When I visited Prince Edward Island last year, I saw on the news a superb example of the utter failure of socialized medicine. I was watching the local P.E.I. news station (for those of you in Rio Linda, P.E.I. is Canada's smallest province), and the anchorwoman reported that the entire county of Queens (the most heavily populated of PEI's 3 counties) only had TWO ambulances!!!!!!!! Well, some 60-yr-old man had a heart attack @ his home in Queens County, but the only 2 ambulances in the entire county were being used @ that time, so they had to pick him up in a FIRE ENGINE. We all know that fire engines contain SOME medical equipment, but not nearly the equivalent of an ambulance. Guess what? Without the full-blown coronary-care equipment that you'd find in an ambulance, this poor SOB died on the way to the hospital. Hooray for liberalism's answer to health care.
And this was reported on a Canadian news station, not on some "conservative" blog site.
The best health care system in the world from my experience is probably Switzerland with its neighbours having similar systems. The system there is similar to the US model but with state sponsored "catastrophic care" insurance. You'll never miss a chemotherapy treatment in Switzerland if you can't afford to pay, but they also have some of the best private hospitals in the world if you want, say a new hip.
The system in Canada is Marxist. One tier care. Instead of having first rate care for those who can afford it and third rate care (but care nonetheless) for the poor, you have second rate care for everyone. Only Cuba and North Korea follow this system
Note: This system is the "third rail" of Canadian Politics. Its blatant envy politics but most Canadians are "salt of the earth" folks and nothing gets those folks pissed off like someone achieving better than the others in the village.
Driving an Escalade in small town Canada is a huge social faux pas in Canada, even if the neighbours know you have the money.