[MainFrame65]

This analysis completely ignores the cost of keeping people sick for extended periods of time. That cost is shared by the patient, his family, his employer, and the entire economy, as the article plainly illustrates but never states. When I was consulting full-time, I hated to waste potentially billable hours in a doctor's or dentist's waiting room. Typically, I lost more billing than I paid for the visit - including the insurance payment. And that is just a few hours, right here in the USA. Other posts have addressed other indirect costs, such as losing good personnel due to inadequate wages.

I believe that the hidden costs of the Canadian health system far exceed the 4% differential in direct costs of health care.

[RebelBanker]

Hey, don't jump all over me for posting the article! I was rather pleasantly suprised to see something even moderately critical of socialized medicine in the Baltimore Sun, which a number of us around here call the Baltimore Pravda.

Although the author did not attempt to quantify the costs of waiting for health care, she did rather clearly opine that the waiting is bad in and of itself.