Canadian (Socialized) Health Care

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The same thing is happening in Canada. We get conflicting stories, where one person gets an operation withing a few hours because there are 4729847293847 doctors waiting at his beck and call, while someone else is put on a 6-month waiting list for a life-saving procedure. I'm sure the later person would love to bid up the price in order to attract a surgeon to his bedside. Too bad he can't.

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Not directly, no. The biggest problem with allocation of resources is:

- Doctors are rich as hell
- Rich as hell people don't want to live in Moose Skull Fracture, North Manitoba, they want to live in Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver
- People in Moose Skull Fracture, North Manitoba are conditioned to believe they deserve a doctor, and the government takes their money and promises them a doctor

Now, the people in MSF can't offer to pay higher service rates to the doctors to get them to come. In practice, however, some people in these communities band together and offer houses + cash bonuses + other perquisites to the get the doctors to sign a contract committing to the community for a few years. So even though wages are mandated, market forces allow for alternative compensations to rise with demand.