A reader writes:
Thanks for your comments on the NHS. They apply equally to the Canadian system. We actually have an organization which attempts to determine "standard maximum waiting times which correspond to patient urgency". Can you imagine a standard maximum waiting time for treatment that you would be satisfied with if you had, say, cancer?
Another comments:
I moved back to Canada together with my (same-sex) spouse last year after living in NY (state and city) for the last 19 years. While in NY, I have enjoyed my company-paid health insurance for much of that time, sometimes paying a few hundred dollars a month, sometimes nothing at all. During that time, I visited the emergency rooms in NYC several times, and I never have to wait. The care has been excellent both by my doctors or from the hospitals. Moving back to Canada, I visited the ER once with a profusely bleeding hand, and though the nurse immediately stopped the bleeding, the doctor didn't arrive for a proper stitching till 2 or 3 hours later.
Based on these experiences, you would expect me to lavish praise on the American system, no? Wrong. One reason I moved back to Canada is that I wanted to start my own business, and I can't afford to pay health insurance in the US for myself and my employees. The lack of free universal health care in the US is bad for entrepreneurship and bad for business, as Detroit and other big businesses have finally figured out. Please stop rooting for a broken system.
Portability or a Romney-style reform could help a lot. But we really shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.