This is nothing like what you originally claimed. You wrote:
"The total health care spending in the US is warped by the extreme costs of high-end care that's simply not available in Canada."
Which of your above list constitutes "high-end care"? None of them look anything like that to me. You might make a crappy argument that E/R admittance for routine health constitutes high-end care but that argument is wrong on so many levels. The truth is there is no "care", high-end or otherwise available in the US that is unavailable to Canadians. That claim has no validity.
I thought I remembered that ~65% of the people in the lowest 2 quintiles went at least 2 consecutive quarters with no health insurance during a five year period. Having coverage part of your life but not all of it sucks and I don't think there is any method of measuring its suckiness.
Why do I "have" to include 3 quintiles for that argument to be valid? Suppose if I take the lowest three quintiles and the percentage of individuals uninsured for 2 consecutive quarters in a 5 year period drops to 45%. Then that proves our system doesn't suck after all?
Even if 84% of the population has insurance during any given years snapshot that tells you far less than you seem to think it does. If people move in and out of coverage then it's a crapshoot to "hope" you get sick when you have coverage. If I don't have health insurance ALL THE TIME then I need to be counted as uninsured when compared to Canadians who have health insurance their whole lives. Being insured for 75% or 85% of your life is in no way comparable to having it guaranteed for a lifetime.
If you spend 85% of your life having access to clean water do I get to tell you have great it is for you that only 15% of your life was spent having to drink absolute drek? Why, 85%! We never had it so good. When I was a lad I had to drink urine straight from my fathers cock. You lucky bastard!
John Thornton