Universal Healthcare So Nice, Canadians Might Let You Pay Twice…

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Over the last few years, I’ve happened to develop some close friendships with a few Canadians. One of them fled Canada to start a DPC practice with me here in Virginia. The other one happens to attend church with me, and his son-in-law is finishing his orthopedics residency in the US. Both still have relatives in Canada.

A number of US physicians lament that we do not have a universal healthcare system here. Most are well intentioned but foolishly advocate for such a change. Why do I say foolish? Let’s ponder the system of our neighbor to the north.

Each Canadian province has slightly different rules, but almost all agree that a private practice outside of the government run system for providing the same services that are covered by their public “insurance” are illegal to provide. My Canadian partner shared with me that it would be completely illegal for him to open a DPC in Ontario, Canada, even if patients were willing to pay money out of their pocket for his Family Medicine care!

It’s a little bit different for some specialty care, province to province. If you have horrible arthritis involving your hips or knees and qualify for a joint replacement, you will get one . . . eventually. My younger brother was an orthopedic PA in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for quite a few years. He would regularly see Canadians crossing the border to pay out of pocket for an orthopedic surgery sooner than the 2 to 3 years estimated before they would get one for “free” in Canada. It turns out “free” health care is still rationed!

My Canadian friend from church, whose son-in-law is an orthopedic resident in the US, recently had one of his relatives choose to pay out-of-pocket for a joint replacement, in Canada, because that was allowed in the province where they lived. Imagine that, already paying 24% income tax to have universal “free” healthcare, and you might get to pay twice for the same covered service.

The exponential growth of direct care, in multiple fields within the US, shows that the free market works. Happy physicians, happy patients. We need to continue to advocate that the US government keeps its hands off the scale. Communism and socialism have failed multiple times over the last few centuries. As the Spanish-American philosopher and essayist George Santayana originally wrote in 1905, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Winston Churchill famously reworded that in 1948, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Let’s be careful what we wish for, and learn from Canada’s failing system.

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About Dan Swartz, MD

Dr. Daniel J. Swartz, M.D. (Dr. Dan) earned his Bachelor of Individualized Studies in Biology, Chemistry and Kinesiology (Exercise Science), summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota in 1996. He earned his Medical Degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Iowa College of Medicine in 2002. His residency training occurred at Mercy Medical Center – North Iowa in Mason City, IA. Dr. Dan is board certified in Family Medicine and holds active medical licenses in the commonwealth of VA and the state of MN. After residency, Dr. Dan practiced “full scope” Family Medicine with Olmsted Medical Center in Rochester, MN for over a decade. While there, he joined the nonprofit Season’s Hospice as an on-call physician. He later joined the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN as a consultant and instructor in the Mayo Clinic Medical School. Dr. Dan and his family moved to Forest, VA in 2017 to join the faculty of Liberty University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Family Medicine. In connection with his academic appointment at LUCOM, he was deployed to the Lynchburg Family Medicine Residency where he was awarded the rank of core faculty with the residency and earned adjunct faculty positions with the UVA and VCU Schools of Medicine during his time in academic medicine. In addition to practicing at Forest Direct Primary Care, which he purchased from Douglas Farrago, MD, he continues to serve as an on-call hospice physician for Season’s Hospice in Rochester, MN.