With little action on the ECU front, your comments Mrsoul are most appropriate and I would like to add a few qualifications on the subject:

Law suits are less common, less frivalous and with smaller awards in Canada than in USA.
I blame such suits aquarely on rampant capitalism and it's profiteering instead of service.
Many US citizens lay blame on government bureucracy but a large part of that is a result of corporate lobbyism and propaganda that use and abuse government for their own benefit.

Several years ago I talked to an employee of a hospital in a small Ontario town. She told me that the proliferastion of private clinics in Canada has caused an escallation of costs to the citizens. She said that If I visited my family doctor the visit at that time was at about 40 $ just for the visit not counting any additional service, BUT the same at a clinic resulted in about 80 $ charged to the government, hence the taxpayer. The additional cost was due to profit and 'overhead'. Family doctor fees are regulated but the additional fees charged by clinics are outside of regulation, hence the excallation.

It is a false assumption that private health care is more efficient. I think that it is only more efficient in providing highest quality to the most wealthy.

Caught between government inefficiency and corporate profitism, I default to government, but that is me based on my experience.