Too many Canadians and Americans are negatively fixated on each other’s health systems — and the distortions that accompany so many conversations about health reform make it harder to improve care on both sides of the border.

Canadians staunchly support our universal health care system, according to polls over many years. We live longer, healthier lives than Americans, and our survival rates for cancer and other diseases are comparable. The father of universal health coverage in Canada, Tommy Douglas, is considered a national hero.

Like much of Europe, Canada considers access to health care a right on par with the right to food and shelter. In a country where medical bankruptcy is almost unheard of, we are reminded of our privilege every time we read about the shortcomings of the American health care system.

And yet Canadians are forced to defend our health system every day in the American media. American politicians grossly distort reality, proclaiming as fact the myth that Canadians die waiting for treatment. Perhaps that’s why many Canadians and some Americans cheered when I took on such claims at a United States Senate subcommittee a few years ago.

What Americans may not realize is that most Canadians are just as terrified of your system as you may be of ours (which, in fact, are several province-level systems). But sometimes that mix of pride, defensiveness and terror of American-style health care makes it hard for us to admit where Canada falls short.