Lorne Gunter smacks around the smug:
It is also true in our system that if you are somebody – a premier, a federal party leader, a professional athlete, a health care worker [me: or if you’re friends with a doctor, or even a nurse] – you get jumped to the head of the line and get preferential treatment not available to ordinary citizens.
In other words, status can do for you in our system what cash does for Americans.
Patients here may not die on hospital steps due to lack of insurance (they don’t in the States either), instead in Canada they die at home on waiting lists, out of sight and out of mind of the friends of government monopoly health care.
On top of that, here there is no option of switching insurers for better value or coverage. We are stuck with a single insurer who is susceptible to political pressure and is as efficient as governments typically are.
