[jeromeparadis]

When he was born, my son had cardiac surgery. Had another one 4 months later and a catheter later on. The two surgeries were done by one of the top 10 surgeons in the world. All in all, he was 6 weeks in the hospital. He's now in very good health. Since we live in Canada, it costs us nothing except the parking at the hospital (about $120 total with a pass) and the lost work time.

[yitchelle]

Sounds similar to the German medical services available for children. My son needed surgery on his ptosis that is becoming a problem for his vision. After making seeing the doctor at the UniKlinik in Cologne, he was booked in for operation in two weeks time. The operation took place and was in hospital for about 1 week. My wife stayed with him for that whole week in the hospital.

Total cost for this procedure was zero. I did not have to deal the insurance at all, the UniKlinik handled all the paperwork.

We were considering having the same operation in Australia prior to relocating to Germany. It would have cost at least $2500 and months of waiting.

[forca]

Free as it ought to be -- payed for out of yours and everyone's taxes. Parking should have been free, to be honest. Nothing I hate more than seeing basic services turned into money-making opportunities for the shady.

[jeromeparadis]

Do you know how much it would have cost in the US? More than $1.5MM is the estimate I got. If you were to pay here as a non Canadian. About $200-300K. The missing $1MM, where is it going and where is it coming from? Everything is relative when you say everyone pay because of taxes. I would from you salary and insurance. At the end of the day, who's paying more? I don't know. But I'll tell you something: in the States, our choice would have been an late and illegal abortion or a bankruptcy. Today, we have a marvellous son that our society decided we should protect at all cost.

[RealGeek]

Since Canada doesn't spend trillions in wars and bailing out banks, they can afford to provide healthcare to it's citizens.

[mahyarm]

Actually, Canada pays less on a per citizen basis than the US does on it's health care. America can still have it's wars, bank bailouts and health care, if they weren't politically gridlocked with the issue.

[forca]

Wow. Simple, yet profoundly true.