canhe

Well actually...

I would suspect not too badly.

Canadian here. Had a pain in my right side for about 3 weeks (thinking muscle pull). Called Doctor's office at 10am had appointment at 11am, had exam and referred electronically to local hospital for X-Ray, had X-Ray at 11:45am, out the door at 12pm. Doctor called me personally the next day to say it's probably a muscle pull and call back in a couple of weeks if still sore.

$0 out of pocket, just showed my government issued card everywhere.

Couple of years ago my father was in an ICU for two weeks with Parkinson's related complications. That one had a $0 out of pocket bill as well. The ICU was in a world class university teaching hospital.

System works here. Sure people can cite edge cases, but they are relatively rare. The single payer, $0 out of pocket system also encourages pro-active care as opposed to waiting until the problem is severe, which in turn keeps costs down.

Wouldn't trade our single payer, socialized medicine for anything. There's reason why Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian socialized medicare, was voted the greatest Canadian of all time by the public in a recent CBC poll.

(Shameless plug: software industry is booming in Toronto and there's lots of jobs. Just sayin'...)