One advantage the U.S. has is that people can go to any doctor that they want to, provided that they have the money.

Really? Let me share this story...

A couple weeks ago, my mom fell ill. She thought it was a bad case of food poisoning and it would pass. For 12 hours, she was bleeding from an area, well, you should not bleed from. She called her gastroenterologist; he was on vacation. She asked to see his partner or the physicians assistant. The office said no, she could only see her physician. She called her primary care doctor. He told her to go to the ER and referred her to another specialist.

She went to the ER. They took excellent care of her. She was supposed to make an appointment with the specialist in 2-3 days to go over test results. When she called to make the appointment, the doctor refused to take new patients. Meanwhile, Mom's antibiotic is running out. Because the specialist would not see her, they would not refill her medication. She had to call the ER to get a refill.

After, again, fighting with the new specialist to make an appointment, she ended up with one -- a month after the initial incident. Ultimately, three weeks after going to the ER, she had to wrangle with the hospital to get her test results -- negative for infection -- sent to her primary care doctor and her own gastroenterologist.

Oh, did I mention my mom has insurance? And that she pays a premium of over $600 a month? Even with money and insurance, when she really needed care without worry, she got the runaround. For all the people who say the system in Canada or the United Kingdom is a mess, guess what? There are problems here, too.