In the last two years, my mother had a tumour (successfully) removed from her brain and my sister had day-long heart surgery. Two extensive processes with lots of consults before and after, both requiring significant hospital stays. At the time I was a bit grumpy that I had to pay $15 a day for parking at the hospital, which was really the only out of pocket cost to the family here in Canada.

We do have a major shortage of GPs and wait times can be longer than you want, so I would not say that we necessarily have the best health care system in the world. But you really need to go to the cafeteria in a hospital to find cash registers. And when I picked up my mother from the hospital, we said goodbye to the nurses and just walked right out.