The Massachusetts health plan is decidedly different from that of Great Britain and Canada. The main distinction is that while the health care systems of Canada and Great Britain are publicly funded, under the Massachusetts system, health care is provided by the individuals themselves through private insurance. Under the individual mandate requirement, all state residents are expected to buy insurance or be subjected to a penalty. Those who cannot afford to purchase coverage are provided for under Medicaid. Thus an individual has access to many private insurers who can provide medical coverage and who van be accessed through the connector.
In Canada and Britain, the health care of everyone is provided for by their governments so everyone has equal access to health care. Also, while Canada and Great Britain have universal coverage, there are some people in the state of Massachusetts who are not medically covered. In deed for a very long time, there have been significant numbers of the uninsured in this state and this appears to have been one of the pitfalls for the former Massachusetts health plan. However, under the Massachusetts health care reform, the state was able to significantly increase its number of the medically covered.
The socialized health care systems have continuously been lauded by many as the right path to follow in the way of providing medical care to residents of any particular region or country. This is because through the socialized health plan, all people have access to equal health care. The American healthcare plan on the other hand, is plagued by several problems such as costly medication that some people cannot afford. Furthermore, the health plans provided by employers and which most Americans subscribe to offer a limited choice.
Thus there have been propositions for America to adopt a nationalized and socialized healthcare plan similar to the one followed by Great Britain and Canada. But is a nationalized health care plan really the way for the United States to go in future? The advocates of a national health plan assert that it offers better quality health care for the individuals. However, a closer analysis of the socialized health care systems reveals otherwise. For instance, Great Britain and Canada seem to have a shortage of CT scanners even though it is Great Britain which created the CT scanner.
Thus few Canadians and Britons have access to such kind of treatment. Also, a limited number of people can access dialysis treatment; only half as many Canadians and a third as many Britons compared to the Americans. The rate of coronary bypass is also approximately four times higher than it is in Canada and five times higher than it is in Britain (Himelfarb). Results from a research carried out by the Organization for Cooperation and Development revealed that the United States led in almost all the medical provision categories.
It has also been strongly suggested that the United States performs far much better than other states when it comes dealing with serious ailments such as AIDS, cancer or heart disease and has a higher survival rate. It also appears not to be entirely true that in those countries with a nationalized health care plan, individuals have an easier access to drugs. While in the US only 44% of Americans can access statins which are drugs that protect the heart and lower cholesterol in the body, only 23% of Britons have access to the same drugs (Himelfarb).