Canadians... is this true about your healthcare?

We need more doctors in some areas.

If the condition is life threatening and a doctor isn't locally available they will send you to another location or abroad and reimburse the doctor.

The woman you reference from your story attempted to get reimbursed but her doctors insist that it was not a life threatening condition. She was not pre-approved for care when she chose to go to the US and get treatment. Therefore, she was not eligible for reimbursement.

10 years ago my partner came down with a life-threatening blood disorder. She was given priority treatment and survives quite nicely now. I was told that this same treatment in Florida would have cost over 1/2 million dollars ... we paid nothing out of pocket and they even sent her home with a 'care package' ... consisting of meds and blood testing kits. Does Obama/Romney-care offer the same?

Thanks for the reply, but could the patient not have gone to an area of Canada that had the right doctors or would there still be a long wait? In the US, a patient like her could have immediate surgery under our current system. I am so worried about Obamacare. We have millions more citizens than Canada and I envision a bureauocratic healthcare nightmare. They definitely are not telling us the full implications of Obamacare and people are going to be shocked and angry. But it will be too late to turn back.

Sometimes there are waits for certain procedures, yes.

But here is the major difference. The insurance industry in the US is set up to make a profit. They do that (obviously) by collecting more than they pay out. That means many people

a) can not afford health insurance

b) don't get benefits because insurance companies work hard to make sure they pay out as little as possible.

The cost of insurance makes your medical system one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive) in the world, and leaves many, many millions unable to afford preventative care. I can see my doctor regularly and so have a chance to deal with things early, long before they become a problem. If I have a critical situation, I receive immediate care - not based on what I can afford, but based on the best available care.

We are working hard in Canada to come up with innovative ways to reduce wait-times, and to provide the best service we can to all Canadians. There was an article in HuffPo about the most prosperous nations today, and they all - without exception -- are countries with a strong social safety net.

Obamacare strikes me as somewhere in the middle between privatization and not-for-profit insurance. But it's better than what you had, where the whole point was to make money -- and lots of it -- and the health of Americans be damned. I think you will be better off.

My 2 cents. Of course, your mileage may vary.

:-)

what was in the care package?

a 2-headed dildo?

the waiting may be due to her location.

if she is in big city center ..yeah your going to wait.

in small urban cities...no wait.

the population is AGING.

get used to waiting for surgeries...no matter what kind of health care the country has.

THe Canadian Health System is a disaster.

You can wait up to 22 hrs in emergency or longer to see a physician

You can wait years to fix non-life threatening conditions like angina and crippling hip arthritis

Currently most wealthy canadians come to the US to get top-notch and rapid care.

When the government takes over as single payer the following happens

1. Rationing of services
2. removal of competition
3. Unionization of the allied health personnel
4. Loss of innovation
5. Politicization of system
6. Increased costs and loss of services
7 loss of choice
8. intimidation of physicians and whistle blowers who stand up for patients


I know this, I am (was) a Canadian Physician and I am very happy to be practising in the USA. The physicians here have a voice and can bring the services their patient need without having to beg and plead with retarded socialist government health "managers"

There's a whole lot of BS in this post, I don't even know where to begin. Canadian physician my ass. Here's a tip for next time, try not to be so over the top with your exaggeration - you'll get more bites.

Thanks for all the Canadian replies. It's good to know they seem to have a plan for life-threatening conditions. I have no idea how Obamacare/Romneycare would handle such things. Obamacare is thousands of pages and Congress did not even read it before they voted. Idiots. I honestly believe if we stopped having wars and implemented some cost-cutting procedures, we could insure our uninsured and improve our current healthcare system without throwing the whole thing to the wind.

The waiting in Canada can be very very very very long, i did wait 2 year to a nuclear radiologie.

Since people do no pay we do not realize how many worker in the healthcare system abuse that system.

Example: i go see the doctor , i wait 6 hours sit in a room then i finally see him , he pass 15 minute with me then send me back home.

How much does it cost? i have absolute no idea, but a friend of mine did some research and that little 15 minute with a doctor could go as high at 15 000$ and no one will ever notice.

Remember the story of a Australian u got his baby in Canada then received a invoice of 1 million dollar, us Canadian have absolute no idea how much it cost and we still think, things goes wrong cause we do not have enough money.


Let see how thing are important for us:


School Teacher: 25$/Hours
Doctor: 35$/Hours
Judge: 40$/Hours
Prostitute: 100$/Hours
Hockey Player: 10 000$/Hours

This is how thing work in Canada and i am sure not too far from the U.S. except Doctor that are able to put plastic inside our body will be pay a lot more.

Good post, I agree with much of it.

Sounded like a misguided opinion of someone else's system until he posted this at the end. Kind of gave his hand away.

My mother-in-law got a pace maker the next day, after she
went to the er. She lives in a fair sized city.

we definitely need more drs. in sk. they are going to India to
recruit some. so I guess that means we will have more taxi drivers
serious.

yup wait and die here....

if it wasnt for the good weed,,,,,,

weed be screwed......

There's your answer, right there. You have a greater population- more hospitals & doctors. You can get taken care of, anytime.

The wait time up here, is due to a smaller population. Triage is in effect. Of course, the most severe cases go first. 4 months because your eye is blinking? Suck it up, or dig deep & go to a capitalist system- they triage the biggest wallet first.

Believe me or not, I was trained at the U of A, and practiced in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The single payer medical insurance system should be run at arms length from the government, but it is not. The Politicians run the system and make decisions about what treatments are funded or approved. This is the inevitable outcome of a government run system that is both payer and provider.

The worst aspect of the Canadian system is the suppression of competition which stifles innovation.

The USA has problems but it also has choices, and I prefer to live and practice in a country that values innovation and choice.

Can't wait for you all to see what you allowed them to do to you. You had freedom of opportunity and you've traded it all for equality of outcome. Good luck with that.

Yeah because being frikkin' BLIND is a real picnic....

This is EXACTLY what you can expect OP...a lot of Canadian hospital have "waiting suites"...something that does not exist in the US...more or less a hospital room where they chuck your almost dead ass while you "wait" to get treated. There are few to little MRI machines, little to none for more advanced scanners, little to none on most advanced medical equiptment and processes because the entire system is not only depressed, it's over loaded. SO the waiting times to get a non life threatening operation is very long...so if you blew that knee apart and can't walk?...have a good time cruising around on crutches for several months...if you can...

Canaduh also has less people living in the entire massive country than California...

So you can use your imagination to get a picture of just how great a similar system will operate here...once we pile in all the "uninsured" which by many estimates is also larger than the entire population of Canada...

ZOMFG but we're PAYING for them!!!...so the solution is...uuummm..let's PAY for them!...fuckin brilliant...Oh and while we're at it?...let's create 10,000 new regulations that a medical Svengali can not figure out to make that "easier"...

EXACTLY.

I more or less avoid political arguments on the 'net because people are so left-right polarized right now they can't even think straight. There is a third option, which many people are coming to know, which is recognizing the real problem is all government, not just one party or the other.

Do I think we, as a society, should provide free healthcare and education for everyone? ABSOLUTELY. Do I think Obamacare is the answer? No way in hell. If we removed all foreign presence save for a few strategic locations (there are still threats in this world), and streamlined the ridiculous number of government agencies down to a few effective ones, we could do both AND eliminate all but the slightest amount of taxes. Obama and Romney both offer no solution to that and nothing but extension of over-reaching government.

Remember, these people are only out for themselves and will do anything to protect their lifestyle.

Not many people want to go through all the trouble to become a doctor when they will only make minimum wage...

Are there any age cut-offs on certain procedures? (i.e. will they give you a pacemaker at age 90 for instance or heart surgery at age 80?) Also, the woman in the ad claimed her doctor told her she would die if she had to wait 4 months, so I don't know why there is a problem with re-imbursement by the Canadian gov't. I have to go out, but I will check back. Thanks.

I can understand this view and agree with it to a point. There must be a line drawn somewhere and a balance kept.



Innovation still occurs in the private sector. Its just a different landscape. Companies developing new technologies and treatments have the holy grail of Canadian approval to strive for - huge implications from the day they're approved. I do see the negative side to this though, with no competition there is no incentive to reduce or minimize costs.

No system is perfect obviously but many of the "evils" of ours that get mentioned are truly blown way out of proportion.

So Please explain to me WHY healthcare should be FREE?

Should food and shelter also be free?

THere is no free lunch, especially when the government is giving it out, you can be sure their other hand is in your back pocket.

Where exactly do you get this information? Because the reality that I witness with my own eyes on a regular basis is in direct opposition to almost the entirety of your post.

Dear Pennsylvania

Canadian Healthcare is the worst in the world

Grab your gun, bible & head to the voting booth and check Romney/Ryan

Do it

NOW

this.


Lots of people in the gov'ment get in major trouble at work, no matter how serious their illness

if you arent in urgent need of health care : broken bones, shot.... then you arent getting any assistance!!

maybe you can come back to the hospital once every 2 months for a year, then perhaps the doctors will assess your condition...treatment?? oh that takes another few years....

good fucking luck



weed
that is all

Yes there is rationing. You may wait for a procedure until after you are dead.

Think about it, what is the purpose of a waiting list but to remove people from the list through attrition

Many new drugs may get approved by Health Canada, but not be "funded" by the provincial payers.

WHen I was in charge of implementing new laboratory tests, the politicians would want to know "how will this test save money" there was no concern about quality of care or introducing new life saving therapy . If it did not save money it would not be approved, and very little new medical technology saves money, it saves lives.

No, our medical system is not perfect. As stated by some, certain medical procedures can have long wait times if it is not life threatening. If you have say a heart attack though you can receive very fast care. My father-in-law had a heartattact, now we do have an old hospital as this is a small community, but they have enough to get him stabalized. Within a few hours they had a plane at the local airport and he was flown to a much larger hospital where he was given a stint for his heart. He was home a day or so later, feeling much better then he had is years. Cost, he had to pay on a later date the air ambulance bill. If he was low income they would also have been payed for.
So while we may not have a perfect system, at least if we are sick we do not need to ransom the rest of our lives to paying off the hospital. Anyone not happy with the speed of the system can alway get the what they want and pay for it themselves just like they would have to if lived in the US, but at least if they are poor they can still get it here, even if they have to wait. How many poor people can say that there.