As a Canadian in the U.S., it’s clear to me that many Americans think that governments ration care by telling patients to “take a number”, you have a spot in a queue, and you log into a website periodically to find out how the line is moving! Nothing could be further from the truth. Because such information is harmful to the governments’ interests, they keep it dark. If it weren’t for the privately funded Fraser Institute (www.fraserinstitute.org), nobody would have good information about the waiting times and lack of medical technology in Canada.

Obviously, transparency in deciding what treatments to exclude would be politically suicidal. We can have little doubt that the Secretary will continue to deny that the USPSTF recommendations will have any effect.