Fuck the north! Its freezing here -- 48 degrees!! Damn thats cold.
Originally Posted by pjorourke
Wow! You're in the midst of a heat wave! Here today it is 31.
As to the rest, here are some sources worth examining.
The Canadian Medical Association, as a professional association, likely has its biases. But even 10 years ago they published the following article:
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/162/4/547
That article is short and sweet but it certainly says something about the waiting lists.
An interesting news story from 2007 about expectant Canadian mothers coming to the U.S. to have their babies:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300939,00.html
Looking over the available data (there is a lot of it) it appears to me that the Canadian system works well most of the time for most people. Where it seems to fall short is in stuff like neonatal care for high-risk pregnancies and things of that nature.
A Canadian seeking care in a U.S. hospital is by far the exception rather than the rule. In terms of total contacts with healthcare, it is a TINY proportion for Canadians. However, those exceptions are life-and-death important to the individuals concerned. The importance of that safety valve cannot be diminished.
I seriously doubt that Canadians are a Hive with a monolithic Hive Mind. Those that I have met seem just like Americans -- people with their own ideas and opinions, some of which might differ from those of their fellow countrymen on average. So anyplace where one might disagree with some Canadians he is likely agreeing with others; so a critical glance at certain Canadian policies ought not be seen as automatically disrespectful.
Though, of course, Canadians should take into account that flapping gums of people who hold no direct stake in the outcomes of their system (e.g. people like myself) lack a certain element of credibility as we wouldn't have to live with the outcomes of our advocacies.
Meanwhile, because things like longevity unfortunately break down to a certain extent along ethnic lines (that is, for example, that Asian-Americans in the U.S. have a longer lifespan than African-Americans in the U.S.); comparison of lifespans between two very demographically different countries aren't a valid measure of the efficacy of healthcare for any given individual.
Furthermore, dollars spent are not a good measure of quality in either direction. This is especially the case when dealing with a culture that, while it shares many similarities with that of the U.S. due to common origins, also has some striking differences that in many ways make it more of a European country than the U.S..
