In post-debate “fact checks,” The Huffington Post and other liberal outlets have accused Donald Trump of lying about Canada’s government-controlled medicare system, which he called “catastrophic.” They also attacked Trump for saying that Hillary Clinton supports a similar single payer health-care system.
But Trump is right.
According to documents recently released by WikiLeaks, emails to and from Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, show her staff discussing how she’s been “more favorable to Canadian health care and single payer” systems and that her vocal support for these policies could assist her political opponents in their attacks.
A missive from Clinton research director Tony Carrk, addressed to the team, reads:
“Attached are the flags from HRC’s paid speeches we have…I put some highlights below. There is a lot of policy positions that we should give an extra scrub with Policy. In terms of what was opened to the press and what was not, the Washington Examiner got a hold of one of the private speech contracts…so this is worth a read..”
The leaked emails gave Trump an assist during Sunday night’s debate.
Clinton has also publicly declared a preference for single payer.
On June 17, 2013, when speaking to the Economic Council of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Clinton made the following comments that, although recognizing the fundamental flaw of single-payer systems, praised them for supposedly being more efficient:
“If you look at the single-payer systems, like Scandinavia, Canada, and elsewhere, they can get costs down because, you know, although their care, according to statistics, overall is as good or better on primary care, in particular, they do impose things like waiting times, you know. It takes longer to get like a hip replacement than it might take here.”
Wait times is right. According to a 2015 report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the average wait time for a hip replacement surgery in Canada is 6 months or 182 days, despite a claim by another liberal media outlet, Vox, that operation wait times are virtually unknown in Canada.
Clinton paid homage to the birthplace of North American socialized medicine when she spoke in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada on January 21, 2015, where a socialist premier named Tommy Douglas had first introduced a government medicare scheme in 1961.
Clinton bewailed some of Obamacare’s problems, but suggested they could be overcome: “I’m hoping that whatever the shortfalls or the glitches have been, which in a big piece of legislation you’re going to have, those will be remedied and we can really take a hard look at what’s succeeding, fix what isn’t, and keep moving forward to get to affordable universal healthcare coverage like you have here in Canada.”