Americans should not emulate Canadian health care system

If Americans want to suffer and die like Canadians while they wait for treatment then sure, they should go for universal public health care. I don’t know why though. Now American hospitals offer public apologies for 15 minute wait times while Canadian ERs routinely require people to wait 4-6 hours or longer. The wait time for medically necessary procedures is even worse and getting even worse.

The problem with the US isn’t too little government but too much – mostly in the form of ridiculously huge damage awards and the effect they have on costs and insurance premiums.

1) Respect the right of patients to contract out of potential negligence claims (sign a waiver of liability) in return for lower prices.

2) Allow anyone, including nurse practitioners to offer whatever services, treatments, etc. they want.

3) Support private watch dogs like Consumer Reports for health care or the various doctor rating websites to track the competency of health care providers.

All of this is simply respecting the rights of consenting adults to voluntarily do business with each other without some politician, judge, or bureaucrat interfering. This would guarantee that the market would provide exactly what we really need at a price that represented its true value.