Health care anecdotes

No, the plural of anecdotes is not data, but I thought I would share the following:

• My sister lives in Seattle and, owing to its proximity to the Canadian border, has a fair amount of contact with real life Canucks. Over Christmas she relayed to me that a Canadian co-worker of hers is filled with dread at the prospect of the U.S. adopting a Canadian-style single-payer system owing to its treatment of his father. She also told of another Canadian she met who had to wait 18 months for ACL surgery.

• My parents have an Indian-born neighbor who is a doctor and attended medical school at Oxford. He claims anyone who advocates in favor of Britain's health care system is simply ignorant.

• Here is an interesting story about Japan's socialized health care system.