Nadeem Esmail Quotations

Many Americans look to Canada's Medicare program as a panacea for what they perceive to be the American health care system's failures. These wonderful visions of Canada's socialized health program tend to ignore the very real costs that system imposes on Canadians in need of medically necessary care: long wait times that can stretch into months or even years of painful and detrimental delay. The reality is that Canada's Medicare program is a model for no one, not even Canada.

This is occurring in spite of dramatic increases in health spending the last three or four years. The provinces are spending more and more and more on health care, and the wait times are stalling out.

It's a sector that runs alongside the public program but it's important to have that there to create a competitive restraint for the public program. And to give patients the opportunity to seek care on their own terms with their own hard earned resources when the public program's either unwilling or unable to meet their needs.

It's a very small tic. That's a day, day-and-a-half off the 18 weeks. It's really not much of a change given the big increases in spending we've seen over the last few years.

These waiting times are the second-longest that Canadians have ever experienced and exist despite record levels of health spending.

Canadians should not be fooled into thinking that this small reduction in overall waiting is a good-news story.