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OT Health care a question for Canadians

Kallam

Cast Iron
Joined
Feb 11, 2006
Location
South Carolina
Health care a question for Canadians .With this new movie out about universal health care and all its hype.I don't know what to beleve from the moive or the media I would like to hear the story from the average Canadian. How well does it work.I hear if you go to the doctor for a office visit for a cold or headace somethine minor its great. But what if you need an operation such as heart bypass joint replacement something major,I hear you may have to wait a few years or even die from the wait because the goverenment puts a number limit on each type of operation . Is this true?
Here are some vidios off of You tube are they acurrate?
Thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Rf42zNl9U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVZp6xPA7tk
http://onthefencefilms.com/video/deadmeat/videoplayer.php?title=deadmeat&format=WindowsMedia&quality=high&width=538&height=375
 
Why don't you ask the *other* question: how
many poster from the US have had heathcare
benefits denied by insurance companies, and
had loved ones die as a result?

Jim
 
Lived in Canada for 22 years. When my local GP thught that there may have been a problem with my bowls I was in for a test next day and my GP had the results 2 days after that ( negative thank goodness). A good frend of mine needed a liver transplant and as soon as one became avalable the op was done.I have never heard of a number limit, a fellow I work with had a bypass two years ago with not a long wait. From my own experence I have no complants.
Forrey
 
In my personal experience, having to go to the ER and having to wait for 4+ hours can be a pain in the butt.


There is no limit as far as I know, they just raise taxes, add extra provincial "premiums" on top of our regular taxes etc.

No personal experience with more major surgery but I can tell you people here do go to India for heart transplants and the like instead of ending up waiting for a long time to get it done, as well as a friend of mine had their knee surgery screwed up 2 years ago or so, so had to go in to get it fixed once already and now is waiting till summer 2008 to get the doctors mistakes fixed hopefully completely (the original doctor didn't do everything he was supposed to and did a few extra stuff screwing up her knee even more).

Dimitri
 
I find that if you go to any ER you are in for a long wait. More so out here on the prairies where health care staff are scarce.
However if you book an appointment with a good doctor they can normally get you treatment very quickly.
If you problem is not serious and you need to see a specialist then you are for sure in for a wait.

Ben
 
I find that if you go to any ER you are in for a long wait.
That's true in the States as well. Part of the problem is that the ERs are crowded with un-insured people who do not have life-threatening injuries but have nowhere else to go.
 
There are a LOT of people who simply go to the hospital as if it was like going bowling. It's their regular social outing. Itchy here or itchy there. It puts a big drain on resources that are already struggling.

There is certainly an organ shortage but its like that in every country, except maybe China?. Some get lucky and can have the surgeries done quick. Some wait years, or die. Happens everywhere.

Joint related injuries always take over a year. You can be sure to get canceled or delayed at some point. For this type of surgery, you are normally better off going somewhere else and paying for it.

Then you have the times when you wait 5 hours to have x-rays done when there is no body else waiting. Only to be told they have no one to look at the X-rays so they can't tell you if its broken or not.

There's flaws in every systems. They all say they're trying to make it better but after election time all promises are forgotten.

I do plan to see Micheal's new movie. Although some of his facts may be exaggerated or a little twisted. In the end his point is that things could be a lot better than they are, and I think most people agree on that.
 
Then you have the times when you wait 5 hours to have x-rays done when there is no body else waiting. Only to be told they have no one to look at the X-rays so they can't tell you if its broken or not.
Like when I broke my wrist. :(

Anyways as for watching this new Micheal Moore movie, not a chance, his twisting of facts in Bowling for Columbine was enough for me to never watch anything else of his again.


Dimitri
 
The first thing to know about the Canadian system is that it is a single payer tax funded health insurance system. Which means that the typical family doctor is not employed by the goverment but bills the goverment for most all medical services provided. Most doctors are in reality small business men or in in partnership with other doctors. I have often heard Americans say that a goverment run health service would be like letting the department of motor vehicals take care of healthe care. This is simply not the case in Canada as the typical patient has to deal only with there doctor for health care and never sees any of the buisness aspect of the process such as billing etc.

Most hospitals are goverment run with a few exceptions which are run by not for profit groups such as the shiners and the salvation army. It could be argued that a goverment run hospital would be less efficient and cost more but given there is no need for a profit to come of the top there is room for some inefficiency to still come out ahead. Also since the system is not for profit and single payer there is a large reduction in the amount of record keeping and acounting needed to keep travk of what supplies are used for a particular patient.
There are no monitary limits for a particular patient. I could go to a doctor today for a consultation and a diffrent doctor tomorrow for a second opinion and a third and so on and it would be payed for . I can see Whatever doctor that has the time to see me and how ever many doctors I choose. Unlike the American HMO system that does tell the patient what doctor or group of doctors .I can see any doctor I choose because all doctors are part of my "insurance plan" Also a big plus of the Canadian system is that the doctor is the final authority on what tests are done or specialists referals. If the family doctor orders it the system will pay for it. There is not someone in the business office overruling tha doctor on wether a test is justified.

As far as major surgery is concerned it is true that there can be a long wait for some quality of life things like hip replacement but for medical emergency or life threatening cases the system can move very fast. From personal experiance My wife went through cancer and I was amazed how fast things went. From the time she saw her GP and he recomended seeing a specialist was just under two weeks. The specialist examined her and recomended surgery which was then schedualed and carried out the next day. In another instance my Father in law fell while Ice scating and severly broke his hip and had a hip replacement surgery that afternoon.

In conconclusion when asked what is the best thing about living in Canada compared to the U.S. my answer is always the health care sysetem
 
One thing you have to remember is there is no free lunch, we pay for our health care through higher income and sales taxes. Generally, our system is ok for the real emergencies but not so good for what are considerd elective, non emergent cases. We trade off not having to worry about insurance for a lack of choice in the kind of treatment we get. In my experience, it is easier to access the latest and greatest medical technology in the US than in Canada if you have good insurance. I live in Saskatchewan which was the first province to adopt socialized medicine and well remember the controversy surrounding its implemntation. Doctors actually went on strike in protest but forty years later there aren't many people that want to go back
 
Anyways as for watching this new Micheal Moore movie, not a chance, his twisting of facts in Bowling for Columbine was enough for me to never watch anything else of his again.
It's nice to see some common sense in action, Dimitri.
 
Frederick Harvie,

Ask an American DR, about dealing with Medicare/Medicade & see how happy he is with that system.

Then go ask a Veteran about the care at some Veteran hospitals.

The American Gov. can do very few things right in my opinion.

I live in Mass. as of 7/1 EVERYBODY is required by law to have health insurance, lets see how well this new system works!

I am glad your system works for you, but I don't think it would work here.

As for michael "Hanoi Jane" moore I he can go *** himself.

Jackmo
 
In my personal experience, having to go to the ER and having to wait for 4+ hours can be a pain in the butt. [Smile]
That's the common type of shabby treatment you get in the States! The worst case of food poisoning I ever had (both ends non-stop for over a day) I went to the emergency room at 1AM...by 4AM I signed that waiver of liability and left. In that 3 hours only like 2 people were admitted and there was like 7 in front of me, and this was a big hospital only 15 minutes outside of Boston.

One reason our system is so taxed is that every for-profit rinky-dink local hospital wants to have a cancer ward, rehabilitation centers and have a full staff of heart specialists and multiple MRI's. Too much going on under one roof, with specialists spread thin.
 
Appliedproto

Yeah, the "Health Care Arms Race" in the US does have quite a cost. Every 80 bed hospital in every remote small city has to feel like it's on par with large university-run teaching hospitals. And its like Lichtenstein needing a strategic nuclear missile submarine fleet.

You arrive for the new high-tech procedure on a machine they just installed and the docs and techs are in the back room trying to figure out how to hook the electrodes up to you. But you can bet that they have the billing for the procedure figured out!

Jim
 
One thing you have to remember is there is no free lunch, we pay for our health care through higher income and sales taxes.
Out of curiosity -- how much higher? I'm paying nearly $600 per month to insure my family (not myself, since I am covered by my employer) -- and every year the cost of deductibles, copays, drug copays, etc. keeps going up. IOW, I'm paying $7200 per year PLUS copays, etc., for a total of $9000 or more -- and that's without any significant illness/operation/etc. Add something like that in, and the copays will knock it up even higher. Are you folks in Canada paying more than what I'm paying?
 
Frederick Harvie,
Ask an American DR, about dealing with Medicare/Medicade & see how happy he is with that system.
I am sure the doctors do have some complaints from dealing with the health care bureaucracy but my point was that the patient is not exposed to this bureaucracy in the Canadian system. On the other hand I know several doctors including my Brother in law who have moved or considered moving to the U.S. from Canada . The usual reason is that they will they will make substantially more money in the U.S. . The biggest complaint of these doctors is the loss of treatment authority if they move to the U.S. Canadian doctors are used to ordering a test and not having a business office second guess there treatment recomondations. My brother in law decided he would much rather work in the Canadian system and make less money then surrender his authority. Two other doctors I have known well since we were in grade school both moved to the U.S. and lasted less then two years before they returned to Canada due the frustrations of dealing with the bureaucracy of HMOs and for profit medical insurance compaies.
 
Out of curiosity -- how much higher?
We pay an sales tax of 14percent on almost all purchases except food as well as an income tax that is a little higher then the U.S. To equal your $9000 in health care cost I would have to spend a little over $62000 taxed at 14 percent
 
Not sure what it is now. I do remember hearing over 30K but that was 10 years ago. I think it would vary with what they do and how many times they're been sued so far.


I'll put the actual #'s from my last pay check at a day job so you can see the average deductions. Note that they covered 100% of the health care plan costs, all I paid was $6.23 every 2 weeks for a plan "upgrade" that double the amount they'd pay out for injuries or something of that sort. It was a pretty good plan. Normal basic Health care plan for 1 person is around $200 a month I think, varies a bit. Our Canadian Health care plans are mostly to cover a certain part of dental, eyes, pay out on serious injuries, covers disability for a little while, part of cost on prescription pills etc. Some more elaborate plans will include massages and other little stuff I'm forgetting.

Here it is:
Gross (80hrs) $1388.(CND)
Deductions:
Gov Pension, $62.04
Federal Tax: $246.91
Employment insurance(gov thing): $24.98
Insurance(work) $6.23

Total deductions was $340.16

Then of course you have the 14% tax on most things, unless you're Native American. Then add property tax, school tax, bunch of other little things. Doesn't take long that %50 of your salary is gone. That is just for very middle earners. Goes up quite a lot if you make over 93K a year.

I don't know how it compares with what you have to pay in the USA. It does seem like you get hit pretty hard on Health Insurance. I'm really not sure who gets more for our dollar. We all pay either way.
 
What percentage of the canadian heath care
dollar winds up as profit in private insurance
companies?

In the US that number is about 1/3.

Jim
 








 
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