Windsor Medical and the generosity and imagination of the Rockefeller Foundation.

I still think that that older system may have bested both the present U.S. and present Canadian health care systems.