So, the fear-mongering of the American insurance lobby aside, I have always known that universal health care is a Good Thing, because I am from Toronto, and I witnessed its great successes with my mother's cancer throughout her lifetime, and my stepfather's heart problems and eventual quad bypass. I worked hard on the campaign to bring universal care to California when there was a bill pending here, and even went to colleges around my city helping to explain the very simple economics of it to the brainwashed college youth. It's a shame the soul-less insurance company advertising mangaged to terrify the voting public with their lies.

So, I first read about this back in May, in a groovy blog which I have on my BlogRoll, the one called "Northern Fence". But I decided to wait to post about it until the full article was released, which happened yesterday. It's a study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Summary:
Objectives. We compared health status, access to care, and utilization of medical services in the United States and Canada, and compared disparities according to race, income, and immigrant status.
 
Methods. We analyzed population-based data on 3505 Canadian and 5183 US adults from the Joint Canada/US Survey of Health. Controlling for gender, age, income, race, and immigrant status, we used logistic regression to analyze country as a predictor of access to care, quality of care, and satisfaction with care, and as a predictor of disparities in these measures.
 
Results. In multivariate analyses, US respondents (compared with Canadians) were less likely to have a regular doctor, more likely to have unmet health needs, and more likely to forgo needed medicines. Disparities on the basis of race, income, and immigrant status were present in both countries, but were more extreme in the United States.
 
Conclusions. United States residents are less able to access care than are Canadians. Universal coverage appears to reduce most disparities in access to care. (Am J Public Health. 2006;96:XXX–XXX. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.059402)