>>The things I've learned about the relative merits of health care systems (a subjective issue I think)<<
Oh you mean that you've learned that in Canada health care is paid for by the Government - just come back next year, whereas here in the US if you have the money you can get a triple cardiac bypass tomorrow whether you need it or not.
Here's a US health care story for you. My 10 year old son came home from school yesterday very upset - he thought that he had broken a tooth at lunch. I took a look in his mouth and it sure looked like a broken tooth to me, hanging by a small piece of gum. So at 4:30pm I called our dentist, explaining that my son was in distress. At 7:30pm, my son was in the dentist's chair, where our dentist, who does excellent work, btw, looked in my son's mouth and with his fingers in 5 seconds popped out the baby tooth that my son had mostly dislodged while chewing. He then proceeded to tell me that while we were there, he might as well extract the corresponding baby tooth on the other side of my son's mouth. He's an excellent salesman, but I declined, given that this would require local anesthesia and the tooth would fall out by itself in a few months anyway.
At 7:35, after my son had been in the dentist's chair for a total of five minutes, and after five seconds of dental work done with fingers, we're leaving. The bill, for an "emergency visit" and a "tooth extraction"? $332.00. |
