That frankly sounds like total BS .. it's too expensive in the US!!
For things like by-pass, you get good care. It's when you get to not so life threatening things, that is where you can deal with the problems of the system. Again, no one goes broke because of health care. Canadians decided long before I was born that health care was a right. Certain things in life should not be commercially driven:
- police
- fire prevention
- health care
Doctors make about $150k a year in Quebec .. with experience AFAIK. It may not seem like much, but the cost of living up here overall is far less.
As far as taxes go, I couldn't say what percentage goes to health care. But I do know that individuals pay more taxes in Canada. For example, if you make over 60K you loose 1/2. But, you don't pay health care and you don't have high crime in most of our cities. In Montreal, a city of 3.5 million, I can walk around in the 'dangerous' parts of town at 2 am with new worries.
On the other hand, our corporate tax rate is far lower: 22%. Funny, we are far more left than the US, but we have the healthiest banks in the world (they weren't so greedy) and we have far less debt. Up until just this year in fact, we had surpluses for about 15-20 years.
Stefan