>Our first child was born in a private hospital. I remember seeing the itemised bill, eyewatering amounts for everything and my wife being asked mid labour what shat she'd like for lunch the next day. Food wasn't up to much though :-). My father was in a French hospital after a heart attack while driving to the South of France and the food there was excellent (never saw their itemised bill though)

The day after we arrived to Canada, my wife fell in the bathtub, hitting the border with the chin and she required some stitches in the chin and inside her mouth, they charged us something like 100 dollars but they told us to go to get our MSP Care card which we did the same afternoon, and then we went back to the hospital and they gave us a refund. My daughter was born in a Hospital in Vancouver some 15 years ago, total cost for us: close to zero. a couple of weeks ago my wife fell again!, this time head first from the stairs to a concrete floor outside our home when she was on her way to work, it was pretty bad, she was unconscious in a pool of cold water and blood for what we think it was 15-20 minutes, until she woke up and fortunately could phone us, we call 911 and the fire workers and an ambulance came, took her to the ER where they found out she broke several bones in the skull, had internal bleeding, 11 staples to close a cut etc, she spent 3 days in the hospital and yesterday we received the invoice: 80 dollars for the ambulance ride to the hospital with an apology for we should make the claim for a refund ourselfs (ah, and by the way, when the firefighters asked me for my wife's care card, I could not find it and they told me not to worry, and they never asked for it again, not them, not the ambulance and not the hospital). I love Canada, I do not understand how people in the US would not want to have a system like this...