Hi McFly. The issue of healthcare is very convoluted because it pulls in so many variables. The insurance companies and HMO's are not under careful oversight, and price gouging are rampant. Doctors pay enormous amounts of protection money (LOL), just to try and help people. Yet there are plenty of practising doctors working in major hospitals or healthcare centers who have a terrible track record. They are incompetent or make too many mistakes. Like sexually abusive priests, they just get moved around.....waiting for their next victim.
I don't know much about the Canadian health care system because I will still pretty young when I left. I hear stories from my mom....she can wait up to 4-5 weeks to see a doctor for a threatening health situation (bronchitis, urinary tract infection, unusual painful lumps, etc.) And in the 25 years I've been in the US, most of them I was uninsured (although I am now). In the early days, I was a young mother, and I can tell you it's no picnic. If I had developed cancer, I would have been phucked. Pardon the expression, but that's the way I felt. I see pleas locally for donations for young children with cancer because their families are uninsured. This is not right. Here in this country, you can die because you havn't got the MONEY. Clinics are available to all depending on your sliding scale of ability to pay but services only cover sore throats and birth control. Walk-in Clinics are $50-$75 for an appointment and you walk out of there with another $100 worth of prescriptions. This is not good either. People can't afford to get sick, and if they do, they can't afford it. There has to be another way.
I'd like to see clinics open up where doctors and nurses OFFER their services, if they want to (and the federal gov't covers their wages), and where pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies doante their products and services at reduced prices. This way, successful doctors, nurses and dentists could "give back" some of their prosperity and help the community.