re: #48 Max D. Reinhardt

Let me elaborate. I have a family friend in Canada, he suffered an anurism in his aorta. The national healthcare service is refusing to treat him because it is not big enough. He cannot leave the island of Newfoundland to go on vacation without losing his care. He’s suffering and the government will mot do anything about it.

No preventative medicine, just let it get worse and then we’ll treat it.

The exchange here got me Googling and I found some pretty interesting stuff.

A 2009 Ipsos survey compared Canadian and U.S. health care, and found that only 50% of U.S. citizens felt they had access to the health care they needed vs. 65% of Canadian citizens, and middle and lower income Canadians felt they had better access to health care than did middle and lower income U.S. citizens.

However, Canadians had to wait longer for appointment when referred to a specialist (47% to 26%), were kept waiting more often when they arrived for scheduled appointments (48% to 38%, and were not often as able to get in to see their family physician (59% to 52%).

U.S. and Them

Obviously, there are tradeoffs. That rule with your friend sounds horribly arbitrary.

I think I’d still go with insuring more people than less, though.