Originally Posted by CDSmith

This topic goes multiple pages every time it's raised on the board. One example I'm always fond of posting is that of my mother who had a bad reaction to the discontinuation of a prescription med she had been on for many years. Back in 2002 she had to be hospitalized for 2 months. Tell me now, for someone in the USA who can't qualify for health care insurance (many elderly don't) how much would a 2 month stay in hospital cost? I'm talking many tests and all the trimmings.

From what I know of it it would have been over $100K.

But being that she is Canadian living in Canada, the day she was released after recieving excellent care that is equal to the level of care offered anywhere, there was NO bill, the balance owing was $0.00.

I'm sorry to you naysayers but there is simply nothing better than that. I as a Canadian don't have $300, $500 or even up to $1000 a month payments for health insurance coverage. And contrary to what a lot of people think, mostly none of whom actually live here, I am not "taxed to death" either. That is a flat-out misnomer. We Canadians pay very close to the same percentages on our income tax as people in the US do. The difference is we don't have an extra payment in the form of health insurance.

Argue with me all you want but I would not trade our system for yours for all the tea in China. Those of you saying you don't want a similar system are, quite frankly, nuts in my view. No offense, but you really shouldn't knock it until you try it.

I'm not saying ours or any universal system out there is perfect. Far from it. But I do know that if something were to happen to me tomorrow and I needed to go to emergency, that no matter what happens, surgery, CT scan, MRI, whatever... my bill at the end of it would be NOTHING.

I have no idea why anyone would want to argue against that.