Poll: Canadians like their health care despite grumbles

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/72229.html

Posted on Tuesday, July 21, 2009
By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — It's the bogeyman of the heated debate about overhauling U.S. health care. Critics charge that revamping the American system will turn the country into Canada, with a nationalized health care system and people dying as they wait for needed services they no longer can get.

New Ipsos-McClatchy online polls find that patients in Canada are indeed much more frustrated by waiting times to see medical specialists than patients in the United States are, and slightly less happy with the waiting times to see their family doctors.

However, they're much more likely to say that they have access to all the health care services they need at costs they can afford, by a margin of 65 to 49 percent.

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That difference probably reflects the costs of health care: Patients pay nothing at doctors' offices in Canada.

It also helps explain the fact that Americans see health care differently based on their incomes, while Canadians see it roughly the same regardless of what they earn.

Just 37 percent of Americans who make less than $50,000 a year say they have access to and can afford all the health care services they need, while 60 percent of those who make more say they can get all they need at costs they can afford.

The gap was much smaller in Canada, where 61 percent of those who earn less than $55,000 and 70 percent of those who make more than that said they had access to all the care they needed at costs they could afford.

In both countries, people with chronic conditions are more likely than those without such illnesses to say that they have access to the care they need.

In the United States, 59 percent of those with chronic conditions are satisfied, while 50 percent of those without chronic conditions are satisfied with their access to care.

In Canada, it's 69 percent of those with chronic conditions and 63 percent of those without.

On some questions, patients in both countries saw things virtually the same way, including access to care on weekends when needed.