So, I was listening to a program talking about health care in the US. It was being compared and contrasted to the Canadian system. Some facts were touted - the Canadians have a longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality rate, spend less than half of what we do, they are facing an expected doctor shortage, the long waits for elective or specialist care. The terrible keyword "medical rationing" was used.

Do people really think we don't have medical rationing in the US? We do, but it is rationed out by socio-economic status instead of by the government rationing across the board.

If you have money, you can get whatever care you want. I am guessing that is probably true in Canada too, by the way.

If someone makes too much to have government health care, but has poor private insurance, their care is rationed. I have been there. No dentistry care for years due to financial reasons, both as a child and as an adult. Not going to the doctor for certain things because we didn't have the money. I have friends who have to think long and hard about whether something warrants a doctor visit for their children because of the expense involved in an after-hours emergency room visit.

This is rationing, we just don't call it that.

I might question whether extreme treatments are valid in every case and support medical rationing to some degree, but that is beside the point. The point is that by no providing adequate medical coverage to all of our citizens, we are creating a system that requires some people to either abuse the system (depends on your perspective, but I have to say that some of those people who call an ambulance to get to the hospital for non-emergency care are doing so because they have no other way to get there) or for people to opt-out because they don't want to bankrupt their families.

This is still a form of medical rationing in my opinion.