Canada Letter: Health Care Comparisons and an NYT Offer

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/world/canada/canada-letter-health-care-ifoa.html

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This week’s Canada Letter includes observations from the Yukon and a ticket offer for Times subscribers. But first we have an exclusive item for readers of this newsletter from our colleagues at The Upshot, the group at The Times that examines the world through data.

Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, and Austin Frakt, a health economist with several governmental and academic affiliations, frequently analyze health care policy for The Upshot. (They also have an excellent blog about health care economics.)

Recently, they gathered two other economists and a physician and held a tournament to pick the world’s best health care system. Canada was knocked out early by Britain. Long wait times delivered the fatal blow. But in this essay for the Canada Letter, Professor Carroll and Dr. Frakt offer a positive take on that result:

A dispatch from my colleague Dan Levin who was just on assignment in the Yukon:

As I wrote in his obituary, Allan J. MacEachen, who died earlier this month at the age of 96, was the political mastermind behind two Liberal prime minsters, Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Elliot Trudeau. His political acumen brought, among other things, public health care to all Canadians.

Justin Trudeau, the current Liberal prime minister, has links to Mr. MacEachen that go beyond his father. The son of a coal miner from Nova Scotia’s Cape Breto Island, Mr. MacEachen hired another Cape Breton coal miner’s son to organize his papers after he was appointed to the Senate. Long after sorting out Mr. MacEachen’s papers, that archivist, Gerald Butts, is now Mr. Trudeau’s closest political adviser, effectively fulfilling the role Mr. MacEachen played for the elder Mr. Trudeau.

Read: Allan J. MacEachen, a Force in Bringing Public Health Care to Canada, Dies at 96

Three members of The Time’s Team Canada, including me, will be interviewing writers at next month’s International Festival of Authors in Toronto. And we have a special deal for Times subscribers. Click on the “purchase tickets” tab and the code IFOA2017 will get you half-price tickets to the events where we do the questioning. Here they are in order:

—On Oct. 21, Dan Wakin, the editor of this newsletter, interviews crime writers Sara Blaedel and Peter Robinson.

—It’s my turn during the morning of Oct. 28 when I’ll have a conversation with the novelists Linda Spalding and Wayne Johnston about their careers.

—Finally, in the afternoon of Oct. 28, Catherine Porter, our Toronto bureau chief, will speak with Carol Off from CBC Radio’s “As It Happens” about “All We Leave Behind,” Ms. Off’s story about Asad Aryubwal, who exposed Afghanistan’s warlords, and how she helped him to make his way to Canada with his family.

—We’ve introduced a feature on Toronto real estate.

—The first strike at a Canadian auto assembly plant in 21 years hit a General Motors factory in Ingersoll, Ontario this week. Job losses to Mexico are at its heart.

—The North American Free Trade Agreement talks move to Ottawa this weekend. In advance, the Trump Administration has released data it says show that the system isn’t working for United States.