So..does it..or doesn't it....

[JCL]

Originally Posted by alewifebp

Yes, I did realize that and that was not my point. Before the US goes full steam ahead in to socialized medicine, we better be very sure we have a way to fund it in the future. The Canadian model is often cited as an example of how the US should go, but the crushing costs, long wait times for common procedures and lesser quality care is something that they are trying to fix.

And while they don't want to move away from the socialized system, she did mention that they would encourage private competition from the free market, which is pretty telling in my mind.

It would perhaps advance the debate if you defined what you mean by socialized medicine. It is a rather pejorative term, and very imprecise. Perhaps you didn't mean it that way. Do you mean:
a) Publicly funded and government delivered, like the Veterans Administration model in the US?
b) Publicly funded and privately delivered (or a combination of public and private), like Canada and many other countries? That isn't socialized in terms of service delivery, only in terms of universal access, IMO
c) Associated with socialism
d) Something else?

Since I currently live under system (b), and go to private clinics for many procedures, I don't understand why encouraging private competition is pretty telling. It seems fine to me. The key issue is universal access and not delivery, again, in my opinion.

Also, I am not sure why you refer to crushing costs (just using Canada as an example). Canada spends approximately 10% of GDP on health care, compared to 15% for the US. If Canada has crushing costs, what does the US have?