Taxpayers in the U.S. pay about the same amount per capita as in Canada for health care provided under programs like Medicare and the Veterans Health Administration to care for about one-half the country's population. If we were to adopt the U.S. model, the percentage of GDP required to provide health care would correspondingly rise from about 10 or 11 percent of our GDP to about 15 percent and not everybody would get top-notch care. I think we should look instead at other models, primarily those in some some Western European countries. Looking to the most expensive and inefficient model (the American one) doesn't seem a good solution to the problems facing Canadian health care.