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Comment by version_five | Hacker News Reader

Meh, come to Canada if you want to see really bad healthcare. It's "free" (except for all the extra tax) and it has all the characteristics you'd expect from a government administered program. (Private healthcare is illegal so there are no options, that's more the issue than the existence of public system) I get that the explicit link of employment to healthcare can be bad, just want to point out there are worse systems.

*Edit to also note Canadian healthcare has lot of insane adherents who will never admit that there is anything wrong with it.

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shrug 85% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the us border. If you want to go private take a drive. I’ve lived in both countries and will take the security of the Canadian system any day.

Correct that's what people do - so our much vaunted "egalitarian" healthcare system means in practice that only those wealthy enough to go to a neighboring country and pay for healthcare out of pocket (because we don't have employer insurance for that) are able to get good healthcare, and none of the money stays in the country.

Canada has a higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality rate, and lower death rates overall than the U.S with its supposedly inferior health care system.. something is working, maybe just not the way that you would prefer.

> Meh, come to Canada if you want to see really bad healthcare.

While I'm sure it has its warts, I'm guessing your frame of reference is fairly limited if you consider the Canadian healthcare system to be "really bad". As I understand it, the Canadian system provides (with no bills to you, and regardless of your insurance status or age) for things such as:

- If you need emergency surgery in the middle of the night, and the hospital you're at can't provide it, they'll helicopter you to the nearest capable hospital -- even if that happens to be across the border in the US.

- If you're already admitted to the hospital, and need specialized surgery that can only be done in one place, they'll charter a flight, fly you over with a couple of nurses, get the surgery done, and fly you home again.

- If you have a chronic illness that requires $100,000/year specialized care for the rest of your life, that's not a problem.

- If you have treatment-resistant cancer for which the only remaining option costs $500,000, also no problem.

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