That's a bad example Glenn, because car insurance works the same way here. If you have full coverage on your car, that is it incudes comp and collision, then your car is covered regardless of whose fault it is.
The whole point of our health system is choices, not being locked into one government system. Americans don't trust the government to do anything cheaper or more efficiently than the private sector can. Our talk shows are full of people from the same countries you mentioned including Canada who will testify that they needed some vital procedure and wound up waiting way too long for it, over a year in many cases. We call that rationing care. The other thing is it's a well known fact that 80% of a persons lifetime health care costs occur in the last year of life so an argument can be made that while grandma needs that hip replacement, if she's most likely going to die within a year anyway it should be denied. Economically that makes sense but no way will any individual go along with that if it's their mother. There's several stories out of the UK about that. Americans simply don't agree with that sort of thinking but of course it all has to be paid for somehow. I used to live in Calgary, I have family all over western Canada including on the island and I know for a fact that lots of Canadians with money will cross the border to have procedures done here. Why is that?

Bob

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