>That being said, I return to my premise. What do you think will happen if America adopts the same system and the drug companies suddenly find themselves without the American market to recover R&D costs?

You really think that the drug companies won't make money if the US follow the same model as Canada? If the drug companies are loosing money in Canada, why do they still do business here? By charity? (I hardly think so).

IMHO, they use the R&D excuse to boost their profits for the sharehoders.

>Some were life threatening. There are other examples involving surgery and cancer which can be easily googled.

With the current situation, the healthcare administrators know that they can rely on the US clinics when the system is overflowing. That give them an excuse to not invest more (read raise taxes). Since a governement rarely win an election when they anounce a tax raise, they don't have much interest in rapidly putting more money in the system.

Now, if the US follow the canadian model and their clinics are as full as our, then the politicians won't have any excuse to not invest more in the healthcare system and that's a good thing.