[AnnieBL]

So, Annabel, would you say, the, in your experience, that the problems, where they exist, are caused not by "socialized" healthcare per se, but rather with specific variations in how it is implemented?

Yes. I think a lot of blame for health care woes lies with politicians in general, of whatever stripe. In the particular case of my province, there is simply too small a population (750,000) to sustain a viable provincial government or produce sufficient competent politicians (the incompetents are always with us). This is aggravated by its being the only officially bilingual provincial government, which leads to a great deal of unnecessary duplication, not least in health care with separate English and French authorities competing for resources. Very low population densities have led to a proliferation of small local hospitals whose number is politically very difficult to reduce. Such problems apply to an extent to all of the Atlantic provinces, none of which is really large enough to support an efficient provincial government, but the obvious solution of amalgamation is again not politically viable (what politician would vote to abolish the government of which he/she was a member?).