“Annoying” for me would be stepping on a small LEGO. As a Canadian, I think that the US healthcare system exists in a first world country is absolutely “shocking”.
As someone who has experienced both systems, the fact Canada covers all is great but there are big issues with wait times and coverage gaps (in some provinces).
Oh absolutely. If you don't have an emergency you will have to wait.
But man, when you do have a medical emergency, it's great not having to think about whether you're going to have to remortgage your house, sell your kidneys, put your kids up for adoption or reconsider all of your life plans.
Personally I think Canada is a little bit over-dogmatic about rejecting a parallel private system entirely: I know there are problems with running two systems (mainly around inequity and brain-drain incentives for healthcare workers to move out of the public system), but IMO, nothing that can't be fixed by sufficiently high prices/taxes.
The US system is a huge mess, but but the reason why it hasn't changed is because it works "barely" for most people.
Keep in mind that medical bankruptcy isn't unknown in Canada either - not being able to work is a bigger cause of medical bankruptcy than medical bills themselves.
