Cliff Stearns: “this week is Cover the Uninsured Week where lawmakers, the media, and our constituents will consider how we can help…”

“this week is Cover the Uninsured Week where lawmakers, the media, and our constituents will consider how we can help provide health care coverage for some 35 million Americans. No doubt some will pronounce that the answer lies in a single payer, universal health care coverage program. I say there are better ways. Why? Let us look at countries that do have national health care in place and see its problems. Let me share with Members a story I read in a February 13 article in the New York Times about the growing lag on the Canadian health care system. According to this article, a Canadian government study shows that 4.3 million Canadians, 18 percent of those who saw a doctor in 2001, had a problem getting tests or surgery done in a timely fashion. Three million could not find a family physician. Canada spends $86 billion on the health care. Only the United States, Germany and Switzerland spend more as a proportion of economic output, but budget cuts since the early 1990s have impeded efforts to keep health care up to date. Waiting lines have also increased because an aging population is placing more demands on the system. A study by the Fraser Institute recently concluded that patients across Canada experience waiting times of 16.5 weeks between receiving a referral from a general practitioner and undergoing treatment in 2001-2002, a rate 77 percent longer than in 1993. Mr. Speaker, can Members imagine an insured American putting up with a wait for 4 months?”