by Madison Marks

Created on: May 01, 2008

Imagine being pregnant with rare identical quadruplets and being on the verge of labor when the news comes that there are no more maternity beds available in the local hospital. This is exactly what happened to Karen Jepp, a 35-year-old Canadian woman of Calgary, Alberta in August of 2007. She and her husband "drove 325 miles to Great Falls [Montana] for the births because hospitals in Calgary were at capacity," said Dr. Tom Key, the perinatologist who delivered the identical quadruplets. [1]

Obstacles like the Jepps faced are rare within the United States, where health care is funded and provided through private markets. Countries such as Canada and Great Britain, however, have adopted a form of socialized health care that has often been referred to as "nationalized" health care by top White House Democratic contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

For any American paying the bills, it is no doubt that health care coverage costs have soared. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released an annual survey in 2007 showing the annual premium for single coverage around $4,400. Employer health insurance premiums also leaped by 6.1 percent totaling the cost for the average four-person family at $12,100.

According to the National Coalition on Health Care, the U.S. spent $2.3 trillion, nearly 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense, in 2007. The U.S. finds itself ushering out more money than any other industrialized nation in order to provide sufficient health care to its citizens. Despite the heavy spending which totals 16 percent of the national budget, nearly 47 million Americans find themselves uninsured.

Ironically, the other industrialized nations to which the U.S. was compared provide health care to all of its citizens. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that only 10.9 percent of Switzerland's Gross Domestic Product went towards health care, 10. 7 percent in Germany, and 9.7 percent in Canada.

The United States finds itself solo versus the rest of the world as it is also the only country without a tax-supported health care system. From 1993 to 2005, Canada's per capita health care expenditure rose 65 percent while America's rose 90 percent. [2] Although prices for health care coverage in Canada are affordable and the United States nearly doubles the Canadian average, the quality of health care within the United States still remains at a significantly higher rating than those in Canada or Great Britain.

The divide

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