http://www.policyalmanac.org/health/wikipedia/Canadian_and_American_health_c
are_systems_compared.shtml

Anecdotes aren't proof. Having said that I recall observing a VA nurse
was ignorant and a surly brute. Does that mean the medicial care provided
was flawed? Would the old guys gotten they medical without their
little bit of socialized care? I think many would have been "out
of luck" without it. Veterans sure seem to apppreciate the VA when
they need it. I've observed nurses working in normal hospitals,
that were pleasant to the patient but only on the surface.
I've observed nurses bumble about with computer
systems in a quite chilling manner in one of the local hospitals.
And that was not just one observation by the way.
None of my observations are real proof.
Over all, the staffs at the VA and at the various hospital seemed both
professional and able.

snip>

Completely irrelevant if you don't provide the NAME of this economist
and where this material is derived from.

Tom did. And great stuff, Tom, thanks!!!

        George M. Carter

Ok I see what you are saying then. The Canadians should run the American
health care system.  Who do you think will run the so called new system in
the USA. You don't seem to get at all what I am saying. Canada is not the
USA. You can not compare.

You are really way off when you rely on government statistics that do not
report hidden costs. Hiding costs are a specialty of governments throughout
the world and you fall for it.
I would suggest you read this.
Danzon, Patricia M. "Hidden Overhead Costs: Is Canada's System Really Less
Expensive?" Health Affairs (Spring 1992): 21-43.

Here is another hidden costs and that is doctors and others are leaving
Canada. Who will pay for sending good doctors to the USA? Canadians will in
the form of one Billion dollars.

Are you able to grasp this Lar or is the CMA a right wing organization?

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/08/17/588003-cp.html

The CMA wants the federal government to ante up $1 billion over five years
for a national Health Human Resources Reinvestment Fund to increase the
number of openings for medical students and post-graduate training
positions, while fast-tracking residencies for medical graduates from other
countries and establishing a program to recruit and retain health-care
professionals in the system.

"We need more doctors," Patel told reporters Tuesday, noting that the most
acute shortage is among general practitioners, leaving an estimated four
million Canadians without a family doctor of their own.

And a CMA report analyzing the doctor shortfall shows Canada has 2.1
physicians per 1,000 residents, ranking it 25th out of 30 countries in the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

"There is a major shortage at the moment," said Dr. Dana Hanson, co-author
of the report. "Projections looking into the future (show that) even with
reform of primary care . . . we'll still have an increasing shortfall
between the services that will be required in the future and the people
there that will be able to provide those services."

When it comes to general practitioners, an aging, sicker population is
putting more pressure on family doctors already working long hours, added
Patel.

"Governments have been chastising physicians for seeing too many patients,
but the volume is there. What do you do when they come knocking at your
door," said Patel, a family practitioner in Gimli, Man., for the last 30
years. "I practice in a small town and they come to my house!"

Here is one also on hidden costs as cancer treatment of new drugs or home
treatment is not covered in the national insurance.
The Canadian Cancer Society.
The CMA wants the federal government to ante up $1 billion over five years
for a national Health Human Resources Reinvestment Fund to increase the
number of openings for medical students and post-graduate training
positions, while fast-tracking residencies for medical graduates from other
countries and establishing a program to recruit and retain health-care
professionals in the system.

The CMA wants the federal government to ante up $1 billion over five years
for a national Health Human Resources Reinvestment Fund to increase the
number of openings for medical students and post-graduate training
positions, while fast-tracking residencies for medical graduates from other
countries and establishing a program to recruit and retain health-care
professionals in the system.

Here is another example of the so called free healthcare system in which the
CCS is seeing the governments screw people over with selective coverage or
raising deductibles and not to mention employer based drug benefits plan for
employees.

http://www.cancer.ca/ccs/internet/standard/0,2939,3172_335421_363674_langId-en,0
0.html

Keep on talking about how cheap the Canadian government is and try telling
that to the people who need the services. It is not only the people who are
revolting and voting with their feet but the same healthcare providers that
are responsible for the very system are leaving also.
Try telling them about GNP and they will react like this.

Canada spends little more than half as much as we do per capita, or relative
to gross domestic product, and its costs have been rising much more slowly
than ours have. But this control has been achieved through fiscal restraints
that have limited health services and added to waiting lists. There is now a
pressing need for more money, and many conservative politicians fear that
the cost will undermine their tight budgets. On a recent trip to Toronto to
speak at a meeting of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, I
witnessed an extraordinary, un-Canadian shouting match between the new
Ontario minister of health, a fellow speaker, and members of the audience.
The seniors were incensed by his suggestion that the provincial government
was not going to shoulder any more of the costs of home health care and
outpatient drugs. Their shouts nearly drowned out the youthful minister, who
soon lost his cool and was shouting back about the new realities of fiscal
restraint.

GNP is BS to the AARP.