Canadian health care is not free and it has two prices: the taxes Canadians pay for it and the wait times that make Canadians pay in the form of service rationing.
Canada's publicly provided health care system actually requires rationing in order to contain costs. Because services are offered at no monetary price, demand exceeds the available supply of doctors, equipment, and facilities. If the different provinces (which operate most health care services) wanted to meet the full demand, each would have to raise taxes significantly to fund services. To keep expenditures down (managing the imbalance from public provision) and thus taxes as well, the system relies on rationing through wait times rather than prices.
thedailyeconomy.org
Canada's publicly provided health care system actually requires rationing in order to contain costs. Because services are offered at no monetary price, demand exceeds the available supply of doctors, equipment, and facilities. If the different provinces (which operate most health care services) wanted to meet the full demand, each would have to raise taxes significantly to fund services. To keep expenditures down (managing the imbalance from public provision) and thus taxes as well, the system relies on rationing through wait times rather than prices.
The Wait Is the Price: Quiet Rationing Plagues Canadian Health Care | The Daily Economy
The time between referral and treatment has tripled since 1993. The supply of doctors, MRIs, and hospital beds can't keep up with tax-subsidized demand ...
thedailyeconomy.org
