Should Obama lose, by 2012 the ‘common wisdom’ will have been long since accepted that the party ‘should’ have nominated Hillary, “for surely she would have won.”

Absent the emergence of another ‘surprise’ like Obama, Hillary will be the frontrunner for the nomination and I for one do not think she will let her last, if not best chance escape her grasp.

Ego and liberal orthodoxy will not allow her to doubt that in a test of the ‘issues’ she cannot but prevail over Palin.

The issue is not what Hillary can realistically do in 2012, it will be what she and the libs believe she can attain…

This is becoming so commonplace that it’s almost considered an alternate spelling. Gack.

As for Canadians with US health insurance: I have US health insurance when I travel to the US. I wouldn’t leave home without it. I can assure you that I don’t use it to get care in the US if I can get the same care in Canada.

One of the fathers of the Canadian healthcare system is suggesting free market reforms. It would be ironic for the US to move to single payer systems while the Canadians and others are realizing how faulty their system is.

Yes John, we once had a free market in medical services.

Our problem is that WW2 era taxes drove employeers to provide medical insurance, and ’60s era medicare. Both of these broke the natural market feedback on prices, since the resut is that the consumer no longer pays the bill.

These things resulted in what is known as “medicare fraud” (prior to medicare it was called charity), and the regulations that resulted in managed healthcare.

The solution isn’t single payer or socialized medicine. The solution would be to phase out medicare and other socialized systems, and reform the tax code.

I do disagree with your assessment of the problems in the medical system, because I see the basic contradiction at the root of the problem as one of supply: we do not have, and never have had, a free market in medical services. If you want a perspective more “conservative” in origin than mine, read Milton Friedman on the subject.

The two most devastating influences on our health care system are these:

1. Existing, expanding government subsidies that have gone a long way in training people to think that the fact that they are breathing entitles them to health care.

2. Crushing medical liability costs. Reforming tort law to limit damage awards to some reasonable level would make it possible for actuaries to bring down the cost of liability insurance, and stop entire disciplines from freeing certain states.

Is it Tennessee that you can’t get an OB in any more?

Medical isn’t my chosen area to comment on – not since mine, and my wife’s chronic conditions became manageable. The health care “problem” originates with government, and expecting government to somehow improve quality or availability is simply ignorance on display.

Since the motivation for politicians is increasing their own power and not in fixing any particular problem, healthcare will be on the table for years to come.

It’s not broken now. But give the government control and watch the pieces scatter across the kitchen floor.

Whenever you subsidize a service, the demand goes up beyond the ability of the provider to meet it.

Trial lawyers donate more money, as a profession, to political campaigns than any other interest/lobbying group in the country.

A couple of specific answers:
According to the numbers given in this page from the annals of thoracic surgery, if Winnipeg had two cardiac surgeons in a million people, that would not give them less coverage than, say, Europe has. But in any case, Winnipeg does not have, and never has had, a million residents. And I found a three cardiac surgeons in one program in Winnipeg without breaking a sweat. Not too bad for a population of two thirds of a million.

You have to watch the urban legends in the US about Canadian health care. A few years ago, centrist Democrat Paul Tsongas criticized the Canadian model of the health insurance, only to find that the doctors at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto had done the research that had prolonged his life.

As for cross-border patient transfers: Canada does not practice “juche” (North Korean autarky) in medicine. When it makes sense for us to contract out infrequently needed services to medical centres in areas where larger population creates a higher demand, we do so. We do the same with unexpected overflows in demand. Given the geography of this continent, that often means sending patients to the United States. And, of course, a tiny proportion of Canadians choose to go the the United States, on their own dime, specifically for treatment. That doesn’t invalidate our medical system, any more than the rising number of medical tourists from the United States invalidates yours.

As for the other comments: if the anecdotes about dismayed Canadian doctors reflected the actual success of our medical system, it would show up in the aggregate numbers (life expectancy and infant mortality), and in both those areas, Canada has a small edge over your country.

But whatever you think of the issues, clarifying your thinking on these matters actually has benefits for your country, in the sense of developing wise and effective policies. Obsessing over the personality and individual future of Senator Clinton merely distracts you from considering a hundred serious matters your government urgently needs to address.