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Originally Posted by GreyWolf
Not sure if it's the same in Canada, but in the EU you can elect to pay if you wish and have "private medical care". It's basically the same docs, operating theaters etc - just more of a hotel environment.
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there are 'private' hospitals in Canada but they're for very specific things - non life-threatening type things. you can't go to a private hospital for heart by-pass or cancer treatment/surgery. there is pressure for a private alternative tier of healthcare/hospitals.
all situations are different - depending on where you live, what illness you have - in some situations the Canadian system is superior and in some inferior. People's lives and health are in jeopardy due to long wait times for surgery and cancer treatment in many cities. For the average person, 'free' healthcare is wonderful - you're 25, you work at Kinkos, and get appendicitis, you're operated on and out in a few days not owing a thing - an American at that age usually doesn't have any insurance and he leaves the hospital with a debt of probably $40,000. Depressed? Anxious? The government pays for your shrink - a weekly visit to a private shrink is a luxury for the rich in the United States. In Canada it's a right.
the one thing Canada and all the other countries with similar health systems is NOT - is free. It's free alright to the hundreds of thousands of freeloaders who don't earn a living - working Canadians pay much more in taxes than Americans do. If you're upper middle class you'll be paying more for healthcare via taxes than a similar person in the United States pays for a good health insurance plan.
If you're poor or working class 'free' healthcare is great. That's the philosophy of it - that good healthcare should be for everybody regardless of their station in life. It's a huge load on taxpayers and depending on the type of illness you have can be dangerous to your life.