Newt Gingrich's Saving Lives & Saving Money 6

For my write-up today on Saving Lives & Saving Money: Transforming Health and Healthcare, I'll highlight what Newt Gingrich says on pages 110-111:

"In a world where we have the ability to do our own trading on the stock market, it should be unacceptable that we are still at the mercy of an insurance company to understand care options, provider choices, and costs.  The role of a patient has evolved into a dependency relationship in the healthcare delivery system rather than the driver of the system.  Access to information and knowledge about healthcare will empower individuals, as consumers, to make the best healthcare choices in deciding which procedures, treatments, and preventive care will meet their mental, emotional, and physical needs.  We want to know that the physician performing our hip and knee replacement has done the procedure enough times to be proficient at it.  We want to know that if we have type 2 diabetes, our doctor has a high percentage of success in treating patients with that condition."

But what if you do an online search and find a doctor you like, and the insurance company doesn't cover a visit to that particular doctor?  Knowledge is not necessarily power, especially in a system where one is dependent on the insurance company.  I wonder how Canada would handle this: Can Canadians visit any doctor in the country, and the government pays for it?