rw wrote:
Canadians have a tendency to blame all their problems on the US. This is
the first time, however, I've heard a Canadian blaming the looming
failure of their health care system on the US.

Quite the opposite. It is usually the US who blames their problems on
Canada. Canada was blamed for the attack against the WTC (the
accusations were made that the terrorists enetered the US from Canada,
whic was ludricous); the US blamed Canada for the power outage last
summer (it started in Ohio). The US has a rather large trade deficit
with Canada; Canada sends a lot more goods to the US than the US does to
Canada. As a result, the US usually drums up some bogus reason for
imposing imposing tarriffs on goods imported from Canada because you
cannot compete otherwise (softwood lumber, durum wheat....). The WTO
has ruled against the US 10 of the last 14 times the US has placed
tariffs on imports from Canada.

As far as our health care system....most Canadians are still satisifed
with it, and the only reason it is peril is because of the efforts of
corporate medical care companies to convince us otherwise. I get
excellent care, so does my mother who is institutionalized because of
Alzheimer's, so does my wife and kids. I pay $600 a year for complete
health care coverage. When I lived in the US, it cost us over $3,000 for
our child to be born. The differnece in care....Canada's was better.

Tim Lysyk