WE WONDER WHETHER U.S. President Barack Obama realized what he would be up against when he decided to make health care reform one of his top priorities.

For those of us on the "socialistic" side of the Canada-U.S. border, the criticism the President is encountering from conservative Republicans, talk show hosts and some of those attending his town hall meetings is truly mindboggling.

It's too bad that Gallop or some other major U.S. pollster hasn't bothered to ask Canadians whether they'd ever want to return to the U.S.-style private health insurance.

Without a doubt, most Canadians would like to see less congestion in our health care system, but we at least can complain about it and rely on opposition parties to press government to take action.

Perhaps one thing that Mr. Obama's critics should be told is that although Medicare here had its roots in Saskatchewan and was pioneered by a socialist party lead by Tommy Douglas, every successful Canadian politician today supports the idea of having health care provided by provincial government agencies that monopolize the field.

There should be little doubt as to the origin of much, if not all, the criticism of what most Canadians would see as a modest move toward something approaching universal health care. It's almost certainly coming from two of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

After all, the simple fact of the matter is that although Americans are spending far more on health care per capita than Canadians, we are living longer, thanks to universal medicare.

Clearly, health insurance is so costly in the U.S. for the same reason automobile insurance costs far more than it does in British Columbia. There's clearly more efficiency in any insurance scheme that has a single, non-profit provider, even when the provider is a government agency.

Last Saturday, President Obama used his weekly radio address to supplement the town hall meetings he's been holding across the country, confronting, what he described as scary-sounding confusion that's being expressed by some in town halls where "tempers have flared."

As an example,he cited the furor over what former Alaska governor Sarah Palin labeled "death panels." One version of Congress' health care legislation suggested health insurance should be extended to include consultations with medical experts on end-of-life options such as living wills and hospices. Ms. Palin interpreted the provision as calling for "death panels" and suggested the Obama reforms were "evil."

Mr. Obama said the bill in question would merely "allow Medicare to cover voluntary visits with your doctor to discuss your end-of-life care — if and only if you decide to have those visits. It had nothing to do with putting government in control of your decisions; in fact, it would give you all the information you need — if you want it — to put you in control of your decisions."

Suggesting there should be greater concern on the health care front about maintaining the status quo, he added that "those who would stand in the way of reform will say almost anything to scare you about the cost of action, but they won't say much about the cost of inaction. If you're worried about rationed care, higher costs, denied coverage or bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor, then you should know that's what's happening right now."

He suggested that more attention should be directed at the problems faced by those who, are "acting responsibly" but have been penalized in the current health care system.

"These are the stories that aren't being told — stories of a health care system that works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people, and that's why we're going to pass health insurance reform that finally holds the insurance companies accountable."

One of the strangest complaints from the critics concerns Mr. Obama's plan to create a government-operated insurance provider that would compete with the private insurers.

The critics say this would somehow be unfair competition. The reality, of course, is that experience elsewhere has proven the contrary. In Ontario, the government's Ontario Medical Services Insurance Plan (OMSIP) was replaced by the current, monopolistic Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) in 1969 because OMSIP had to accept all the high-risk Ontarians while the private insurers concentrated on signing up groups of employees and could profit at rates set by OMSIP for individuals.

As we see it, the biggest single problem facing the proposed reforms is in the area of costs. Achieving universal health care at a time when 46 million Americans have no health insurance will be awfully costly.

Clearly, Mr. Obama will be hardpressed to keep his commitment not to increase taxes for anyone earning less than $250,000 a year, particularly when without it his administration is facing record annual deficits.