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It was a profoundly human conversation, a massive, spontaneous international party line. People shared stories of grief and suffering and medical triumph. They made themselves vulnerable in a way you rarely see on Twitter.

And people wanted to listen.

I added my own tweet to the mix on Sunday afternoon. As of Wednesday, it has been seen by 149,835 people on Twitter, and thousands more on Reddit — which I don’t even use.

“It was amazing,” said Rubin. “It’s really disgusting to see how different the two systems are. I think it opened a lot of people’s eyes, because we don’t always get the full story.”

Edmonton

In the U.S., he said, there’s lots negative press about Canadian health case, stories about long waits, about Canadians crossing the border for treatment. It was enlightening, he said, for people to see so many Canadians testifying about how public health care had saved them.

Now, if we’re honest, we Canadians know perfectly well that our health-care system isn’t perfect. Complaining about it is a national pastime. We know about long emergency rooms waits. We know about surge capacity days, when patients sleep on gurneys in hallways, or cram in with three beds in a room built for two. We know our aging hospital buildings need repairs. We know public health care eats up almost 40 per cent of Alberta’s provincial budget.

But we also know our health-care system is there for us in a crisis. We know we can get world-class care, without needing to mortgage our homes or declare personal bankruptcy. And we know that even if we complain among ourselves about its flaws, we’re not going to let Americans trash-talk it.

Now, after that cathartic outpouring, we need to ensure we protect, defend and improve something that means so much to us — to maintain public health care in which we can take legitimate pride.

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