ObamaCare’s promises to the American people were to (1) lower health insurance costs, (2) increase healthcare quality, and (3) increase access to healthcare. We have already experienced dramatic increases in the cost of health insurance and now the release of an annual report by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank, exposes the fallacy of promise number three.

To set the report in context, I will share the recent experience of a friend. Marci is the mother of four, ranging in age from 10 to 20, who started having problems serious enough for her husband to take her to the doctor on a Monday morning. She was sent for tests that day and discovered that she had a tumor deep in her brain. By Thursday, she had a surgical biopsy and a diagnosis of an inoperable, but treatable, fast-growing lymphoma. The next Tuesday, they began chemotherapy. Speech therapy and occupational therapy were also started right away. Though the treatment will continue for several weeks, Marci was home for Christmas, walking and talking.

The Fraser Institute report paints an entirely different picture had Marci been a Canadian. Canada’s socialized medicine portends the state of healthcare in the United States under ObamaCare. In 2011, the median wait time from a referral from a general practitioner to surgery increased to an all-time high of 19 weeks. The nationwide data on specialists is “…the shortest total waits (between referral from a GP and treatment) are for medical oncology (4.2 weeks), radiation oncology (4.6 weeks), and elective cardiovascular surgery (10.3 weeks). Conversely, patients waited longest between a GP referral and plastic surgery (41.6 weeks), orthopedic surgery (39.1 weeks), and neurosurgery (38.3 weeks).”

Government control and regulatory interference in the marketplace has created the problem of healthcare costs spiraling out of control in the United States. The solution is certainly not in more government control but rather lies in freeing the marketplace to control costs through competition and individual choice.

Would you want your Marci – your wife, mother, or daughter – waiting even the shortest time of 4.2 weeks for treatment? Or do you want the wait to be measured in days instead of weeks?

When given the opportunity to reverse ObamaCare, we should not only do so, but we should also demand that the other layers of healthcare regulations be repealed so that Americans can enjoy reduced health insurance costs, improved quality, and increased access to the healthcare the we ourselves choose.

– Arlene Wohlgemuth