Digby writes about this McClatchy article, highlighting an online poll of Canadians about their (our) health care system.
While the results are generally positive for the Canadian system in comparison to the American one (though McClatchy characterizes it as a "split verdict"), my inner social scientist is always nervous about trusting opt-in online polls too much, and I know this topic actually comes up fairly regularly in Canada so here's a broader overview on the subject of comparative polling. It turns out we do have polling firms here that do real phone polling so there's no need to worry about the possibly libertarian bent of online poll respondents.
First up, this Harris-Decima scientific poll from July 5th gives an even brighter picture than McClatchy's effort, which as it relates to comparisons gives us this:
By an overwhelming margin, Canadians prefer the Canadian health care system to the American one. Overall, 82% said they preferred the Canadian system, fully ten times the number who said the American system is superior (8%).
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