[Patrick_Devine]

As a Canadian living in the US, I'd have to say it works a lot better than up north. I realize that's probably heresy for a lot of people, however, it's hard to stomach seeing your parents having to wait multiple years to get in to see a doctor. Particularly when they have debilitating health issues.

That said, I'm not sure what the right answer is; I want everyone to have access to good health care. I'm not sure I need to be able to get in to have an MRI in a day or two like I can here, however it would be nice if my mother could have one without waiting for two years.

[ska]

Having lived and worked in the health care industry in both countries, I'll have to respectively disagree. I can see how your personal experience must be very frustrating, and I'm not attempting to belittle that.

However on the whole the Canadian system is better at delivering the health care that is needed. Overall, it works better for more people, more of the time, and much more efficiently (i.e. cost effectively). The latter point means that sometimes people with non-critical issues have to wait -- usually not very long notwithstanding the stories people sometimes focus on (the dramatic failure modes of the US system are much, much worse).

That being said, if you a) have the right insurance, b) live in the right state, c) have money, and d) live in the right part (typically urban) of the state -- you can get very good care very quickly in the US. Unfortunately that leaves out an awful lot of people.