In relation to some discussions in the comments here, I thought this bit of news was quite illuminating:
Canadian has rare identical quads
A Canadian woman has given birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets.
The four girls were born at a US hospital because there was no space available at Canadian neonatal intensive care units.
Karen Jepp and her husband JP, of Calgary, were taken to a Montana hospital where the girls were delivered two months early by Caesarean section.
Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia are in good condition at Benefis Hospital in Great Falls, Montana.
(Emphasis mine.)
Yup. Socialized medicine really works good, doesn’t it?
UPDATE via Instapundit, Don Surber comments:
This is not to piss all over Canada. Nice nation. Great people. I’m sure most Canadians like their health system. Just remember, though, that Canada’s backup system is in Montana. Americans spend 15% of their income on health care. That’s why Great Falls has enough neo-natal units to handle quadruple births — and a “universal health” nation doesn’t.
After all, they didn’t fly Mrs. Jepp to Cuba, did they?
Quoth Glenn: “OUCH!”
And, as one of Don’s commenters noted, the Jepp quads are now Americans.
Also, from a link in Don’s piece; Kate at Small Dead Animals relates her story about her mother’s terminal illness treatment in Saskatchewan. Interesting quote:
After waiting 10 days on oxygen in an intensive care ward, where it was more likely that a knowledgable visitor would tend to a distressed patient or dysfunctioning equipment than any of the five nurses charged with holding down chairs, we began to wonder when the lung specialist planned to show up to discuss our mother’s condition.
Anecdotes are not equal to data – until you collect enough of them.
UPDATE: And here’s another, found via Clayton Cramer. According to this 8/17 Calgary Herald piece on the Jepp quadruplets:
Jepp was transported to Benefis hospital in Great Falls last Friday — making her the fifth Alberta woman to be transferred south of the border this year because of neonatal shortages in Calgary.
(My emphasis.)