Excerptcize

Last week I noted some ways that healthcare reform in the States could adversely effect Canada. While that possibility is there, the potential to benefit Canada, indirectly, is there as well. Reform in the US takes a two-pronged approach; extending coverage, which has received the bulk of attention abroad for it’s moral implications, and controlling costs, which, while not being ‘sexy’, is a measure that does have some potential relevance for Canada and other countries.

Medical advancements, like other technological innovations, are not zero-sum propositions; pharmaceuticals that were first researched and developed in the States now benefit people around the world. When it is shown that a 50% reduction in surgical mortality rates and a 36% decline in complications can be attained by following a basic checklist, those checklists can be implemented at a larger scale. The same goes for improvements in cost effectiveness.

Just as I imagine that in the long run cost effectiveness measures developed in the US will be a boon to other countries, the US will also hope to be the benefactor of efficiencies gained elsewhere. As Ezra Klein noted:

Even if the bill does a better job than CBO projects, health-care costs will still bankrupt us. This is one small step for cost, one giant leap for coverage. My great hope is that the bill makes thenext steps easier. But there’s still no guarantee we’ll take them.

The same can be said about Canada, and really any industrial country. This graph from the Parliamentary Budget Officers recent Fiscal Sustainability Report features a pretty scary forecast for our future federal debt:

Not all of that sharp upwards climb will be due to increases  in healthcare expenditures, but a lot of it is. The first members of the baby boomer generation are turning 65 this year; couple that with an ever rising life expectancy and you have a perfect formula for endlessly escalating healthcare outlays. For my part, I am an optimist that these are problems that can be solved, and having the US as part of “the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor” is a necessary part of the puzzle.

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