The price of "free" healthcare is the wait

 

While healthcare in Canada's single-payer health care system is technically free, its real price is measured in wait times.  In 2023, the median wait time from a general practitioner's referral to treatment reached 27.7 weeks—the longest ever and nearly triple the 9.3 weeks reported in 1993. (MuskegonPundit)

To see this, think of "free" as a price ceiling of zero.  

• In the short run (Chapter 8), quantity demanded exceeds quantity supplied.  So who gets this care?  Those willing to wait.  In other words, wait times act as prices to ration available supply (AIER). 
•  Even patients whose mortality depends on prompt care--and don't want to pay for care in the US--wait before receiving essential treatments . (Fraser Institute).
• This inefficiency could be lessened by allowing patients to sell their place in line to others.

• In the long run (Chapter 9), fewer providers (physicians, nurses, hospitals, clinics) are drawn into the industry, leading to decreases in supply and even longer wait times, or "prices."  

HT, ZeroHedge: The Wait Is The Price: Quiet Rationing Plagues Canadian Health Care (AIER).