Canada's addressed a lot of medical issues over the years-- as would be expected anywhere in the world when something just becomes too burdening, obvious, long-lasting...
Canada's moved to ease some of the long waits thru rasing hospital doctor salaries, & private doctor fee for services, fomenting med school admissions, etc.-- because what was happening was that a lot of immigrant doctors were being attracted, some would acclimate, but most would eventually make their way down south towards capitalist earnings.
Acclimating as a doctor in Canada would mean either cutting working hours to the bone, to compensate for the relatively-low earnings-- and in the case of a private doctor: foregoing a day or two at the office, instead hustling some extra woring or on call shift at some hospital, giving one the chance to pinch a patient or two extra for one's private practice, as well as the right to admit for care there one's own patients.
You can imagine then, trying to make an appointment w/ a doctor,"Let's see, three months from now i have an opening at 4:15 on a Wednesday-- please be on time because at a quarter to 5 i'm out of here!"
There've been moves to curb the biggest abuses, but you still see plenty: someone with something non-threatening like a toothache, cold, mosquito bite, headache or indigestion-- & empty medicine chest, just summons an EMS for a trip to the emergency room, which's free, along with the Tylenol, etc. provided(doesn't even bother to make an appointment w/ a regular doctor, which while also still free, transportation to it & OTC medicine is not). It beats having to shell out for a taxi or searching for public transport in the cold, the late night pharmacy's higher prices, etc.
I have acqaintances in over a handful of continents, in countries w/ socialized medicine-- and you get what you pay for-- middle & upper classes very often end up paying extra under the table, or totally out of pocket in order to receive prompt & state of the art treatment-- often traveling out of country for it.
Individually their lower classes brag about who received the most long-lasting & expensive medical treatment & drug-- without paying of course; but collectively all rag on their government for the overall lack of quality. And the higher classes predictably care for their government even less, not only because they rarely end up utilizing the free schooling, health care, etc.--and still get docked those taxes-- but worse, because of the inherent weaknesses of a Socialist system: to wit-- less than half of salary is take-home, & this keenly exacerbated by increased taxing during harsh economic times.
The fundamental strength of a capitalist system, as opposed to Socialist(where everyone brags about 30-hour workweeks, two months paid vacation, their one-month Xmas bonus, etc.), is that most of its denizens get to keep a higher % of their pay & thus prefer to pay ther own way in order to obtain a better product-- meaning they work longer & harder. Personal example: i used to have a salaried union job w/ free dental, among other things. But I chose not to attend the union "slam, bam thank you ma'am" dentist, and instead paid my own way somewhere else.
Peace.
