Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Nick Freitas: What happens when ‘free’ health care comes with a 16-hour wait?

theblaze.com · 3h · first reportShare

Americans are often told that Canada's health care system is proof that universal coverage works. Nick Freitas wants to know: at what cost? And the filmmakers behind "Broken Country" have the answer. “What do we tell our barista at Starbucks when they tell us that we just don’t understand how wonderful it could be if we had a Canadian-style system, that all of a sudden you would get free health care and whether or not you live or die would no longer be determined based off of how much money you made because up there they really care about everybody,” Freitas asks Mira Metter and Mike Werry. “The first sort of misconception is that it is free. It comes out of taxation, right? It comes primarily out of personal income tax. And to the average Canadian family of four, it’s roughly $18,000 a year for just health care out of taxes,” Metter tells Freitas. “The second one is that you might not pay at the front desk with the nurse when you go to receive any level of care, but you pay with how l