I found a link to this article on AoS, which got it from doubleplusundead. The article is about a real medical need in Canada that had to be treated in the US. The comments exploded in the original post and include the one below. I think it summarizes things well, and respectfully. The other posts are pretty intense, but I understand them. Here is the comment. Check out the original post for some interesting comments about the American/Canadian health care systems.
I do believe that what you are seeing here is the hyper sensitivity that many Americans including myself feel on a daily basis. If you read on the net, you will see that no matter what we do it is not enough. When we give billions of dollars(more than most of the civilized world combined) for aids research we are told it is not enough. We clean up the environment, rescue whole civilizations from natural disasters, save other civilizations from being swallowed in war, spend our hard earned money so that Canada and the rest of the world can have subsidized drugs and socialized medicine, and we get nothing but contempt. Sure the world was with us after 911 but that was short lived. Our military, of which I am a member, is the largest, most skilled, and most responsive in the world and simply put, puts up with more crap from the rest of the world as well as our own citizens than we need to. You spend little on your military because America doesn't, you spend little on your health care because America doesn't, you spend little on R+D, Engineering, IT, and many other fields because America doesn't.
Our entire reason for being is to be generous, helpful, and hopeful. We are a free people that comes to the aid of those in need. The problem is that we are seeing more and more that our help is taken and then it is thrown back in our faces. Mexico's drug killings are not because Mexico has a problem with corruption, but rather because America has the freedom to bear arms. This child is in the position it is in not because Canada's medical and insurance and state systems are incapable of providing the needed care and attention but rather America is irrational and cruel for not allowing non citizens to waltz across the borders at will. I ask you what countries military was the first to respond to the recent plane crash in South America? Who responded first and bent over backward after the tsunami 2 years ago? Where is the UN hosted? How many AIDS therapies came out of Russia recently?
I supposed to sum it up while we may come off as cruel and heartless, you will not find another people in this entire world who, as a group, are more caring, selfless, and giving of themselves up to and including their very lives, than the American people. Understand though that you may have the sweetest, most loyal, and caring dog in the world but if you keep kicking it eventually it will bite you.