A lot of people have pretty good insurance through their employers, but part of the point of a system like Canada's is that if you lose your job you still have the same insurance. Similarly, if you want to change jobs or launch a startup, health insurance isn't the thing that's holding you back from that.

With the ACA, things are at least a little better than before: individual people can at least buy insurance, which wasn't the case before if you had a pre-existing condition and didn't live in a state with a subsidized program (like Oregon's OMIP).

A criticism I've heard of Canada's system is just that it's under-funded. They could raise their taxes a little and divert more money to health care, and it would improve some of these wait times. I don't know how true that is, though, and how much of a legitimate problem it is. Canada definitely pays far less per capita for health insurance than the U.S.