Very true - Nice educational explanation. On a side-note he didnt mention the nordic countries, which is predominantly in the british/canadian system. We aim for a cap of 2 months wait for non-life-threatening treatment (lets say a hip-replacement or something like that). IF you wanna skip that waiting period, then we have private hospitals who do those kinds of minor surgeries at cost - as a matter of fact then the public system will sometimes employ the private sector to those surgeries in order to avoid getting a penalty from the government if they are behind and are getting close to the deadline... There is a public insurance, but is primarily used for dentist, physiotherapy and that sort of things (if you pay even more you may use it for private health care as well). Regular care is free, and there is a maximum of what amounts to approximately 10% of minimum wage pr. month that we have to pay for prescription drugs (yes in theory this means the poor pays more, BUT, they can claim benefits for this...). We still have an ongoing debate of whether there should be a limited fee whenever you visit you general practitioner (just to keep people from clogging up the waiting room with a cold)...