"Doug Winterburn" wrote in message
Is there some reason Canadians can't save during their working careers
so that they can afford medical insurance in retirement?

All Canadians automatically have health insurance. In Canada, there really
isn't anything medical to save for. Yes, one can buy some types of extended
health insurance for stuff like prescriptions, dental care, eyeglasses and
stuff like that, but that's about it. You can't buy insurance that will let
you jump the queue in an emergency room and you can't buy insurance to get
an immediate hip replacement or similar stuff like that.

The closest you could come to this stuff would be to save for medical
service in the US and I wouldn't exactly call that a type of medical
insurance.