Rarely does a day go by that Canadians are not reminded of the shortcomings of their health-care system. It’s normal to see reports of emergency room closures due to a lack of physicians, patients fleeing south or to another province to avoid lengthy delays or people leaving the ER without receiving treatment.

However, while these failures may feel normal to Canadians and might even be considered by some to be the price of universal health care, they are not normal in other universal health-care systems.

In fact, according to our new study, among developed countries with universal health care, Canada’s health-care system ranks near the bottom for the availability of physicians, hospital beds and essential diagnostic equipment such as MRI machines and CT scanners. Perhaps unsurprisingly,

See Full Page