Well what it does prove is that the European system isn't the unmitigated disaster that conservatives and libertarians here claim it is. I'm personally all for a free market system, but I think it's counterproductive to be in denial when the other side brings up a damning data set.
Pardon me for quoting from something I wrote above but I didn't want to retype. The bottom line is Data Sets can lie (though I agree single-payer is certainly not the disaster some make it out to be). The quote...
If you look at the breakdown of things you'll see that a lot of the cost difference is because people in the U.S. have a choice and they choose the more expensive option. There are also issues of tort reform which the U.S. desperately needs. Because the current system leads doctors to order thousands of dollars in additional treatments to rule out things that Canadian doctors don't have too (and while the actual suits themselves are a relatively small portion spent on health care it should be mentioned that the U.S. pays 4 times more per capita on malpractice suits)
As for wait times it's true but the base line number doesn't take into account the fact that many don't have health care. Again I reiterate the U.S. system is screwed up. But the fact is people with insurance in the U.S. tend to have shorter wait times and it's only when you factor in things like free clinics and government programs that the wait times rise above those in Canada.
