This Seems to Surprise Americans - In Canada, Blacks are as Healthy as Whites

In Canada, white people are no healthier than our black people.   When I read that my reaction was, "well, duh."  Why would a Canadian achieve different health outcomes based on race?   Well apparently what we might take as a given is news elsewhere.

From health surveys, researchers found that blacks born in Canada had lower rates of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and cancer than their white compatriots.

By contrast, high blood pressure and diabetes were more common among blacks than whites in the U.S.

One possible explanation is that African Americans have a long history as second-class citizens, said Thomas A. LaVeist, who directs the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions in Baltimore.

"That is what I think is fueling the disparity we see in the U.S.," LaVeist, whose findings appear in the Archives of Internal Medicine, told Reuters Health.

Bernier Harper's Front Man on Dismantling Universal Health Care

According to NatPo, Maxie Bernier is going to carry the ball for Harper's plan to scuttle Canada's universal health care and gut the Canada Health Act.  It's enough to have Harper advisor Keith Beardsley questioning whether Bernier is a loose cannon or the Tories are on the brink of an enormous political blunder:

Does he propose that this be a unilateral move by the federal government? If yes, then that would make for an interesting federal-provincial relationship over the next few years. Max would also leave it up to each province to decide what to spend on health care and they could then decide what items to fund and provinces would be free to implement two-tier health care delivery if they so wished. The downside being that you end up with 10 completely different health care systems. Some folks might support that, especially if they live in the richer provinces, but what if you happen to live in one of the poorer provinces? Certainly he offers a simplistic solution at the federal level in that you get to move this debate away from Ottawa and out to 10 different provincial capitals.

...Max and his views may not represent the official party line, but he does offer the opposition an opportunity both now and in a future election to focus their attack on a Conservative “hidden agenda”. We spent years shutting down that line of attack, why open ourselves up to it again?

Coming on the heels of the Columbia University study showing that America's vaunted private healthcare system has left the U.S. 13th in a field of 13 industrialized countries in longevity - and all the other studies (mainly American) that consistently prove universal healthcare delivers substantially better health outcomes, this should be manna from heaven for the opposition.   Lead on MacDuff, er Maxie.

Canada Slips on Maternal Mortality Standings

In 1990 Canada had the lowest rate of maternal mortality, the death of mothers in childbirth. In 2008, we've fallen to ninth overall. Three things to note: 1. Our numbers are still pretty good compared to the 181 countries assessed. 2. The countries that now occupy the top 8 slots ahead of us made real progress in cutting maternal mortality. 3. Canada's numbers actually worsened slightly over the past two decades.

Italy now claims top spot with just 3.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 deliveries. Canada's numbers increased from 5.7 to 6.6 over this period, placing us in 9th spot. The UK trails us with 8.2 while the United States records 16.7 for 39th place.

At the very bottom, standing 181st, is Afghanistan with 1575.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 deliveries.