Letters to the Editor
-
In Canada
Of course the Canadian healthcare system isn't perfect--there are waiting times that some people find unendurable--and it isn't free; we pay for it in taxes. But here's the reality: if I have any medical problem whatsoever, from a torn tendon to cancer, I simply go to my doctor or an emergency room, I show them a card, and I get treated. No paperwork, no co-payments, no trauma, no plaguing fear that an unexpected illness will ruin me.
A former co-worker, an American citizen married to a Canadian and living here for some years, decided to return to the States when her marriage ran aground. She had been in a minor car accident in the States as a teenager, and the emergency room bill alone was over $1000, so she knew what was possible if she ran into health problems. In the month before she left Canada, she made as many doctor's appointments as she could reasonably justify, because she knew, with some fear, that when she returned to her home country and went back to school, she would have no medical coverage of any sort for at least two years and possibly more. What kind of way is that to live? How can a civilized and unimaginably wealthy country do that to its citizens?