Article | A Canadian Doctor Describes How Socialized Medicine Doesn't Work

A glimpse of our future healthcare system.

A Canadian Doctor Describes How Socialized Medicine Doesn't Work

July 26, 2007

By David Gratzer

I was once a believer in socialized medicine. As a Canadian, I had soaked up the belief that government–run health care was truly compassionate. What I knew about American health care was unappealing: high expenses and lots of uninsured people.

My health care prejudices crumbled on the way to a medical school class. On a subzero Winnipeg morning in 1997, I cut across the hospital emergency room to shave a few minutes off my frigid commute.

Swinging open the door, I stepped into a nightmare: the ER overflowed with elderly people on stretchers, waiting for admission. Some, it turned out, had waited five days. The air stank with sweat and urine. Right then, I began to reconsider everything that I thought I knew about Canadian health care.