My mother, 90, had a mild heart attack that no one noticed.

Home Care Services, a Provincial Government Agency, supplies mom with medical care in her ‘retirement’ suite in a ‘retirement community’. A week ago, one of its nurses phoned and that mom had grown very weak. Now mom’s been in the hospital for a week, and will probably be there another three weeks, while she heals and is being assessed.

In the US, some my relatives would be thinking of mortgaging their homes, cashing in their investments, and coming up with other ways to pay what would be a huge hospital bill–depending, of course, on their medical insurance. Here, we pay one tax amount, that’s it, no separate fees generally speaking. In the US, my brother pays $700 per month for basic medical coverage, and he still has to “co pay” for medical visits (i.e. the insurer does not cover the whole cost). That $700 is only for medical insurance, and does not cover any of the extras the insurance will not cover, such as prescription medications. On top of that, the facility my mother is in costs about $2300 a month. My aunt was in a very similar facility in New York, where it cost her $3300 a month US (or, almost, twice the cost).

Many of my American relatives do not believe socialized medicine works…until they come up here.

Victor Schwartzman lives in Winnipeg. He mostly writes fables and poetry, but also runs the book review socially conscious poetry sections at Outsider Writers (www.outsiderwriters.org). Read other posts by Victor Schwartzman.