...My wife was having headaches and blurred vision about 2 years ago. She called her doctor and got an appointment in about 10 days. The doctor decided that though there were no pressing issues, an MRI was warranted. She had an MRI within a week.

The MRI showed a problem which they thought was a tumor and he referred her to a neurological surgeon. In approximately a week she was sitting in a top neurosurgeon's office in a town about an hour away. She passed on going to a local neurosurgeon because the local doctor got poor reviews.

The neurosurgeon said the MRI was poor but decided that it was an aneurysm. He referred her to a neuro-arterial surgeon and sent her for an enhanced MRI. In less than a week, she got a more accurate MRI and saw the neuro-arterial surgeon. In another week she was undergoing a procedure where a catheter was run to the aneurysm to assess the size and wall thickness of the aneurysm. Then within 2 weeks they performed a "coiling" procedure to effectively block off the aneurysm to prohibit it from bursting.

End story - in a span of about 5 to 7 weeks my wife went from getting a doctor's appointment to getting a possible life-saving procedure and she got to choose a more capable doctor with a very advanced procedure rather than settling for the local doctor who still performs invasive surgery for aneurysms that are no more effective and stand a much greater chance of complications.

Now - IF we lived in Canada, based upon estimates provided by AI and Telepluscare.com, the wait to see her physician would have been approximately would have been about the same but a non-emergency MRI like hers would have taken several months to schedule. Neurosurgical wait time would have been about 49 weeks - almost a full year. If the doctor assigned had poor ratings and used less advanced technology you would be given no choice within Canada though I do understand that we might have been able to travel to the US for treatment at our own expense. However, since we did not know about the advanced treatment until we were sent to a second neurosurgeon we would not have known about it.

Net is that we would have waited for well over a year for treatment of the aneurysm and it would have most likely been treated with an outdated procedure. In return we would have paid pretty close to the same total in taxes that we pay here for health insurance and taxes combined, according to Wealthnorth.ca. and overall we would have more of our own money to spend after sales taxes, etc.