He has graciously given me his permission to repost this slightly edited version here:
Welcome to Canadian healthcare folks, where 80% of all taxes from all levels of government got to healthcare and related fields. Where a hip replacement takes more than a year. Where chemotherapy takes 1 1/2 months of your 6 months to live. Where they're considering death panels like the father of socialized medicine, the UK.
By 2020 Canada's healthcare system will consume 120% of taxation. There are virtually no family doctors left because the pay is horrible and if you go to emerge and you're not dying on the gurney, it will take you at least 3 hours to see a doctor.
I sprained my ankle once. It took 4 hours to see the doctor to have him send me to x-ray. It took 2 hours in radiology to get the x-rays and then another 4 hours to see the doctor to look at the x-ray and tell me it wasn't broken (very bad sprain that might have been more).
Cut in my hand that got infected, 3 hours to see a doctor for a prescription for antibiotics.
2nd degree burns to my foot because of a corn pot tipping over, 3 hours to see a doctor for which the doctor prescribed pain killers that I'm allergic too, for which I told him directly I was allergic and my file also said so. Another 3 hours to get a different prescription because I refused to leave until he fixed it. In the mean time, I'm just about passing out in pain.
The only people that get good medical coverage in Canada are celebrities. Even rich people have to come to the US for good healthcare because it's illegal to buy private healthcare in Canada. (soon to be overturned by the supreme court as a violation of our freedom of association, so Canada is about to get more free healthcare while the US gets less!) Everyone else waits, and waits and waits.
Get your passports ready folks! You're going to be going to Singapore and India for healthcare in the US soon.James also pointed me towards this related recent news story: "Wait times for patients 'worsening'" (CBC News, 6/19/2012).
We have been warned.
