Percentage of Canadians using the US health care system

The objective of this chart is not to cheer-lead on how great the Canadian health care system is; relative to European systems it's mediocre.  Rather, the chart is meant to illustrate that most Canadians aren't willing to spend vast sums of money on American health care that is comparable to what they are already receiving through a publicly taxed system.  Although a substantial number of Canadians do annually make their way into American hospitals for health care, for the majority it is for services that are not obtainable or easily performed within Canada and which is paid for by the patent's provincial government.

The Commonwealth Fund conducted a study earlier this year on 19 industrialized nations; including Australia, Canada, several European nations, and the USA.  The results were:

the U.S. [ranked] 19th in infant mortality, 15th in preventable mortality and 14th in the use of electronic medical records, all despite spending far and away the greatest percentage of GDP on health care. Relative to other comparable countries surveyed, the U.S. has the greatest incidence of medical and prescription errors, highest emergency room waiting times and ranks near the bottom in duplicate medical tests. The U.S. spends 7.3% of its health dollars on administration and insurance, compared to just 1.9% in France, 2.6% in Canada, and 3.3% in the UK.

Furthermore, the study concluded that Canada spends slightly more than half of what America does per capita for health care, yet reaches similar if not better overall results in terms of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and overall citizen health.