It seems to work pretty well in Canada.
If you think that, then you need to research the issue MUCH more in depth. Canada’s system is a dumpster fire, and only sustained by the fact that they live next door to the best medical system, and their citizens can cross the border for medical care. In fact, my wife worked for a dermatologist for a decade, and their office gets jam packed in April and May as many Canadians are willing to PAY for his services before they go back home, instead of accessing the “free” healthcare in Canada.
examiner.com/article/canada-s-health-care-system-has-its-problems
*But they also found that the cost of the system is a constant concern, and many fear that public health care is
unsustainable.
Negative discussion about health care in Canada tends to focus on a
persistent set of problems: access, wait times, and shortages of health care providers. This has been the case in times of good economy and during economic crisis.
The 10th annual Health Care in Canada survey confirms that wait times and the shortage of doctors top the list pf concerns voiced by Canadians in 2008.
Other issues of concern were timeliness and access to care and environmental health issues such as air and water pollution.
Although some Canadians say they have never waited for medical services,
complaints about long waiting times have lead virtually every provincial government to publish data on wait times for specific procedures in their province. *
nber.org/bah/fall07/w13429.html
*Finally, the authors examine whether Canada has a more equitable distribution of health outcomes, as might be expected in a single-payer system with universal coverage. To do so, they estimate the correlation across individuals in their personal income and personal health status and compare this for the two countries.
Surprisingly, they find that the health-income gradient is actually more prominent in Canada than in the U.S.
The authors conclude that while it is **commonly supposed that a single-payer, publicly-funded system would deliver better health out-comes and distribute health resources more fairly **than a multi-payer system with a large private component,
their study does not provide support for this view. *
huffingtonpost.ca/nadeem-esmail/canada-free-health-care_b_3733080.html
*Many Canadians and commentators in other countries lauding Canada’s government-dominated approach to health care refer to Canadian health care as “free.” If health care actually were free, the relatively poor performance of the health care system might not seem all that bad. But the reality is that the Canadian health care system is not free – in fact, Canadian families pay heavily for healthcare through the tax system. That high price paints the long wait times and lack of medical technologies in Canada in a very different light.
Despite talk of wait times reduction initiatives (backed with substantial funding), **Canadians face longer wait times than their counterparts in other developed nations for emergency care, primary care, specialist consultations, and elective surgery. Access to physicians and medical technologies in Canada lags behind many other developed nations. *
And things have improved little since 2003. For example, the total wait time in 2012 (17.7 weeks from GP to treatment) is every bit as long it was back then.
cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-681801.html
*A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: “If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies.”
The patient wasn’t dead, according to the doctor who showed the letter to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
But there are many Canadians who claim the long wait for the test and the frigid formality of the letter are indicative of a health system badly in need of emergency care.*