Paradoxically for a socialized health system, the family had to appeal to public charity, a more and more common occurrence. This is only one instance of health services that could have been covered by private health insurance but are being denied by hard-pressed public insurance. And the trend is getting worse. Imagine what will happen as the population ages. There are private solutions to health costs.
Insurance is one.
Today, most Americans not covered by Medicare or Medicaid carry some form of private health insurance. Private charity is another solution, so efficient that it has not been entirely replaced by the Canadian socialized system. People in Quebec have grown so accustomed to socialized medicine that talks of privatization usually are limited to subcontracting hospital laundry or cafeteria services. The government of Quebec has repeatedly come out against forprofit HMO's. Socialized medicine has had a telling effect on the public mind.