which was it? i won’t argue that the u.s. excels at a few spectacular treatments. our system has the inverse problem as yours. but it is swiftly becoming untenable, in the way that people typically predict for socialized systems. let’s compare and contrast our experiences and see whose system is worse/better? in all honesty, i think a hybrid system would probably be best.

the problem here in the u.s., is we at once treat healthcare as a right and a privilege. we all have to pay for services, yet at points they are denied no one. for example, our emergency rooms are crowded with people exploiting one of those holes. that is one spot where our care is beginning to fail. on your side, i think what happened to lindsay mccreith is horrible.
http://www.thecourt.ca/2007/05.....oing-away/

The reason we care is that she was part of a government that seemed to think that everything anyone needed in the wolrd of medical care was available from the single tier public health care system and which took steps to prevent any encroachment on that monopoly by withholding money if Provinces (other than Quebec) took any steps to permit private care.

However, once she had a need for prompt attention, she spent her father’s money on the best care it could buy and only tolerated the domestic system for the basic work that could get done within a reasonable timeframe.

Instead, MacEachern said the decision was made because the U.S. hospital was the best place to have it done due to the type of surgery required.”

which proves that in the us, we are all paying through the nose for treatments only extremely wealthy canadians can afford. oh, canada!