I think both the US and Canada are disadvantaged by our close proximity to one another when it comes to health care. Here in Canada we have a health care system funded and operated in the same way as only Cuba and North Korea. Unlike much of socialist Eurpoe, where private parallel systems are allowed and encouraged, Canadian politicians refuse to consider anything other than a purely public system, regardless of the cost or patient consequences. Any mention of any alternative, and the left immediately raise the spectre of "US-sytle" health care, which is dismissed as cruel and ineffective.

I've heard it mentioned in the US that Canada is a model for health care. But the costs and implications of a Canadian system in the US are politically unrealistic, and again it seems that the rest of the world is ignored.

There might be very few things either of our countries could learn from Europe, but how to run a health care system might be one of them. But I think because we spend so much time looking at and comparing our systems to each others, we miss the boat.

Anshu