Canadians frequently, and with some justification, believe their American neighbours are ignorant, even indifferent, to political and social developments north of the border. A clichéd characterization is that the surest way to get a news item buried in the American media is to identify it as “a good policy proposal from Canada.”Not so much anymore. The political chaos surrounding health-care reform in the United States has American politicians looking to the Canadian health-care system for guidance.Recently, a group of California state senators spent their “spring break” in Canada studying Canada’s single-payer health-care system. The trip was inspired by a bill
