By Ryan Prior, The Daily Beast - June 21, 2012

According to a new study by Canada's Fraser Institute, surgical waitlists are costing the nation about $1 billion each year in lost productivity. The average Canadian can now expect to wait 9.5 weeks for treatment with a medical specialist, this number up from 9.3 weeks last year.

While most stories report on the personal pain of waiting for care, Fraser's new report "The Private Cost of Public Queues," breaks ground in assigning a specific monetary value to the Canadian economy's loss each year due to the rationing in its single-payer healthcare system.