Surgeons in Canada report that for heart surgery the risk of dying on the waiting list exceeds the risk of dying on the operating table. In other countries, the situation is equally grim. In Great Britain, a country with a population of only 55 million, the waiting list for surgery is more than 800,000. In New Zealand, with a population, of just 3 million, the surgery waiting list exceeds 50,000. In Sweden, the wait for heart x-rays is more than 11 months.
Heart surgery can take an additional eight months.
Canada s health care system is the world s second most costly. In fact, after adjusting for such factors as currency exchange rates and demographic factors, Canada s health care costs have been rising faster on a per capita basis than those in the United States. All are being shortchanged to feed an inefficiently organized health care system. Other countries have succeeded in holding down health care costs, but only by rationing care. In Britain, for example, kidney dialysis is generally denied to patients over the age of 55.