Ltr to Editor in NYTimes on Canadian HCare System

To the Editor:

In a March 30 letter, a doctor says the Canadian health care system is inferior to the United States’ system, but this is not borne out by the data, like life expectancy rates.

In Canada, life expectancy at birth is about two years higher than in the United States. And this advantage is not gained by spending more. Medical costs as a percent of G.D.P. (combining public and private costs) are 15 percent in the United States and 10 percent in Canada.

There are flaws in the Canadian system, but then that is also true of the American system. What the letter writer labels “horrors of a Canadian-style single-payer system” are a bit hard to see.

Joseph J. Stern
Newton, Mass., March 30, 2009

The writer is an economist and was a lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School.


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