Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it
within six months:

U.S. 90%

England 15%

Canada 43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million
people:

U.S. 71

England 14

Canada 18

I look at the lawyer business as some kinda a quasi-government operation.
================================

Surprises no one.

It doesn't take a Genius to figure out the USA has the best Health Care in the World.

Hell, there are hookers on every corner also, and they are certainly private sector folks.

You're on non prescription drugs right????

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

You're on non prescription drugs right????

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

You're on non prescription drugs right????

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Screwing one way or another.

Spin this libturds

Nope. I am 62 and there is not one prescription drug in my home. Except for a short run or antibiotics for my wife a months ago (paid for with cash not with insurance) there has not been anything else since around 1995. What is your point.

And then I start thinking about the huge medical premiums each Month... Makes me wonder if I'm paying for the excesses of others!

John, i wouldn't pay too much attention to the WHO rankings - they are pretty out of date, and i feel somewhat biased towards preferred public health indicators (and to be honest, tend to represent a somewhat left-wing agenda - tending to favour averages over the individual). Nevertheless, i hate to tell the guys but these figures have been very carefully cherry picked. The US is quite peculiar when you look at their health care indicators. They are about the only nation that i can think of that varies so spectactularly between good performance and poor performance. The trick in the US is to get the right disease in the right place and see to right person. The US is simultaneously one of the very best and very worst of health systems.

Firstly looking at the cancer 5 year survival figures, for instance, deaths per hundred thousand due to cancer are a little over 320 per hundred thousand, vs only 250 per hundred thousand in Britain. So though the 5 year survival rates are very high, you are far more likely to die of cancer in the US than in Britain. This is due to variations in disease frequency in differing populations, and reflects differing priorities, too. American cancer statistics are very good because there is a high standard of practice, but mostly because detection rates are very high.

Early detection saves lives. This will slightly distort the figures, too. For instance, in the US, you are far more likely to have prostate cancer detected and undergo treatment for it - particularly surgery. Thats because a lot of folks make a lot of money out of it. But there is no evidence that overall it helps - in fact it the evidence suggests it does more damage than good. So in Australia for example, a lot of prostate cancers are just watched. In fact, they are not even formally diagnosed becaue it is felt the risks associated with intervening outweigh the potential benefits. As an example, one of my colleges recently had a patiet die on the table during prostate surgery - yet if they had never done the surgery there was probably a very low risk the disease would have actually shortened the pateints life.

The cancer figures also reflect a common misrepresentation that you will observe in the US media, which is they misrepresent other systems as quite socialist, when in fact they aren't. A good example would be breast cancer figures between Britain and the US. The US has excellent breast cancer survival figures, Britain terrible. The high survival rate in the US is almost entirely attributable to very good early detection rates due to mammography. Now the thing is, women in the US are simply more likely to choose to have mammography than women in Britain. Women is the UK have excellent access to mammography services, they just don't use them. Women in the US also have excellent access, and choose to have it done. It is that simple. It is just patient choic - patient autonomy. Because it isn't a socialist system (mind you, i don't like the NHS).

Britain has been historically poor at cancer management (even by European standards, which aren't great), but they beat the crap out of the US on management of heart attacks. The US is also right at the bottom of the pile for diabetes. The figure on diabetes prescriptions is very misleading, and actually reveals the very opposite of what it might be assumed to show. Again as an example, it would be unusual in Australia for someone to be put straight onto medications for type II diabetes, whereas it is the norm in the US. Normal practice in Australia would be a trial of diet and exercise to control sugars. So, as an example, my dad was diagnosed with diabetes nearly 15 years ago. He lost 30lbs and exercised daily since, and hasn't had an elevated blood sugar since. This approach is much less common in the US. If you were to talk to doctors who practice in both countries, they would tell you that Americans are much more fond of "just taking a pill" for disease, whereas elsewhere folks try other approaches. I have no doubt this is part of why Americans do better with respect to cancer. Most cancer needs aggressive medical treatment - and Americans are better at doing this. I have seen several Australians die of eminantly curable cancer because they decided to go on an exercise regime and "liver cleansing diet" instead - which is patently stupid!!! Americans are also far, far more likely to choose to have surgery for a condition. Just a figure i know of the top of my head, Americans are 4 times more likely more likely to choose to have their tonsils out than folks elsewhere in the OECD. That is just a patiant choice thing - Americans are far more interventional. They have far more tests, far more operations and take far more medicine. It is just part of the national psyche.

Overall, i think the US system is actually pretty reasonable, and you have some of the best doctors and centres in the world. It certainly isn't the best system, but it also isn't the worst, and deals with certain diseases well, and some not so well. The one thing that stands out about the US is system is that it is very expensive - it offers relatively less value-for-money than some other systems. That is what has to be fixed. It has to offer better value for money.

Having lived in Alberta for five years and never able to find a primary care physician for my family and awaiting an "opening" for my wife's surgery and seeing a couple of neighbors head south to Montana for "critical child deliveries" and seeing the income tax charged (that my company payed on my behalf thankfully) I am more than happy to be working in Kazakhstan...

That said we were mystified at how well our neighbors were to the system...

Tony;
I hope this finds you and yours doing well on this first weekend of 2012 - Happy New Year to you folks.

Typically I'll try to refrain from posting on some issues as there is so much seemingly conflicting data out there on the healthcare issue and as well it tends to bring emotional responses rather than an analytically formed one.

I wanted to say thanks for your post as you've lived in both countries and as such have valid experience in both systems.

As you know too well and I've said before, Canada and the US are very similar in many ways and yet very different.

We are a comparatively large country geographically and have only 34 million people to keep it running. When one considers even trying to do something basic like keep the highway system open alone, one begins to see how we've ended up with the tax burden on working Canadians - which you mentioned. The healthcare system is just another part of the infrastructure that exists which has a hand out for funding.

Then too, from what I can gather from those who live there, living in Alberta and specifically Calgary as you did, you may not have been experiencing the best that the Canadian healthcare system has to offer. A bit of a conversation with our own DocRocket would add more detail, but the short version is that Alberta hasn't been really "doctor friendly" for awhile now and sometimes that's abundantly evident.

Another misconception non-Canadians have is that we have a single tiered healthcare system here and nothing could be farther from the truth.

So in rattler's scenario, if his friend would have injured himself at work here in BC, he would have gone to the front of the line for all medical services. In my experience, the treatment times that rattler noted would have been matched up here - for an injured worker - though certainly not always for everyone else.

If one is a member of the Armed Forces, RCMP, were hurt at work and as such a Worker's Comp patient, a prisoner in a Federal Penitentiary or the member of a union that pays for the access - one gets treated before the other Canadians. Hey, many of the hockey teams pay for being first in line as well and get preferential treatment because of that.

We also have private clinics popping up here in BC for certain services, MRI's for instance. While they have been a sore spot for some of the leftists, they have reduced pressure on the government funded hospitals and treatment centers.

Then as well, one has to understand that hospitals, healthcare units and even provinces are run by different governing bodies and there is nothing remotely resembling "universal" about how one might operate when compared to the other. Read into that what you will....

Anyway, if this sounds like I'm championing our system over any other, that is emphatically not the case. My attempt here is to simply say that any comparison isn't, well "simple".

As a by the way, I've had family treated in US hospitals while traveling, have family who are in the healthcare profession up here and in the US - a cousin who is a doctor in Missouri. I'm all too aware of the horror stories that come from both sides of the medicine line.

Lastly, I'd again say that even if our system was working wonderfully up here - and please note that nowhere did I so much as imply that - I'm not convinced that it would work in the US.

Our socioeconomic conditions are similar, but not the same. Then there is the unknown number of illegal/uninsured people that exists for you folks - which could charitably be called a "wildcard" when it came to trying to come up with a reasonable budget estimate.

Hopefully that makes at least a bit of sense to you Tony or to some out there at the 'Fire we're sharing this morning.

All the best to you and yours in 2012.

Regards,
Dwayne

Hell, there are hookers on every corner also, and they are certainly private sector folks.

and most Russians were happy under Stalin......when its all you have known its hard to fathom something different.....you keep claiming your system is great and ill keep watching US hospitals along the border fill up with Canucks that cant get seen in a timely fashion Canada....

I'd be surprised if a single Canadian on this forum (you know - the people who have actually lived with the system every day of our lives) will say they want to switch over to a for-profit system.

The system of brobamas is designed to save the earth by reducing human population.

Since Canadians have had it - there has never been a political movement or party that tried to eliminate it.

perhaps there's an option to that version of the future? we could change our diets and eat much less protein, thus affecting land-use?

humans, changing their ways. say it ain't so.

Not enough to notice. I look at the lawyer business as some kinda a quasi-government operation.

Odd. Very odd.

I see lawyers as one of the only checks on Government citizens have, without resorting to the 2nd amendment....

In 2010, the gross national income per capita in Canada was $39,400 while it was $47,200 in the United States and $9,900 in Cuba. To enable apples to apples comparisons, the World Health Organization has standardized purchasing power parity among countries.

Using this formula for 2009, Canada spent $4,196 per capita on health care, the U.S. spent $7,410 while Cuba expended $503.

In other words, after adjusting for purchasing power, Cuba spent about eight times less than Canada, and almost 15 times less than the U.S. on health care.

So what are the results? The WHO reports that the infant mortality rate in 2009 for children under the age of five was six per 1,000 births in Canada, eight in the U.S. and six per 1,000 births in Cuba.

The age standardized annual incidence rate of cancer was 326 per 100,000 population in Canada, 335 in the U.S. and 213 in Cuba. The age standardized annual mortality rate from cancer per 100,000 population was 132, 121 and 145 among the countries respectively.

The prevalence of diabetes was 8.8 per cent in Canada, 8.8 per cent in the U.S. and six per cent in Cuba. The age standardized annual mortality rates per 100,000 population from diabetes were 13, 15 and 14 respectively.

The annual death rates from heart disease per 100,000 population were 129 in Canada, 163 in the U.S and 145 in Cuba.

The International Journal of Epidemiology reports that Cuba was the first country to eliminate polio, the first to eliminate measles. Cuba has eliminated tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, rubella and mumps, and has the lowest HIV incidence rate in North and South America. It also has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.


Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/health...er+cost/5961912/story.html#ixzz1inqZMymw

There's articles, there's statistics, there's enough misinformation on this topic to allow us to debate this forever.

Here are some facts.

Every single Canadian political party (we have more than two ) supports publicly funded health-care.

Since Canadians have had it - there has never been a political movement or party that tried to eliminate it.

I'd be surprised if a single Canadian on this forum (you know - the people who have actually lived with the system every day of our lives) will say they want to switch over to a for-profit system.

But what do we know? There's these articles and stats that American Republicans keep showing us.

Oh - I forgot - we are healthier - and we live longer too.

But in the end - everyone will believe exactly what they want to believe.

I'm so glad I live up here - and I really like our system.

Of course not BCB, because it's an entitlement. At that level, it has nothing to do with political boundaries or left vs right, it's about human nature. Give people something they beIieve is free and promise its perpetuity and they become addicted and are unable, generally, to leave it.......

Well, I for one won't flame you, fish!

While I was still in Alberta I chaired a Canadian Medical Assoc. committee looking at alternative health care systems and ways/means of improving our systems in Alberta in specific and Canada in general.

Long story short, we studied health care delivery all over the world. I can't say we ever came to any conclusions under my chairmanship, but we got a lot of information... anyways, I left the country in disgust in 1997 because I concluded the system was NOT fixable. At least not in time for me to save the shreds of my medical career, at the behest of Ralph Klein and his health czars. But that's a whole 'nother story... suffice to say, as Tony said earlier, good luck finding a family doc who will take you and your family in Alberta even today.

What we found in my committee's research was that the countries that did the best job delivering health care had a two-tiered system: public and private. Every single country in Europe has it, and most of the good Asian systems are the same.

If you can afford private care, you get a better level of care than if you can't afford it. But those who can't afford it have a pretty good basic care system in place to meet their needs for emergencies.

Canada has been slowly moving toward a 2-tiered system for 25 years. They're not there yet, but they're getting there. They still lag desperately behind the USA in surgical care, particularly orthopedics and cardiovascular care, places you can "hide" the collateral damage pretty well. It was (and I believe still is) almost criminal how badly Canadians suffer waiting for those services.

Obamacare is a throwback to the bad old days we had in Canada in the late 70's, and once implemented, it will take decades to fix. If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate, that will save our collective ass from old-Canadian style healthcare, but that doesn't mean we're out of the woods.

We need to get a genuinely separated 2-tier system, with a cheap basic health care system for the "entitled" non-paying public, and a separate level of care for those who can afford better. To keep paying for top-tier ICU care for illegal immigrants as in the previously posted example isn't the question; it's what we are prepared to pay for the Medicaid and Medicare people, because unless we put limits in place on those expenditures we're ALL going down.

I like the health care I receive for the the dollars I spend on it.

I like the health care I receive for the the dollars I spend on it.

I've had friends that lived in Canada any you folks pay more than your share in taxes but you can deny it if you like we all know its BS

And there is no difference on care provided regardless the patients age? God bless you.

Maybe it's that you hear through the filter of your beliefs.

And there is no difference on care provided regardless the patients age? God bless you.

and most Russians were happy under Stalin......when its all you have known its hard to fathom something different.

No its the truly the usual bullshit thrown around here or you would of had something more intelligent to offer.

You really can't develope great surgical skills if the govt only allows a surgeon a few hours of 'practice' (pun intended) a week.

Would be interested to know where you got that little tidbit, as all the surgeons I know are busier than hell in the O.R.

These US jokers here always coming up our healthcare is better than yours make laugh at em like I would at the CUTTER bragging about alla his women when he really ain't getting any.

If they weren't so dumb they would realize that here just like any other 1st world country our government funds all the teaching, research and therefore advancement in our healthcare. That sure as hell isn't funded by the Medical Insurance Industry cause all the money left after it pays the (discounted for that industry) Healthcare expense is handed over to Wall Street. Notice I talk in terms of Healthcare and Medical Insurance Industry because they are mutually exclusive.

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million
people:

U.S. 71

England 14

Canada 18

BC brain seems curiously quiet.

BC brain seems curiously quiet.

The idea that we are brainwashed, ignorant or just plain stupid - is not worth replying to.

Actually EVERY single Gr.11 student I teach knows that our "publicly-funded" healthcare system - is funded with taxes.

NOTHING a government provides - is free.

Just because we are Canadian - doesn't mean we're all stupid up here you know...

Most American Dr's hate the idea of having their wages regulated.

They fought it tooth and nail up here too - when the idea of public health-care was first proposed. Dr.s can earn more in America - no one would debate that Dr.s can earn more in a "for-profit" health-care system than they can in a system designed to help care for every citizen.

It's hard to get any man to agree to anything that'll hit him in the pocketbook.

Most American Dr's hate the idea of having their wages regulated.

They fought it tooth and nail up here too - when the idea of public health-care was first proposed. Dr.s can earn more in America - no one would debate that Dr.s can earn more in a "for-profit" health-care system than they can in a system designed to help care for every citizen.

It's hard to get any man to agree to anything that'll hit him in the pocketbook.

not sure i can like the idea of the lowest bidder cracking open my chest or working on my daughters knee.....regulated wages tend to have a horrible reaction on effeciency.....if .gov says you can only earn X amount then yah only tend to work as hard as you think your worth at X amount.....

Actually EVERY single Gr.11 student I teach knows that our "publicly-funded" healthcare system - is funded with taxes.

NOTHING a government provides - is "free".

Just because we are Canadian - doesn't mean we're all stupid up here you know...

Oh,, so you're a TEACHER.. Well, THAT explains tons.... "THOSE THAT CAN, DO... THOSE THAT CANNOT, TEACH."
Old proverb and as true now as it was when first spoken.

Actually EVERY single Gr.11 student I teach knows that our "publicly-funded" healthcare system - is funded with taxes.

NOTHING a government provides - is "free".

Just because we are Canadian - doesn't mean we're all stupid up here you know...

I'm gonna assume that your smileys were an indication of a joke, and that you really don't believe that. I'm sure you realize that the fact that you learned to read, write, perform a valuable service in the Navy, and became a gunsmith had a lot to do with the hard work of teachers. I'm sure you really didn't mean to bite the hand that fed you.

Damn, I didn't realize what an awful place Canada is to live in until reading this thread, thanks for the information. Everything and everyone is better south of the 49th, what a revelation.

As part of their education - like I said - they ALL know that NOTHING a government provides - is "free".

They ALL understand - our system is PUBLICLY-FUNDED.

It's actually what we call it up here in Canada.

"PUBLICLY FUNDED HEALTHCARE."

We Canadians aren't STUPID - and we aren't BRAINWASHED.

I won't continue to debate with people who suggest that about my fellow Canadians. There simply is no point.

I, or anyone I know, has never had any major problems with health care here in Canada. My mother had a double hip replacement two years ago with no problems, and my 8 year old was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes last year. Both received great medical care. Cost of all care was $0.

All of my sons diabetic supplies are covered through my health care plan with my employer.

I'm sure misdiagnosis happens on both sides of the border.

What causes over half of personal bankruptcy in the US?

Cheers,

Rob

Our system is far from perfect, however, it's all we have. I'm with 7STW on this one. I needed an emergency appendectomy ... I got it. I needed gall bladder surgery ... I got it. I needed another little procedure ... I got it. Nothing out-of-pocket except a portion of my meds just to get over the surgery risks, pain killers etc.

Good luck with your forthcoming health care program ...seriously.

Hey fellas, I am a little curious about the reasons some of you folks in the US are so dead set against universal Medicare.
I saw some US ads and statements made about the Canadian system that were waaaaay over the top. Listening to them, you would think we're all dying in the streets.
I live in Alberta. Revenues from our oil resources and taxes pay our Medicare premiums. My wife just had 1/2 of her thyroid removed. She saw our GP 3 times, the surgeon twice, had an ultrasound, the surgery and a night in the hospital with 2 followup visits and associated tests. Cost to us...ZERO.
I have a bad back. CTscan, waited 5 days. MRI, waited 9 days. Cost zero.
We can choose what doctor to see and when and how often. Whenever we need to see the doctor we simply ..go. Money NEVER enters the equation. A "pre-existing" condition does not exist here. That is a term used by insurance companies to bar needy people and keep healthy ones in fear of losing the expensive coverage they have.

Anyway, I hope you folks sort it out for the best.

Regards,
Gary
Calgary, AB

In Canada - the answer would be YES!

A few years a back there was a write in poll conducted to see who would be named "The Greatest Canadian".

After a year of collecting votes - the winner was named.

It was Tommy Douglas - a Baptist Minister - who became the first Democratic Socialist leader in North America - and the father of Canada's public health-care system.

Here's a bit of what he did. His every waking effort seemed to be aimed at finding ways to help the poor. He believed it's what Jesus preached.




Premier of Saskatchewan:
The Leader-Post announces the CCF victory, 1944.
Despite being a federal Member of Parliament and not yet an MLA, Douglas was elected the leader of the Saskatchewan CCF in 1942 but did not resign from the House of Commons until 1 June 1944.[29] He led the CCF to power in the 1944 provincial election, winning 47 of 53 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, and thus forming the first democratic socialist government in not only Canada, but all of North America. As premier, Douglas attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953.[30]
Douglas and the Saskatchewan CCF then went on to win five straight majority victories in all subsequent Saskatchewan provincial elections up to 1960. Most of his government's pioneering innovations came about during its first term, including:
the creation of the publicly owned Saskatchewan Power Corp., successor to the Saskatchewan Electrical Power Commission, which began a long program of extending electrical service to isolated farms and villages;
the creation of Canada's first publicly owned automotive insurance service, the Saskatchewan Government Insurance Office;
the creation of a large number of Crown Corporations, many of which competed with existing private sector interests;
legislation that allowed the unionization of the public service;
a program to offer free hospital care to all citizens�the first in Canada.passage of the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, legislation that broke new ground as it protected both fundamental freedoms and equality rights against abuse not only by government actors but also on the part of powerful private institutions and persons. (The Saskatchewan Bill of Rights preceded the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations by 18 months).
Premier Douglas was the first head of any government in Canada to call for a constitutional bill of rights. This he did at a federal-provincial conference in Quebec City in January 1950. No one in attendance at the conference supported him in this. Ten years later, Premier Lesage of Quebec joined with Premier Douglas at a First Ministers' Conference in July 1960, in advocating for a constitutional bill of rights. Thus, respectable momentum was given to the idea that finally came to fruition, on 17 April 1982, with the proclamation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[31]
Thanks to a booming postwar economy and the prudent financial management of provincial treasurer Clarence Fines, the Douglas government slowly paid off the huge public debt left by the previous Liberal government, and created a budget surplus for the Saskatchewan government. Coupled with a federal government promise in 1959 to give even more money for medical care, this paved the way for Douglas's most notable achievement, the introduction of universal health care legislation in 1961.
[edit]Medicare
Douglas's number one concern was the creation of Medicare. In the summer of 1962, Saskatchewan became the centre of a hard-fought struggle between the provincial government, the North American medical establishment, and the province's physicians, who brought things to a halt with the 1962 Saskatchewan Doctors' Strike. The doctors believed their best interests were not being met and feared a significant loss of income as well as government interference in medical care decisions even though Douglas agreed that his government would pay the going rate for service that doctors charged. The medical establishment claimed that Douglas would import foreign doctors to make his plan work and used racist images to try to scare the public.[32][example needed] Their defenders have also argued that private or government medical insurance plans covered 60 to 63 percent of the Saskatchewan population before Medicare legislation was introduced.[citation needed]
Douglas is widely hailed as the father of Medicare, and took the opportunity to take his cause to the federal stage. Thus, in 1961, he retired from his position as Saskatchewan's premier and turned over the job to Woodrow Lloyd, taking leadership of the federal New Democratic Party.
The Saskatchewan program was finally launched by his successor, Woodrow Lloyd, in 1962. The success of the province's public health care program was not lost on the federal government. Another Saskatchewan politician, newly elected Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, decreed in 1958 that any province seeking to introduce a hospital plan would receive 50 cents on the dollar from the federal government. In 1962, Diefenbaker appointed Justice Emmett Hall�also of Saskatchewan, a noted jurist and Supreme Court Justice�to Chair a Royal Commission on the national health system�the Royal Commission on Health Services. In 1964, Justice Hall recommended the nationwide adoption of Saskatchewan's model of public health insurance. In 1966, the Liberal minority government of Lester B. Pearson created such a program, with the federal government paying 50% of the costs and the provinces the other half. So, the adoption of healthcare across Canada ended up being the work of three men with diverse political ideals - Tommy Douglas - a Socialist, John Diefenbaker, a Conservative and Lester Pearson - a Liberal.

I'll give you that some people, some of the time - call our lack of fees at the Dr.s office - or hospital - "free".

I'll also say - each and everyone of them knows they pay for the service we get through taxes.

I get your point - it is one of semantics only, however.

n007, don't go gettin' yer knickers in a knot. I'm not slangin' on Canada in general, just relating an observation my daughter made, and an observation I've made myself on the part of MY profession, which has been greivously abused by governments across Canada for decades.

Canada is a great country. I don't live there any more because I can't practice my profession there in the manner in which I was trained to do.

Don't believe what you read from the CBC. They are known locally as the Communist Broadcasting Corp.

Don't believe what you read from the CBC. They are known locally as the Communist Broadcasting Corp.

Here is another 'semantics only' point, from the taxpayer funder CBC no less:

Canada�s universal and free system of health care is one of this country�s most widely respected and valued social institutions. Since its inception in Saskatchewan in 1961, publicly funded medicare spread to the rest of Canada during the 1960s and was officially enshrined in the Canada Health Act passed by Parliament in 1984. The Canada Health Act outlaws user fees for medical treatments and extra billing by doctors for their services.

According to most opinion polls, support for this country�s health-care system is nearly universal, with almost 90 per cent expressing general satisfaction with it. This is in stark contrast to the United States, where a large majority of Americans have indicated considerable discontent with their privately run health-care system. To many Canadians, free, universal medicare is one of the hallmarks of Canadian society and is an example of its values of social justice and equity.

http://newsinreview.cbclearning.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/dec09ushealth.pdf

Call it a semantic argument if you wish, but it is these semantics that create the 'nearly universal' support for it.

Introduce transparency and accountability and see where the overwhelming support goes.