Reality of Canadian health care

exclusive to FR | Nov 10, 2013 | Peter O'Donnell

[OldPossum]

Thanks for the information.

I still prefer the American medical system as it once was.

[max americana]

“Where I live (British Columbia) we are billed directly for participation in the plan. The highest monthly premiums for people of middle-income or higher means would be in the order of $121 a month or $1450 a year. You can get reduced premiums tied to lower incomes. “

As an ex-Vancouverite, you forgot one other important thing: if you can’t pay your monthly premiums, you write the BC or provincial govt that you are “poor” and they’ll waive it for you. Plus, they (tax revenue canada) cannot garnish your wages and take away from the bank, unlike here with the IRS.

2nd, never, ever go out without your provincial card. If you don’t have one, you WONT be helped. I’ve witnessed countless times homeless people get kicked out of Vancouver General for not having the BC health card. Here in America, you WILL be helped regardless but in canada, it’s FU, die in the gutter, buddy.

[DaxtonBrown]

Thanks so very much Peter. This is going into my personal healthcare research file.

[driftless2]

Countries like Canada with relatively low minority populations can still pull off a socialized health care system to a degree. Most Canadians must approve because I didn’t see masses of Canadians trying to cross the border to get away from socialized medicine the times I’ve visited The Great White North. But I wonder how they’d like it if they had the amount of parasites we have. There’s about 15-20% of the American population who do little or no work and are basically leeches. And of course, we have millions of illegals who receive health care on the tax-payer dime. Canada’s leech population is probably less than 5%.

[Nifster]

Canadian health services has consistently sent people to the US (particularly at the end of the fiscal year) to get treatment. Doctors are too often obtained by lottery in smaller towns and rural provinces.

Over all it is only slightly better than the NHS in Britain

[Yardstick]

I think a pure fee-for-service system is the best, plus catastrophic insurance for the big stuff. If the government has to be involved it should only be in mandating catastrophic insurance. Our mistake is in getting govt involved in the small stuff.

If we absolutely have to have government health care in order to assuage the consiences of caring liberal types, we should do it along the lines of the French system which allows a free market system to exist alongside the government system.

Screw the anglosphere model where government totally takes over.

[Hot Tabasco]

Just curious Pete, lets say I live in Windsor and injure my shoulder playing softball. Where can I get an MRI and how long would it take since it's not a life threatening condition?

And lets say I require a Thorasic Surgeon, how many are there in the province of Ontario and how long would it take before I could go under his knife?

As a side note, many years ago, a close friend of my parents lived in Windsor and was diagnosed as having a tumor on her eye. A biopsy was scheduled for 8 months later.

She chose to come to Detroit and see my BIL who is an oncologist. He was able to schedule her for surgery two days later and they removed the benign tumor which would have destroyed her eye had she waited until the prescribed Canadian appointment..........

[Hot Tabasco]

Most Canadians must approve because I didn’t see masses of Canadians trying to cross the border to get away from socialized medicine the times I’ve visited The Great White North.

You don't see it? Of course not, where would you look? Let's start with Detroit then focus on Florida where Canadians with bucks have no problem paying for their required healthcare..........

Cross border flight for medical care is far greater than you are personally witnessing..........

[BfloGuy]

This is my admittedly anecdotal comparison of the Canadian and American health plans -- prior to Obamacare, of course.

Around 1995, my 80 year old mother finally decided to have cataract surgery on her eyes. Once the decision was made, she went to a specialist about 15 miles away and the surgery was scheduled for the following week.

It went perfectly and she was home that night reading the Fox News crawl without so much as glasses. Amazing.

I should add that we live in a very rural area of upstate New York.

At the same time, a friend of mine in Kitchener, Ontario [outside of Toronto -- Canada's largest city] who was also suffering from cataracts, required several months to be seen by a specialist and then was put on a year-long waiting list to have the procedure.

She eventually had the surgery.

We are people of very modest means. Yet, Mom was able to have her cataracts removed with about the same difficulty as a Canadian has to get her blood pressure meds refilled.

I fear we've lost that.

[Hot Tabasco]

You mentioned your income tax, so how much do you pay in GST and PST?

[goodnesswins]

How is the doctor situation? We lived in BC and Saskatchewan in late 90s...docs were striking because the government wasn’t paying enough to cover their costs. The docs in Prince Albet were from foreign countries and worked on rotation out of country.

[lavaroise]

Indeed. what a system. Even if you can pay for the operation you cannot have it because it is rationed with quotas.

[canuck_conservative]

Having had the misfortune of accompanying someone into a Canadian Hospital, I can assure you that unless you are practically bleeding to death, you will be waiting hours, and I mean hours, before you get looked at.

You’ll also probably be the only white person in the waiting room. This is the reality of healthcare in Canada, take from these comments what you will.

[ArmstedFragg]

Just as an historical curiosity, in 2003 a proposal was floated to provide catastrophic insurance to Californians in much the same way they already receive disability and unemployment insurance. In brief, everyone who filed a tax return or appeared on a return would be covered. The proposal would have provided a benefit and incentive to everyone who helped pay the cost of government. The Democrats in the state legislature shot it down, announcing that if they couldn’t have their single payer plan, they wanted nothing.

[T-Bird45]

Hope you’ll jump back in here to reply to these guys’ questions because they are central to the discussion. Also, the point made by another FReeper on dead-beats deserves deeper discussion, along with the demographic/cultural differences.

[ArmstedFragg]

While listening to a football game today, I heard an ad from a Texas firm that runs stand-alone emergency rooms. They’re fully equipped to address most typical medical emergencies, have board certified EM physicians on duty 24/7, and average 20 minute wait times. Apparently the fact that they’re not hospital affiliated enables them to limit their practice to those who are willing to pay for it, which, in turn, reduces wait times drastically.

[okie01]

Any comparison of the two countries would have to take into account that, for better or worse, we made this transition in the 1960s when things were nowhere near as expensive or complicated as they are nowadays. I am sure we would be having all the same problems as the U.S.A. if we were trying to deal with all this change given today's much larger medical budgets and welfare rolls (and we don't have nearly the amount of illegal immigration to factor in, nor the Obama urban demographic factors say no more).

Thank you very much for your timely and relevant information.

May I ask how many medical advancements -- in terms of technology and treatment -- Canada can claim credit for since the system was introduced in the sixties?

In my estimation, this is one of the major costs of a socialized medical system. It essentially freezes current technology and treatment in place, as there is no longer any incentive to innovate.

[CdMGuy]

“Most Canadians must approve because I didn’t see masses of Canadians trying to cross the border to get away from socialized medicine the times I’ve visited The Great White North.”

Thanks as that is the best laugh I have had today. I live in the Coachella Valley, the low desert of Southern California. Our population increases by at least 35% every season which runs from November through April. Our roads are full of vehicles from BC, Alberta and other Canadian provinces, including both the Yukon and Northwest Territories. We also get lots of Snowbirds from Washington State, Oregon, Ill, NY, etc.

We have three hospitals here, the largest being Eisenhower Medical Center where I do volunteer work. During the warmer months, the hospital beds run at around 50% occupancy. During the so-called Season, the hospital is completely occupied. That includes the wing which charges an additional $400 to $600 a day, payable via your credit card, to anyone with enough money to occupy one of the upscale rooms with lots of wood paneling and special meals for patients and their family members.

Guess where many of the seasonal patients come from. Canada of course. They come down here to get their hip replacement surgery and all of the other surgeries that take a year and a day to get up there in the frozen north.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

one of the major costs of a socialized medical system [is that it] essentially freezes current technology and treatment in place, as there is no longer any incentive to innovate.

I like to refer to a socialist apologia I found in the library some years back, which unfortunately I cannot cite chapter and verse of. But the author was laboring to make the case that business decisions should be made by a board made up of union as well as management. He was at pains to make the point that such a board would be able to make the right decision as to, for example, whether to build diesel-electric or steam locomotives!

I found that hilarious, of course, because back in the time of the book’s writing, when steam locomotives were obsolescing, long-distance passenger train service itself was obsolescent because the jet aviation was about to eat its lunch. Not only so, but by that time aviation itself was ceasing to be high technology, with Moore’s Law on the horizon.

The bottom line is that socialism is inherently technologically reactionary. Socialism is the principle that any bookkeeper can run any businesses - I think that is almost a direct quote from Marx - but a bookkeepers and an entrepreneur are two different things.