The perfect system has them waiting

The ideal of the government-can-do-anything crowd is Canada's socialized medicine system. Surely the Canadians agree. Not.

The Globe and Mail reports:

Canadians feel they're waiting too long for health care: poll

Canadian Press
OTTAWA — A new survey suggests more than a third of Canadian households feel they were denied timely access to health care in the last three months.

The exhaustive poll by Decima Research says 37 per cent of respondents feel someone in their household didn't get prompt treatment.

The survey was wide-ranging — 3,000 respondents were asked whether someone in their home needed care, what kind of care they needed, and whether they felt they waited too long.

About three-quarters of Canadian households needed some form of care in the last three months — and half of those reported they couldn't get it fast enough, the survey suggests.

OK. No system appears perfect to the people who rely on it. But 37% is substantial.

And this summer, while on our annual vacation in Canada, a woman eagerly collected the contact information for the surgeon who operated on my wife's back. She is willing to travel to the US and pay out of her pocket, because she can't get the care she needs from Canada's system.