I routinely hear Canadian friends talk about having to wait to get Cat scans and MRIs. I get regular MRIs and can get one the same day if the doctor is especially concerned for some reason.

I pay less for my medications than my Canadian friends pay for their medications.

I’m able to take a highly specific medication for my high blood pressure (with zero side effects) because my insurance paid for a whole battery of exhaustive tests (including a bone marrow biopsy and an MRA) to figure out what was causing it. If I hadn’t had the tests (likely in the Canadian system) I’d be on a general high blood pressure medication with horrible side effects.

Neither system is perfect and the Canadian system probably does a better job taking care of the poor, but when the US system works, it can be really incredible.

The Canadian health care system is routinely ranked above the U.S. by people who know health care (i.e., NOT conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity who trash universal or socialized medicine every chance they get - despite the fact they know nothing about health care systems). Granted, Canada is not the best in the world, but they are better than the U.S. Healthwise, people in general will fare better in Canada rather than in the U.S.

If someone needs a procedure, they get it right away, whether it be a biopsy or a MRI. I would know because I’ve had several of the latter done over the last couple of years for diagnostic purposes, and I’m not even ’sick’.

Worse comes to worse, there is always the option of paying for diagnostic procedures as well at a private clinic, but the vast majority of people never need to do that. Our doctors and facilities are world class.

If someone needs a procedure, they get it right away, whether it be a biopsy or a MRI. I would know because I’ve had several of the latter done over the last couple of years for diagnostic purposes, and I’m not even ’sick’.

Worse comes to worse, there is always the option of paying for diagnostic procedures as well at a private clinic, but the vast majority of people never need to do that. Our doctors and facilities are world class.

”All we can do right now is make inferences from thing to thing to thing,” said Dr. Tom Barrett, medical director of Howard Brown. ”They might have gotten some of these diseases anyway. But the rates and the timing, and the association with certain drugs, makes everyone feel this is a different problem.”

Larry Kramer, founder of several AIDS advocacy groups. Mr. Kramer, 73 and a long-term survivor, said he had always suspected ”it was only a matter of time before stuff like this happened” given the potency of the antiretroviral drugs. ”How long will the human body be able to tolerate that constant bombardment?” he asked. ”Well, we are now seeing that many bodies can’t. Once again, just as we thought we were out of the woods, sort of, we have good reason again to be really scared.”

Marty Weinstein, 55 and infected since 1982, has had a pacemaker installed, has been found to have osteoporosis, and has been treated for anal cancer and medicated for severe depression — all in the last year. He also has cognitive deficits.

A former professor of psychology in Chicago, he presses his doctors about cause and effect. Sometimes they offer a hypothesis, he said, but never a certain explanation.

Guys who convert now will be taking better drugs than people who converted 10+ years ago… Hence they’ll presumably have better outcomes…

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E4DB143AF935A35752C0A96E9C8B63&sec=&spon=

I know of one older Canadian woman who had a lump in her breast and the doctors there refused to biopsy it because they felt they knew everything they needed to know from x-rays. That would never happen in the US - if the patient was insistent they’d get the biopsy.

Then there’s scheduling tests… It can take weeks to get an MRI in Canada, whereas it takes hours in the US.

Those who do not take take the medications are generally those who either do not believe in the medications, or are drug addicts on the street (a huge problem in a part of Vancouver) who have trouble with complying with the regimen.

But it certainly were more then enough deaths.
I could go on with the list of guys who lived happily ever after.
They also complain, like about fat redistribution; they’re queens you know . . .
As if you don’t age when you’re negative.
Anyway, judging from your remarks about health insurance, I think i’ll stay here in NL. I’m very happy with the team that monitors my status, since the virus got detected last spring.