Funny, I just watched it a couple of days ago. I was horrified because I always thought that if you were insured in the US, you did have access to healthcare (although I did know it was difficult for trans issues, I didn't know it was that difficult for uncontroversially life-threatening issues).
From a Canadian point of view, my Dad had bladder cancer. He got the best care, the fastest it could possibly have happened. He died, but I never had a "what if" question. My friend, from the US, had bladder cancer. He got the procedure that cost 1/10 as much and had a much lower survival rate. He died too. I've always wondered "what if" with him. My Dad had the most expensive procedure, but it was also the one that had a 90% survival rate. Dad was one of the 10. Bill never got that chance.
I have had some complaints about wait times and what's covered and stuff like that, but I'd way rather be in this system than the US one (even before I saw Sicko). I paid for my own chest surgery because of the wait times for it here, but if I hadn't been able to, it would've been covered, and I'd much rather the resources went to people like my Dad on an emergency basis anyway.
I don't know a lot about the English system, but it does still seem better than the US system. I've always been curious about how it measures up to the Canadian system, because our politicians point to the English system as a better one than ours because it's two tier and the doctors lobby wants that.
Dennis
