[Zagill]

I find it interesting that whenever socialized healthcare in the US is mentioned, there's always someone eager to point out the failings of Canada's and the UK's systems, yet I never hear mention of any of the other socialized healthcare systems that basically every highly developed nation maintains. I truthfully don't know any statistics on this sort of thing, so I couldn't tell you how good Finland or Greece or Spain are when it comes to healthcare. You'd think there would be relevant criticism to bring up elsewhere if the whole idea is flawed at it's core - otherwise, who cares if Canada's implementation of the concept sucks? Let's learn from their mistakes and others' successes.

[jbarham]

Lack of access to doctors is a big issue in Canada. E.g., here's a list of posts on /r/canada about family doctors in the past year: https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/search/?q=family%20doctor&t=...

Canada is almost unique among developed countries with government healthcare in that it doesn't also have a parallel private medical system for those who can afford to pay for it. So naturally rich Canadians will often pay for private healthcare in the US.

I'm originally Canadian but have lived in Australia for the past 10+ years (in Melbourne). We've never had any issues getting medical appointments with local doctors (usually "bulk billed" so we pay nothing or a very nominal amount for the appointment). But we also have private medical insurance, which is required above a certain age (30 something), that we use occasionally for specialist appointments. But even then the out-of-pocket fee is something like $70 which is fine.

Unlike Canada, AFAIK most countries in Europe (e.g., Sweden, France, Spain, Germany) have parallel private medical care, so Canada really is unusual in that respect.