If you are just an ordinary Canadian citizen, your life-saving surgery has to wait for months because of budget considerations.

Retired teacher Jo Danielson is living on the edge with an abdominal aneurysm, a dangerous bulge in her aorta, the largest single artery in the body. [...] But she will have to wait until April, when the Vancouver IslandHealth Authority's next budget year begins. The health authority has placed a cost-saving, yearly cap on the stent procedure because of the extra cost.

Death, and a painful one at that, could be only moments away.

Ah, but those who govern Canadian citizens get to go elsewhere for the surgical procedures they need:

Questions are swirling about where Danny Williams, the popular premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, will have scheduled heart surgery later this week, after his office would not confirm yesterday if the surgery will take place in Canada or the United States.

"I can confirm that Premier Williams did leave the province this morning and will be undergoing heart surgery later this week," said Mr. Williams's spokeswoman Elizabeth Matthews in an email to the Canadian Press.

An unconfirmed CBC News report last night suggested the 59-year-old premier was headed to the U.S. for surgery.

Nationalized Health in Canada; good for thee, not for me.

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