Canadian Health Care

NYT reported The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada's most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise. Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years in discomfort before receiving treatment.

Anyone that thinks we should have government provided health care (like Hillary) should take note. It is not working in Canada, and it would not work here either.

But no one is about to arrest Dr. Brian Day, who is president and medical director of the center, or any of the 120 doctors who work there. Public hospitals are sending him growing numbers of patients they are too busy to treat, and his center is advertising that patients do not have to wait to replace their aching knees. The country's publicly financed health insurance system — frequently described as the third rail of its political system and a core value of its national identity — is gradually breaking down.

It is not just gradual. Canadian health care is a massive failure. Canadians used to come to the US to get treatment they did not want to wait for in Canada, and now there are so many they are actually setting up private clinics in Canada to help them.

Private clinics are opening around the country by an estimated one a week, and private insurance companies are about to find a gold mine.