On ABC's Nightline, from July 1993 until the November 1994 election, there were only two mentions of the Canadian single-payer healthcare system: On a March 1994 show, an insurance representative made dire, unsupported predictions that with single-payer "there will definitely be limitations on your selection options in your future."

On a September 1993 broadcast that featured an interview with Bill Clinton, Ted Koppel pressed the president about "frenzied" Canadians swarming over the border for U.S. health care. Canadians, Koppel told Clinton, were saying, "Whatever you do, don't exchange what you've got for what we've got." According to a Gallup poll taken only a few days earlier, just 2 percent of Canadians believed that the U.S. healthcare system was better than their own.