>Tangentially, I recently moved to Canada and was surprised by the lack of quality healthcare..
This is very complex and absolutely hilarious when American democrats think of Canada as a better solution.
>Literally could not believe some walk ins have paper files and use fax, plus finding a GP apparently is a months long quest.
We have very good laws in place protecting health information. $10,000 tort damages for leaking health infos and then much larger fines for more problematic issues.
Some hospitals try to do the right thing and will have high security maturity. The other hospitals basically do the opposite. They forcefully will not secure their systems and save the money and put it in a fund to pay out the inevitable breach.
>Visiting a specialist took ages, and I wouldn’t say it was the best / most modern infrastructure there either.
Canada's healthcare system is tiered. You have the public single payer which is trash at best. Virtually all employers pay for health benefits which bring you to the 2nd tier. This gets you into a ward and such. There's a 3rd tier where you get good service, private rooms, skip lines. If you work in public sector or a big union you most likely are on this 3rd tier. The final tier is for the people whose names are on the wards. The "Such and such family ward" because they donated significant money to the hospital. These people get immediate access to everything you might expect. Nicest rooms. everything.
>(And I went in downtown Toronto, must be so much worse for more remote places I guess).
85% of Canadians live in urban areas near to the US border. If you choose to live somewhere else, you know you're living far from civilization and already accept the lack of service.
>In the end we kind of shunned the public system and decided to go private healthcare instead. But (luckily) have not really had to take advantage of it)
dont get me wrong. I dont mind our tiered system. ohip covers the basics which everyone should get coverage for. Break your arm? taxpayers/rich pay to fix it. 2nd tier is plenty for most people. 3rd tier is nice but most people dont realize it exists. Ive had a lady talking to me about how she has to wait many months to get in to a specialist, the same specialist that I waited a whole 3 days for. Also yes, the billionaire folks are going to get the best treatment, it's no surprise.