Canada’s single-payer healthcare system is imploding due to skyrocketing costs

We are all immensely grateful that advances in medical treatment mean that people no longer die from easily treatable diseases. Most likely you or someone close to you has had to obtain medical treatment for a serious condition which could have resulted in their death. Indeed, access to healthcare is no longer viewed as a privilege but as a right by modern 21^st century people. Two countries that are upheld as examples of free healthcare being made available to every citizen are Canada and the United Kingdom. These countries promise easy access to necessary treatment at no charge. A shocking new report from the conservative think-tank The Fraser Institute, has just revealed, however, that the healthcare system in Canada is imploding, and treatment is anything but “free.” The situation is almost exactly the same in the U.K.

The Daily Caller is reporting that a “typical” Canadian family of four with an annual income of $127,814, will pay around $12,057 for healthcare each year – albeit indirectly; the money is derived from taxes.

Bacchus Barua, senior economist with the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Health Policy Studies, and lead author of the study noted, “Health care in Canada isn’t free—Canadians actually pay a substantial amount for health care through their taxes, even if they don’t pay directly for medical services.”

You might be thinking that even $12,057 a year is acceptable for comprehensive medical treatment, but that’s only half the story. The reality is that many procedures are excluded, and Canadians must provide for their own dental care, eye exams and glasses, and a host of other treatments. A shocking shortage of healthcare providers means a Canadian family can wait years to be accepted by a family practitioner. And, as the Caller noted, those who need either routine or urgent surgery have to wait their turn on a very long waiting list. (Related: Keep up with the latest developments and changes that impact your family at Medicine.news)

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Back in 2010, Michael Tennant of The New American noted:

The Canadian healthcare system has been slowly but surely collapsing of its own weight, as all socialist systems eventually do, for years. … What is needed is not more government involvement in the healthcare sector but less.

According to an earlier Natural News article, in the United Kingdom, where the socialist National Healthcare System (NHS) has been collapsing for years, the latest solution is to punish those whose lifestyles put them at increased risk for illness, like smokers and the obese, by denying them necessary surgical procedures to cut back on costs. Instead, they will be referred to a health program for six months – by which time some of them could be dead.

Those with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more will be “offered a referral to either a weight management program or stop smoking service for a six-month period of health optimization before being considered for surgery.”

To add insult to injury, while being denied the coverage to which every U.K. citizen is supposed to be entitled, these patients will still have to continue sacrificing a portion of their earnings to the healthcare system.

While it is, of course, always best to make the necessary lifestyle changes to get to the root causes of serious illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, and nobody should be smoking anymore, this policy just goes to prove that “free” healthcare is never really free, and it is hardly ever available to everybody.

The best course of action is to get your health issues under control now, before you need expensive medical treatment. Maintaining a healthy weight, eliminating processed foods, eating plenty of non-GMO, organic fruits and veggies, and incorporating daily exercise into your lifestyle are the steps that will put you on the road to real health and longevity.

Sources include:

DailyCaller.com

FraserInstitute.org

TheNewAmerican.com

NaturalNews.com