Each province has its own health care system so when you reference details of Canadian socialized medicine, make sure you reference the province. The one big misconception about Canadian health care is prescription drugs. They are not covered by the system in Ontario. Unless you have third party insurance, you pay full retail on the price of drugs. The reason prescriptions are cheaper is that the government sets price caps. They don't allow patent rip offs and have a similar patent lifespan as drugs do in the U.S. Canada and Britain are unique in the industrialized world in that doctors work foir the state. It is against the law to operate outside (i.e. as a private physician) the system. No doctor can go into business for himself independent of the health care system.
I can offer you anecdotal proff since I am Canadian and lived in the Windsor area. People were dying on waiting lists for heart surgery (waiting times being 18 to 24 months) back in the early '90's. So people that needed surgery went to Detroit and had it paid for by the provincial health care system. Since so many people were electing this option, the provincial government, under Bob Rae and the NDP (extreme socialist party, far left of the Liberals) changed the system so that coverage would be for the max allowed under OHIP. THat maxiumum was about 25-30% of what the cost was outside Canada. So now only people with money could go to the U.S. and the average Canadian got stuck in the long waiting lists. There is a two-tier system in Canada: the government run system and the U.S. system for the wealthy.
I have patients in the US under HMO care that are suffering unnecessarily from denial of care.
I am organizing already to counter this immoral conduct and have publicly alleged misconduct by local hospital executives.
This action will amplify as the abuses grow more apparent and the death/suffering grows more obvious.
what kind of medicine do you do?