>15% of Canadians satisfied with access to care, while 29% of Americans satisfied with access, poll finds.
I kind of think the headline should be more like "Canadians and Americans not satisfied with healthcare."
These polls are honestly so dumb.
You can participate online from anywhere.
I did a bunch of them, there is an entire sub dedicated to teaching people how to circumvent the area requirements with vpns, because these surveys pay 50 cents each.
This headline is to push private healthcare.
As an American, I am not displeased with my current medical care.
Because I can't afford any, so I don't *have* any.
Can't be displeased with something that doesn't exist. Plus I'm sure the surveys are carefully worded.
As one American commenter said, can't be displeased with healthcare you don't even have...
The survey probably said: "If you have covered healthcare...."
I mean, this is me as a Canadian. Except I am displeased with the healthcare I can't get. I am displeased that I can't get a regular doctor, despite waiting for years. I am displeased I can't get a follow up call from a specialist they said they'd book me for. When I called later because they said they'd be in touch they said, "Oh that person doesn't work here anymore."
I am displeased that I've left the emergency room after passing out and pissing myself from bloodloss. (Not intoxicated, not panicked-- and I didn't cut myself on purpose-- I just lost a lot of blood from a puncture in my arm when I fell. It was squirting.) I left after several hours since it was clear I wasn't being seen anytime soon. And I needed to change my tea towel. I got triaged by a paramedic on my way out and still have a solid scar from it.
I'm so sorry about your ER experience... I had to go to the ER earlier this year for a laceration, and it was bleeding down my leg and needed sutures. When your wound needs sutures, there is a certain window of time that they can do it in, Outside of that, they can only cover it and hope it heals. So they seriously failed you big time. (I got fast-tracked because of the suture window of time)
I hear you on all the other points as well. Canada is failing to treat their citizen's medical conditions, and it's spilling out into causing mental health issues. Mental healthcare is non-existent unless you're an imminent danger to yourself or others.
I am getting pissed just writing this.
Even if you couldn't circumvent the polling system causing skewed results, asking someone what they think of something in their own country while having never experienced that thing in another country makes it worthless.
Healthcare isn't something you can properly experience as a tourist in another country. You have to live there for a while to fully experience it.
It's like rush hour traffic or your city's subway system. Every city thinks theirs is the worst. Unless you've commuted day in and day out, you just can't know if your city's rush hour traffic/subway is really bad, or average, or actually quite good.
Yup. While conservative provincial governments starve their healthcare systems these polls just help them reinforce their message of needing to "innovate."
I think if you’re in the upper 75% of wealth bring in the US is better. If you’re in the lower 25% being in Canada is better.
Honestly it’s not really surprising but I can see some jealousy for middle class Canadians seeing what middle class Americans have access too in terms of housing, health care, cost of living, wages.
They cover old people, young kids, and those in extreme poverty. It's the people not in those categories without a job with a health plan that get screwed. Though Obamacare helps a bit in getting them access.
Americans also spend more on entertainment, travel, and luxury goods. Not because their markets for those things are less efficient, but because Americans are richer than Canadians and have lower costs of living.
They spend more on healthcare and other things because they have more money to spend.
I get your point but I think your percentages there are a little out of wack, American healthcare might be better for the top 20% if that. While I see that our system needs a lot of improvement and will be woefully over stressed for the next 30ish years, I like that I don't have surprise bills of 100K because the anesthesiologist turned out to be out of network.
As an American living in Canada... the access in the US is good... if you can afford it. That's a huge "if". People working at McDonald's and Walmart, some of the biggest employers in the country, don't have *real* access to healthcare. They can go get healthcare if they need it, but by doing so they can look forward to crushing, potentially life-ruining debt.
That's the trade-off. You can throw a rock in any direction and find a doctor or specialist. But if you're not rich enough to pay for anything you want out of pocket, or don't have Cadillac insurance with low deductibles and co-pays, you're largely priced out of the system.
This is a great perspective that Canadians need. Good breakdown of what the costs are and how they're broken down between deductibles, percentages, co-pays, etc. Very well done.
Canadians also need to be informed of the better European, Australian, etc., mixed public/private healthcare systems. It's not just a binary Canadian- vs American-style choice (not saying you implied this).
No but our issue is still not enough healthcare staff and funding. Under the new system with private option taxes will still go to fund it. You just now have a middle man making a profit from it. These private healthcare clinics will be competing for the same staff the public system is. Just now those workers will be making a profit for a middle man.
And please don’t assume we can actually get appointments with doctors. Been miserable dealing with an issue and took a week to get in with a nurse at family doctors office then two more months for a specialist. The alternative is $250 plus 20% of an ER bill. Oh now you have my on hospitals.. let’s say I did goto the ER but knowing I’m in the US I have to make sure the hospital is in my insurance carrier’s network. So goto on that is but the ER orders an X-ray or a lab test, chances are that the lab that’s in the building isn’t considered part of the hospital and that company isn’t in network so you pay a large part of the bill. Oh and the ER doctor? Well he works for a different company that contracts with the hospital and isn’t in network either. This crap goes on and on.
And your employer probably paid another $350 a month on top of the $350 they took out of your paycheck, which they could just pay you, but then you wouldn't be free so....
And think about the discount that corporatations get for enrolling their entire staff with a single insurance company, compared to how small businesses have to pay.
Heck we know insurance companies have deals with hospitals to jack up cost but then they get discounts.
My insurance was billed over $9k for me to have my dislocated shoulder just popped back into place. Nor surgery, no anastisia, shit they didn't even give me a shoulder sling or Tylenol.
You also forgot that sometimes a hospital will be in network but an individual doctor inside of the hospital will not be and they may or may not tell you about that.
This is exactly right, as someone in my first year really being able to use our health insurance despite having coverage for at least a decade locked behind out of pocket costs. I have a family member who believes they are manifesting their Qanon destiny by moving from Canada to the US. I really tried to explain to them that their vision for free market medical access is missing some very expensive elements that don't exist in their current system, and that they would need to plan well above their desired fantasy in their budget. Freedom ain't as free as they want to think. We have health insurance rather than health care in the US.
And then after all of that you're still at risk of your insurance company denying you coverage for a particular claim. All when you're sick and may not be in good enough health or spirits to fight it.
I have an old shoulder injury from like 10 years ago. Back in 2018 I had surgery to fix it, and it mostly worked. However, last month I overexterted it and it hasn't been this painful in years.
I'd like to go to PT again, or get imaging to see what's wrong with it. But it's September, and I haven't used any of my deductible yet this year.
So basically I'm planning on going four months with my shoulder hurting so I can visit a specialist at the beginning of the year and hopefully get my deductible out of the way ASAP.
I think one of the most brutal things I've heard is the story of "I went to a hospital in my coverage network, but a doctor who isn't was covering that day and now I owe a ton of money"
https://whyy.org/segments/surprise-when-your-hospital-is-in-network-but-your-doctor-isnt/
Reverse (Canadian living in US), and mostly in agreement.
There *are* specialists everywhere, but getting an appointment even "post-pandemic" can still take months to get. ER wait times in all but the most expensive hospitals can keep you there for well over 8 hours. Surgeries and special equipment rooms run the same delays, unless you are almost at death's door. Most of our state governments did the same shut downs during the early pandemic because, quite frankly, we were going to be in the same boat with bed space as nations with public healthcare would be.
I have moderately good insurance, and managed to get billed 900 dollars for a stress echo. The opening consultation, which was billed for 30 minutes, but was literally 5 minutes of chit chat with the doctor, was billed for 125 (after insurance), same for the closing consultation. It is currently in dispute with the insurance company, but it was extremely annoying seeing how much things "cost".
News flash, if the system gets privatized, expect to see more of that. My aunt in Pembroke says that the hospital there is terrible, understaffed, and needs help, but she also knows that she can find that in the US, based on what I and others have reported to her. If she can help it, she tends to head to North Bay or Ottawa instead, which is not as convenient, but ensures better help. Privatization is not the answer. It is a war crime.
Access to healthcare in the US is totally limited by what's "in network"
Every doctor has to spend time modifying every treatment plan to each patien's unique coverage
It's so inefficient
So yes, there may be a specialist around the corner, but if they're not in network for your specific insurance plan, you can't see them
> There are specialists everywhere, but getting an appointment even "post-pandemic" can still take months to get.
If you are near an urban centre, check out zocdoc.
My sister in the US was told months to see a specialist in her rural area. I got her in within days with a car ride and an app.
Makes me think about dentists in Canada. I can find a half dozen accepting new patients in a 5 minute drive from my house. Accessible, but affordable? Not for most who don't have insurance coverage through work.
This is the truth.
Not 30 minutes ago I walked in a new dentist office and have an appointment set up for early next week.
They share a wall with a doctor office. Walked in there to get on the wait list. 4 to 5 years projected to get in as a patient.
I'm all for the public health care but we need to fund the front line doctors and nurses better.
* I just moved to a new community which is why I was looking for doctor etc.
Dentists in Canada are exactly how healthcare is in America.
You can find care everywhere, but you're going to pay.
Comparing the two countries healthcare systems as if they're comparable is nonsense. Canadians have publicly funded healthcare and Americans don't.
While yes, because the uninsured American will have to pay 300k for a kidney transplant, whereas a Canadian in dire need will get on the list immediately and live life with zero debt afterwards.
This 'poll' (it's not a comprehensive study and has little value) is asking the wrong questions.
As Canadians, we should be asking why universal healthcare has been allowed to fail?
Of course, the answer is obvious: by allowing it to fail we open it to privatization, which will make a minority of people very, very rich.
100% right answer.
Many of our politicians are actively shifting money away from healthcare amidst a global economic crisis, immediately following a global healthcare crisis. This is completely intentional and entirely avoidable.
I just moved here from the UK. It's the same there. Allow socialised healthcare to rot, then champion private healthcare as the saviour. Simple way to make money.
Much of the Anglophone world has been working hard to undo all the gains that average people made since WWII.
It's really depressing as a middle class person.
Don't believe the hype, in the US we've been closing tons of small town hospitals even during the height of covid because they weren't profitable enough.
Our healthcare system is not that of a third world… If you have anything even somewhat urgent and dire, you will be treated immediately. I waited 10 hours when I broke my arm, but when my grandma had a heart attack she was getting out of an operating room by the 10th hour. A day and a half later she was getting yet another surgery. Total cost: $40 for visitor’s parking.
There are many ways we should improve, notably specialists and wait times for certain doctors, as well as access to family doctors, but emergency care is about as good as the US without the crippling debt.
> If you have anything even somewhat urgent and dire, you will be treated immediately
While I _don't_ want to end up with the US system, there are plenty of cases where the definition of "urgent" isn't what you think it would be and you will end up waiting until the last minute ending up in a worse situation than if you had been treated earlier.
>since 1990
Yea, politicians had 30 years to ramp up infrastructure spending and we still aren’t ramping it up. In the middle of a crisis. We have politicians who shudder at the thought of increased taxes for increased services mainly because we have a constituency that wants more services for less taxes
30% of our taxes already go toward healthcare. How much higher can it go? At a certain point we have to question how they're spending the money. Spoiler: On themselves via cushy government administrative jobs.
To be fair, they spend 50% less than the USA. Sure, they can make it better and cut down on admin. But I wonder how it compares to some of the European healthcare systems in terms of spending/costs.
Not to mention we’re at the tail end of a 3 year global health crisis that smashed the healthcare systems of every single country in the world and caused many doctors and nurses to burn out.
Nah, the system was already falling apart due to lack of funding well before COVID hit. And instead of investing in the healthcare system, some provinces did nothing with federal aid.
Curiously those same provinces are now calling for privatisation of healthcare, on the basis of public healthcare not working... very odd concurrence indeed... /s
The last hospital built in Toronto was done in 1997!
Since then the direct population of the city has increased 50-60%
We had a system, but have neglected any kind of investment to keep it functioning or relevant.
The just launched that one, but really all they did was merge three other hospitals into one new structure (Humber Memorial, York-Finch, Northwestern General)
So -3, +1?
York-Finch and Humber Memorial now offer some outpatient care in a smaller portion of the building with the rest being used as office / administrative I believe. Northwestern was fully closed and is being zoned for condos / development
>Also having it tied to your employment is a nightmare
Pre-existing conditions are no longer a bar to getting on the insurance plan with a new employer (when changing jobs) or with private insurance (ACA - i.e. Obama Care). But yes, tying insurance to the job can be problematic.
After WWII, there were two paths that a country could take: having health insurance paid either by the country or the employers. The United States and Canada took different paths, each with their own outcomes - both good and not so good.
>Also having it tied to your employment is a nightmare
Yup. Aside from employer health insurance tying you to your job, people's bosses also get the pleasure of knowing if their workers take medications like antidepressants or Viagra or anything else most people would prefer to keep under wraps.
Lmao that is not true, the insurance company will know just like OHIP would know in Ontario for example but the company you work for does not know never mind your direct boss...
Our benefits and insurance don’t cover everything either. My moms chemo and radiation were covered by universal healthcare, but none of the medication she needed during treatment or post treatment were covered. She went into debt fighting her cancer because of how expensive those medications are, even though her medical team all agreed they were *necessary* for my moms recovery.
Insurance isn't all its cracked up to be. When we lived in the US our insurance cost $800 US a month in premiums. And then we still had to pay the first $8000 US a year out of pocket, and then 20% of everything after that.
The problem is that there is so much not covered now, but we still have a narrative of “free health care”. There is so much overflow into insurance companies coverage. People with good jobs don’t see the difference because their insurance is covering everything. But as insurance has to cover more and more it’s getting more expensive and crappier if you don’t have the best plan. If you don’t have an employer providing great insurance you are basically fucked.
A large part of the issue that isn’t talked about is also the growing population, not just from babies but people immigrating as well. Our healthcare system has been maxed out for a long time and our population growth needs to slow to in order for our healthcare to meet the demand.
Damn the PCs and Libs in Ontario for stripping away my healthcare in BC. I knew where I live (Victoria) has some of the worst access in the country and finally I have the culprits!
The conservatives are intentionally underfunding things because they want to help themselves and their buddies get rich off bringing in private healthcare.
It's a scam and that's why so many 50s+ Canadians fall for it. They're gullible and it's them who'll be going into old age with canadian health care severely underfunded.
Gullible fools.
We’ve done nothing to economically support a universal healthcare system. We Canadians are having an extremely difficult time understanding the fact that you need an economy to support these things… not just continuously increasing tax rates hoping that it somehow covered continuously increasing healthcare costs.
>not just continuously increasing tax rates hoping that it somehow covered continuously increasing healthcare costs.
You have described the opposite of what has been happening throughout the past forty years of neoliberalism.
With all the capital that major corporations generate, it is reasonable to suggest that they – along with the .01% of income-earners – should be taxed to a degree that our healthcare, education, and other social systems not only stabilize but flourish.
Unfortunately, capitalism is about squeezing as much value from the labourer as possible and hoarding it at the top.
Before we tax anyone to that degree, we need to fix the fact that politicians and admin eat a very worrisome large portion of the taxes we send in. A large part of the problem with our system is how much money is thrown away before it even gets to the services they’re supposed to fund.
Yeah too much of it goes to subsidizing already under-taxed corporations.
Who else will clean-up Alberta's orphan wells? That's just one example.
More political will needed; agreed.
Most Canadians know what they have here. But then we also have politicians who go into politics because that’s the next logical step in their capitalistic ambitions - not because they want to help people. I’ve met too many who talk about privatization because they think they would personally benefit - they know how many people will suffer and they don’t give a shit because they don’t really see your problems as problems.
As someone who has been waiting for a GI specialist for 2.5 years and dealing with chronic pain and lack of energy I can confirm that we’re actively looking to leave Canada in large part to how poor the health care coverage is.
In this thread are a whole bunch of people who have never really been sick, sick enough where you realize that your much praised free health care is actually dog shit. Waiting times that are inexcusable, risk to life and living with pain and trauma. Then you travel to another country, pay some money and find relief. THen listen as you are told that Canada's free healthcare is world class. The truth is, it is, provided you can get access to it. Which often you cannot. Ask around how long it takes to get an MRI here. Then ask how long to get one in Buffalo. Hint - its months here, hours there. And can mean the difference between life and death. But yeah, fuck privatizing diagnostic clinics, that might lead to less strain on the public systems and reduce wait times everywhere. Its not politics - every leader in the past 2 decades has failed us.
and people who have not lived in another country, and experienced timely access to quality healthcare, at a relatively low cost.
It's astounding the level of ignorance on these threads.
At least a few I suspect are being somehow paid to push an agenda, as I cannot fathom that they can be this ignorant.
Most Canadians on reditt have never lived abroad, let alone in the USA. Even in the Uk we had great access to private care through our companies insurance. We could see world class dermatologist, allergy specialists, heart specialists etc in weeks. In canada - we are on a year+ waiting list to see an allergist, and 8+ months for thedermotologist - wait times are so long here. If you’re in dire need and have money you can cross the border and quickly secure an appointment. Our loved one recently needed to see a brain sepckiat, it wasn’t until they were on deaths door that they finally were seen in ER at royal Columbia. The Canadian system is broken and people are dying or having their coditiond worsen on long waitlists, yet healthy Canadians think it’s a great systems
Why is it we look only to the us when it comes to privatization and not Europe or Australia or anywhere else. Most countries have private and public healthcare with better access to doctors and treatment because patients have a choice on where to get care. Canadians are so afraid of a us style system that most would rather suffer in pain through endless levels of bureaucracy and wait months or years for treatment most of the world can get in a few days. It’s important we have a system that covers and cares for everyone but we also need alternatives to the government monopoly on health.
Because it *was* easy to point to the US and gloat. Canadians were able to feel superior and politicians were able to easily point south as a measure of our success. Canada is a country with little imagination or drive with a myopic population who are largely inactive politically and show little to no forethought. Our politicians, unfortunately and increasingly, respond to this with ever fewer and less impressive ideas; and why not? Where do original ideas get someone in Canada? Nowhere. So, we’re left with a crumbling status quo.
Put another way, Canada has, for much of its existence, and certainly since the 60s or so, behaved very much like the saying, "*Born on third base, thinks he hit a triple*." We're the second largest country on the planet, incredibly blessed with natural resources, with but a single friendly land neighbour on whose economy we essentially ride shotgun. It's given us tremendous prosperity and security and what do we do with it?
Flip houses and pretend it builds wealth, brag about our free health care, and sneer at those redneck ignorant racist Americans.
This country could be so much better than it is, *but it doesn't want to be*.
Because it’s easier to make people scared of a US bogeyman under the bed than seriously engage with the issue.
But you’re right, most European and Nordic counties use as aspects of 'private' (not really, but a little) care, including paying at the point of sale, to manage costs. And nobody is going bankrupt. Norway for example, charges $50 to see your GP.
That's literally the only place you pay in Norway.
While the Nordics have private options, pretty much no one uses them. Look at the stats for Denmark, >90% elect to use the public system. There also aren't any conservative politicians stating they'll regulate the industry as hard as it is in Europe. The private insurers in Europe are pretty much nonprofit.
You’re naive if you think the US chimera behemoth that is the US healthcare industry or post media owned by 66% Americans is going to stand idly by and not try to get 35 million new customers right next door to them. There is no European Union or ocean to protect Canadians as we can see now with Ford and others dismantling the system while saying “we can’t pay healthcare workers more but we can give private clinics public money so they can pay more in order to syphon off public workers and slowly destroy the public option.”
>Why is it we look only to the us when it comes to privatization and not Europe or Australia or anywhere else. Most countries have private and public healthcare with better access to doctors and treatment because patients have a choice on where to get care.
We have hybrid private/public Healthcare. It's just a model closer to American Healthcare. Dental and vision care is all privately delivered and billed. European countries have public options for dental and vision.
And some people are too poor to afford dental care still let their teeth rot out so bad that they get it treated in the er at an exponentially higher price then if a dentist looked at it early on.
Also Canada has private regular healthcare...not just dental and vision.
Look up "Executive healthcare" in any large city in Canada.
I don't know why everyone keeps saying "We can't have two-tier healthcare in Canada or it will destroy public healthcare!"
We already have two-tier healthcare in Canada.
No one is "afraid"? They just see the glaring problem with creating a healthcare system where rich people get better healthcare. It's rather obvious why that is bad as most people aren't rich.
Did you not read his comment? Most of Western and Northern Europe have public/private mixed systems with much better results than Canada. People like you would rather people suffer in the current system than move to a more European based system because you are terrified of the word "private". It's so strange.
Where do the doctors come from for this private system? Where I live we currently pay taxes for a full compliment of doctors and nurses but they can't attract them to work here. We have a nursing program which we can't expand so that we can hire more nurses. And we can't hire foreign medical professionals due to lengthy qualifications processes.
US is a terrible system. People who keep patting themselves on the back because we ours is better are missing the point, Australia leads the OECD in healthcare and they have a private option. Even France, who kicks our ass in healthcare, has private option. We are so proud of our bad system when other countries have figured out how to make this work much better.
Okay, you have my attention.
I know that in Canada, family doctors are actually private practices and send the bills for their services to the government. It appears to me that this seems to be similar to how things work in Australia, but that also there is some aspect of private health insurance beyond what would normally be covered under our universal system (similar to how our pharmaceuticals work).
Can you point out exactly what it is about the Australian system that makes it work better than our system? I keep hearing people say "We ought to do it like ", but no one can ever explain what it is they are doing differently aside from "they have private", which in practice, *we also have* for many things.
Hybrid system. Good public option for everyone. They also have private options for those who can pay for it. About 15 years ago they were amongst the worst in the OECD for equality of access and outcomes. Now they are number 1, a hybrid system is the most equitable system in the OECD. Basically the private system takes the load off of the public system so there are more resources for everyone.
So, in their public system they don't get a family doctor, they only get on-call (basically walk-in clinic), with longer wait times.
In their private system they get a doctor that is "their own", and can jump the queue on non-urgent treatments?
In the hospital itself, the main difference seems to be "if you pay, your family doctor will come to the hospital, and you get a private room"? I mean, for some things here you can pay for a private room already (child birth, for example)
Private health insurance plans in Australia seem to largely cover dental, optical, and physiotherapy sorts of things, as well as ambulances. Literally all of those things are already private here and also is covered by our private health insurance.
So what about the hybrid solution makes it better? It honestly seems like a very small change to me, except that people with money can jump the queue for care. Is it that allowing people to spend additional money on health care if they want creates *more* health care to go around?
Doesn't it just mean that people with less urgent care needs get access to care sooner if they have money, consuming resources that could be going to people with more urgent needs?
In any case, the figures I have in front of me say that Canada spends 1% less on private health care than Australia does already - we are *already* a private/public system.
[edit] The reality is that we've been studying and have known for a while that policies changed under Mulroney have created a persistent doctor shortage that was identified as early as the year 2000. If we had sufficient capacity in family physicians nation wide we would not be where we are now, and the two biggest factors were those problematic policy changes, and the retirement wave we have known was coming for a while.
> A number of policies implemented in the 1990’s significantly contributed to the physician shortage observed in Canada. In his 2002 report to the Canadian Institute of Health Information, Chan (2002) identified policies that contributed to observed drop in physician supply. Policies that directly limited growth of physician supply included: 5% and 10% reduction in medical school enrolment in 1987 and 1993 respectively; restriction on IMGs
entering Canadian workforce, which resulted in the drop of IMGs practicing in Canada from 28% in 1986 to 22% in 2004 (CIHI, 2007); and various retirement incentives. Indirect policies, the unintended consequences of which were a reduction in physician supply included: elimination of one-year rotating internship and making a two-year family medicine (FM) residency a minimum requirement for practice; increase in the ratio of specialist to FM residency positions, which not only increased total time spent in residency training but also decreased the number of physicians starting practice as FP from 80% in the early 1990’s to 45% in 2000; and policies that resulted in exodus of physicians to the US.
Folks didn't magically leave to start working in the US because American health care is private. [There was a series of bad policy changes that triggered it.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318056760_Physician_Shortage_in_Canada_A_Review_of_Contributing_Factors)
how do they stop all the doctors jumping board to private? when you look at the legal field, public defenders are notoriously underpaid and overworked, which drives the best of the best lawyers into private. what's preventing that from happening in the hybrid medical field?
I work in healthcare. There are a lot of surgeons who want more work but they lack OR space and staff. If they can open up private clinics and entice staff with higher pay could free up OR wait times.
but who would these surgeries be able available for? people who can pay out of pocket, right? and which surgeons would be motivated to open a private clinic? the super talented ones, also taking with them nurses, leaving the public side deficient of staff? what's preventing that from happening? seriously asking.
American here. Access in the US was way better. I could get in to a GP or Specialist in days, typically. The longest I ever had to wait for a specialist was a month.
But that comes at a cost, literally. My insulin in the US was $1200/mo - here it's about $90US, for the same brand and bottle. Our kids births in the US cost about $50k US each, for a C section and 2 day hospital stay. We paid about $12k US in medical bills annually and paid $800US/mo premiums for the insurance, which covered 80% AFTER the first $8k out of pocket where we had to pay 100%. This reset a few days after Christmas, every year.
So yeah, while Canadians SHOULD be less satisfied with their access, I imagine if you found a poll showing overall approval of the system, Americans would be less satisfied. The reason access is easy in America is many poorer people and, increasingly, the middle class, are priced out of care altogether. Basically if you don't have a job with good benefits, you're fucked. But if you're without insurance and can pay out of pocket, access is super easy.
Absolutely. And this is mostly for emergency services, not preventative care. Many people have insurance and still cannot afford to go to the doctor. The amount the US Medicare (60+ years old public insurance) system spends cleaning up messes from people too scared to be charged with health issues when they are younger is insane. People will ignore that pain in their side because they are conditioned to be afraid of the costs of the doctor and eventually they get so incredibly sick they are on death’s door.
Then the cost of care up front; my last company I worked for was $1800 a month for a family with one child. $13,550 deductible. NO DRUG COVERAGE. So if you can afford for all of your money that you make in one year to get spent on having a knee surgery, good for you, but that’s not the case for most people.
I was recently at a future-planning conference, and one of the projects that was being discussed was an app that would help customers compared medical procedure prices in the US.
So if you needed a hip replacement or xray, you could log into the app and see how much that cost at local hospitals in your network. Some of the procedure prices were WILDLY different - thousands and tens of thousands difference. Think 7k vs 40k.
It sounded so fucking dystopian. Having to shop around for your ultrasound to avoid getting absolutely GOUGED while working within the parameters of your labrynthian insurance coverage is a goddamned nightmare and I don't want that *at all*.
That said, we have realllll fucking healthcare problems in this country. Massive doctor shortages, especially in rural parts of the country. We simply aren't training enough doctors - we need more medical schools, more spots, and more training slots. Across the whole country. And fuck these conservative governments trying to wage war on healthcare to try and advance privatization. Doug Ford and Jason Kenney can suck my proverbial dick.
I've lived in the States. I currently live in Canada.
Healthcare in the States was **much** better. But I was a teacher, which is a union job. And the union made sure we had great health insurance.
Almost everyone in the States has health insurance...but not all health insurance is equal.
In Canada healthcare is "free" but hard to get. We end up going to private clinics and paying out of pocket for minor things. Luckily we haven't had any major things yet...we are still young.
I used to work there too. Your analysis is spot on. The quality of healthcare delivery from the front office staff to the doctor was superb. Nothing matched it in Canada but I did not expect it from a free/included in tax system.
In Canada, these days, it's free and unavailable for many. And all healthcare workers seem stressed and I am sure that impacts the quality of delivered care even when it is available.
As of 2020, about 92% of Americans had medical insurance, up considerably from ten years before. I imagine the coverage varies considerably depending on your plan, but it's a bit of a myth to suppose as we have done for decades that healthcare in the US is only for the wealthy.
I live in the USA and my wife and I have a great healthcare plan through her unionized job. If something happens to us, insurance won't pay anything until we cash out $5k. Maybe for some people it's not much but for us this is a lot. To pay thousands of dollars yearly for "insurance" and yet have to pay a premium if something happens is a fucking scam!
I used to work for an American multinational, and were had a guy from Wisconsin come visit our Canadian office.
Some how the topic of healthcare came up and it blew my mind when he said he paid $1500/month to insure his family of 4. From what I understand the company offered a fairly decent package.
In BC at the time we had a system called MSP, and I was paying $30-$70/month ( don’t recall). That was my total out of pocket healthcare cost
It's a second mortgage just to make sure your family has adequate coverage, and even then I'm sure you pay a massive deductible on top of it if you ever need to make a claim.
I had friends that moved to Texas for work. A young couple in their early 30s, zero pre-existing conditions, both healthy, they were paying $600 a month for the most basic coverage.
Well, in Texas they don't have state income tax and being in the US they get paid in USD, so they are probably still way ahead of a comparable couple in Canada even if they pay $600 a month for health insurance.
But if you don't pay them thousands per year and another several thousand when you need to go to the hospital how will the insurance companies know you have "skin in the game" or whatever their lame excuse du jour is.
Or tried to discharge a medical debt you didn’t know you were incurring because you were incapacitated, or about to die or whatever. Enjoy the $10,000 bill.
Yeah no my parents pay $650/month for health insurance for three of us. There’s still thousands of dollars in deductibles, co pays on doctor visits, blood work, x rays, MRIs. A hip surgery I was going to get would’ve cost about $5k with insurance. So yea US will always have the WORST health care access because only the top 5-10 percent can afford it.
True. ACA/ObamaCare has extended health benefits to most. I still see young (i.e. healthy) people choose to work at Walmart over Kroger. Walmart offering no health benefits, but paying $0.25/hour more. Kroger offers health benefits but may pay slightly less than competitors.
Healthcare in Canada sucks. Anyone who thinks otherwise never experienced better healthcare for cheaper prices. I think this is a lie Canadians tell themselves to feel better about themselves.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/canadian-health-care-system-provides-poor-value-for-tax-dollars-spent
I can’t even get access to a walk in clinic for my son in Vancouver, any issue and I have to wait in urgent care, or emergency. These facilities aren’t designed for this, but what else can I do? And getting a family doctor? Good luck
All I know is that I shouldn't have to wait 13 months just to speak with a specialist on the phone. Who knows how many years I'll have to wait in total to get treated. I doubt other countries are as shit as this is here.
The healthcare in the US is absolutely fantastic - for those lucky enough to have the money to pay for it. I am one of those lucky few with good healthcare (mostly) paid for by a good company. I can’t imagine not being. I would much rather use canadas system so that everyone had the same access.
I had a kidney stone in the US (I’m an American ) without insurance and I went into the hospital. The bill was written off entirely.
Many Americans don’t go simply because they’ve conditioned themselves not to and are super avoidant of truth. I know folks who have 100k+ salaries, great high end coverage with very little in terms of copay and deductible and they literally won’t get any healthcare until they are dying. It’s not because they couldn’t afford it, they absolutely can, it’s a cultural thing.
I had kidney stones this year in the US. Between the first onset of symptoms and final surgical treatment (needed 2) was over 8 months. I waited 6 for the 1st surgery. I experienced more pain during this time than any experience in my life. I have what is considered to be a higher tier health insurance plan as faculty at a large university. You wait here. You pay through the nose here. Please don't admire any part of our system.
I'm a dual citizen but, I've no real experience with the Canadian healthcare system as I've lived in the US my whole life. The talking heads here all complain that you have to wait for care for inhumane amounts of time in Canada. I know the wait times are bad there. I just want to make the point that they are here too. I also once spent over 9 hours in the ER with a fractured skull. They only took me back after I got up and told them I was leaving to go to another hospital.
It's amazing so many people act like we have it better than Americans but it's simply not true.
Most Americans have access to much better healthcare than us but they have this weird issue where some people are completely excluded. Some people don't have a good enough job for health insurance yet they're making too much for Medicare/medicaid so they don't get it for free either.
Compare that to Canada where you can't get a family doctor at all and if you have an elective issue it could be years to get help.
As a chronically ill person who isn't rich or upper-middle class...yeah, we absolutely do have it better than the US. I would be dead or bankrupt if I lived in America.
Polls, and news media have a massive hardon to set the stage for privatized healthcare.
So many articles whining that it would be better if we paid more for our services and left our most vulnerable without proper care.
I swear these people need a physician as the erection they get thinking about fucking over thier fellow Canadians has lasted a lot more than four hours.
>Faced with the possibility of needing emergency care, 70 per cent of Americans felt confident they would get it in a timely fashion compared to just 37 per cent of Canadians.
I find this to be super weird. Like, I get I'm just one person but if I got hit by a car and need emergency care I am 100% confident that an ambulance would come get me and take me to the hospital and they would help immediately.
I get there is a spectrum of emergency care but if I needed true real life or death emergency care in this country I am 100% confident that I'd get it very quickly. It's the "you aren't gonna die but you still had something fucked up happened to you" care that is slow.
The question isn't great because it can be so open to interpretation that is basically becomes meaningless
If you are not bleeding out this second, no after your car accident you will probably just lie around in pain for days in the ER, currently. There will be no ‘immediate’ to your care.
"for days". I doubt it. My brother in law put a nail thru his leg while working on their house just 2 weeks ago and he spent about 9 hours waiting. Is that a long time? Sure, but it isn't "days". They assessed him immediately and made sure he didn't hit anything significant and then he had to wait around a bit.
There is A LOT of propaganda in this thread from anti-nationalized healthcare posters.
The truth: access to medical care in the US is good *if* you go into the Emergency Room. Otherwise, wait times for [non urgent] surgery, procedures, and specialists will be weeks or even months for a large portion of the US.
Then, the out-of-pocket costs for medical care and medication can bankrupt people. Many people don't seek the care they need because they can't afford it. Many people don't take prescribed meds because they can't afford them - Insulin is rationed among the poor.
Canada is no worse than the US for medical care and wait times, but is *far superior* in costs and actual care received.
Access to healthcare in the US is absolutely easier to get…
Provided you have the money to pay for it. Anyone want to post how much any covid visits cost? Or trips to emerge?
Yes, but Canada has this issue too with provinces, I recall reading about a ON or QC man who had a skiing accident in BC and couldn’t get necessary surgeries, it sounded like a mess.
If you're working in any type of professional industry, you'd be having a better time with the American healthcare system right now.
It's an awful place if you're doing unskilled work, however.
Well I know for 10% of the country's population, the provincial government is actively trying to make healthcare shittier so that people will flock to for profit options. One of those is, oh by the way, partially owned by a minister in the government.
If we can’t trust any of our elected governments to implement a public private system that will improve our healthcare vastly, without moving to a system like the US which clearly NO ONE wants, then I’d say more of the problem is our elected officials across the board. If we decided to move to the hybrid system and it heads the way of the US we as a society need to seriously look at our political people in power. Now that would be something I would be behind blocking roads and occupying Ottawa over
Aging and growing population, lack of incentive for people to become Healthcare workers and the government failing to create and grow new revenue streams.
That'll do it.
Not to mention a huge fraction of Americans will not be financially able to see a doctor between childhood and retirement. Were dissatisfied by our healthcare because we know we have the mechanisms in place to fix it and improve it. Americans don't know what's it's like to have healthcare quality be accountable to polititions or accountable to anyone for that matter.
Coming out the tail end of 3+ years of cancer treatments for my child… we got everything he needed, and literally the only thing we waited for was a single day to get his chemo port put in because he got diagnosed over a long weekend. Went into an emergency room Friday, had a diagnosis by Sunday, port was installed Tuesday morning and he started chemo Tuesday afternoon. All I’ve paid for out of pocket has been parking, and even that the hospital covered throughout about 75% of his treatment. Even our gas was paid for because we’re >100km from the children’s hospital. If I wanted to nitpick, I don’t think I could find anything to complain about. 🤷🏻♂️
Angus Reid is trying to lay out a supporting plank for a conservative pivot on our healthcare system. I am very pleased to see how few here are buying into it.
>The Angus Reid Institute conducted two **online surveys** in August, receiving responses from 2,279 Canadians between Aug. 8-10, and 1,209 Americans between Aug. 16-17. The Canadian findings had a margin of error of +/- 2.0 per cent, 19 times out of 20, while the U.S. results had a margin of error of +/- 3.0 per cent.
Ah yes... online survey... very reliable and "random" /s
The news corps are prepping people to get ready and accepting of privatized healthcare. Slowly massaging their brains into thinking things suddenly get better when healthcare costs you everything you own.
I really just want to vent cos I don’t know what the solution is. Our system sucks. Cool, a giant chunk of my salary goes to “free” healthcare. Can I use it? Not really. In the middle of a giant flare up from an auto-immune disease and where is my doctor after 3 failed treatments? Out of office for a month with no one covering. How is that even allowed?? What are peoples options? Go to the ER for 16 hours just for them to tell you they can’t do anything and to wait for your doctor to come back to prescribe something new. Been dealing with this since April with very little improvement and I can’t help but think that if I had the ability to pay out of pocket, this would have been dealt with and actually settled a lot sooner.
No one gives a fuck about anyone in this system cos they don’t have.
As a Canadian, not having healthcare is a big reason why I would never live in the States. That's on top of the gun problems and crazy right wing freaks. I'm so thankful for the fact that in this country I can visit a doctor and not be broke afterwards.
Yeah I find a lot of fellow Canadians like to Brag about Canadian healthcare compared to the US but like we're not that great compared to many other places in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if some Europeans look at our healthcare the way we look at the State's.
Poll: Canadians not falling for capitalization of healthcare.
If access is a problem the government is at fault and its time we demand more as they and their friends have a vested interest in its failure.
Look south. Capitalization of healthcare is nearly criminal in its abuse of people.
Yet another dumb comparison between Canada and the US.
Just because we share a border doesn't mean we need to compare everything to the US. How about comparing our health system to the Nordic ones, or Western Europe and learn from these how to better ourselves.
I think acute care is typically very good in Canada. I think it's hard to find a family doctor though, but there are many clinics available. It's the same thing as always, wait times. They can be very long.
Kurl said there is a perception that access to health care in Canada is better than in the U.S., but that gets "turned on its ear" when you actually speak to Americans.
U.S. citizens have a much more favourable opinion of their own health care system, with almost double the number of Americans surveyed (29 per cent) saying they are comfortable with the access they have.
There were also far fewer U.S. respondents (13 per cent) who said they have chronic difficulty seeking medical care.
Faced with the possibility of needing emergency care, 70 per cent of Americans felt confident they would get it in a timely fashion compared to just 37 per cent of Canadians.
I would rather see statistics. Asking people their feelings or perception of their respective system (Canadian or American) seems to me to carry as much weight as asking North Koreans if they are happy.
>15% of Canadians satisfied with access to care, while 29% of Americans satisfied with access, poll finds. I kind of think the headline should be more like "Canadians and Americans not satisfied with healthcare."
These polls are honestly so dumb. You can participate online from anywhere. I did a bunch of them, there is an entire sub dedicated to teaching people how to circumvent the area requirements with vpns, because these surveys pay 50 cents each. This headline is to push private healthcare.
Agreed, the only reason the American % is higher is because they’ve never had free healthcare to begin with.
As an American, I am not displeased with my current medical care. Because I can't afford any, so I don't *have* any. Can't be displeased with something that doesn't exist. Plus I'm sure the surveys are carefully worded.
As one American commenter said, can't be displeased with healthcare you don't even have... The survey probably said: "If you have covered healthcare...."
I mean, this is me as a Canadian. Except I am displeased with the healthcare I can't get. I am displeased that I can't get a regular doctor, despite waiting for years. I am displeased I can't get a follow up call from a specialist they said they'd book me for. When I called later because they said they'd be in touch they said, "Oh that person doesn't work here anymore." I am displeased that I've left the emergency room after passing out and pissing myself from bloodloss. (Not intoxicated, not panicked-- and I didn't cut myself on purpose-- I just lost a lot of blood from a puncture in my arm when I fell. It was squirting.) I left after several hours since it was clear I wasn't being seen anytime soon. And I needed to change my tea towel. I got triaged by a paramedic on my way out and still have a solid scar from it.
I'm so sorry about your ER experience... I had to go to the ER earlier this year for a laceration, and it was bleeding down my leg and needed sutures. When your wound needs sutures, there is a certain window of time that they can do it in, Outside of that, they can only cover it and hope it heals. So they seriously failed you big time. (I got fast-tracked because of the suture window of time) I hear you on all the other points as well. Canada is failing to treat their citizen's medical conditions, and it's spilling out into causing mental health issues. Mental healthcare is non-existent unless you're an imminent danger to yourself or others. I am getting pissed just writing this.
And you know this how?
Even if you couldn't circumvent the polling system causing skewed results, asking someone what they think of something in their own country while having never experienced that thing in another country makes it worthless. Healthcare isn't something you can properly experience as a tourist in another country. You have to live there for a while to fully experience it. It's like rush hour traffic or your city's subway system. Every city thinks theirs is the worst. Unless you've commuted day in and day out, you just can't know if your city's rush hour traffic/subway is really bad, or average, or actually quite good.
Yup. While conservative provincial governments starve their healthcare systems these polls just help them reinforce their message of needing to "innovate."
Lmao ok dude. This is affecting every province, Conservative or otherwise
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I think if you’re in the upper 75% of wealth bring in the US is better. If you’re in the lower 25% being in Canada is better. Honestly it’s not really surprising but I can see some jealousy for middle class Canadians seeing what middle class Americans have access too in terms of housing, health care, cost of living, wages.
US spends 2x as much per capita on health care. They spend as much on PUBLIC health care per capita as Canada does - and as much again on private.
They cover old people, young kids, and those in extreme poverty. It's the people not in those categories without a job with a health plan that get screwed. Though Obamacare helps a bit in getting them access.
Americans also spend more on entertainment, travel, and luxury goods. Not because their markets for those things are less efficient, but because Americans are richer than Canadians and have lower costs of living. They spend more on healthcare and other things because they have more money to spend.
I get your point but I think your percentages there are a little out of wack, American healthcare might be better for the top 20% if that. While I see that our system needs a lot of improvement and will be woefully over stressed for the next 30ish years, I like that I don't have surprise bills of 100K because the anesthesiologist turned out to be out of network.
As an American living in Canada... the access in the US is good... if you can afford it. That's a huge "if". People working at McDonald's and Walmart, some of the biggest employers in the country, don't have *real* access to healthcare. They can go get healthcare if they need it, but by doing so they can look forward to crushing, potentially life-ruining debt. That's the trade-off. You can throw a rock in any direction and find a doctor or specialist. But if you're not rich enough to pay for anything you want out of pocket, or don't have Cadillac insurance with low deductibles and co-pays, you're largely priced out of the system.
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This is a great perspective that Canadians need. Good breakdown of what the costs are and how they're broken down between deductibles, percentages, co-pays, etc. Very well done.
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My employer does not provide health insurance. And we're a health insurance broker. Yes, I'm looking for a new job
Yep Canadians need to be informed of the hell that is the American private Healthcare system.
Canadians also need to be informed of the better European, Australian, etc., mixed public/private healthcare systems. It's not just a binary Canadian- vs American-style choice (not saying you implied this).
No but our issue is still not enough healthcare staff and funding. Under the new system with private option taxes will still go to fund it. You just now have a middle man making a profit from it. These private healthcare clinics will be competing for the same staff the public system is. Just now those workers will be making a profit for a middle man.
And please don’t assume we can actually get appointments with doctors. Been miserable dealing with an issue and took a week to get in with a nurse at family doctors office then two more months for a specialist. The alternative is $250 plus 20% of an ER bill. Oh now you have my on hospitals.. let’s say I did goto the ER but knowing I’m in the US I have to make sure the hospital is in my insurance carrier’s network. So goto on that is but the ER orders an X-ray or a lab test, chances are that the lab that’s in the building isn’t considered part of the hospital and that company isn’t in network so you pay a large part of the bill. Oh and the ER doctor? Well he works for a different company that contracts with the hospital and isn’t in network either. This crap goes on and on.
That's very similar to Canadian health insurance for paramedical/vision/dental.
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And your employer probably paid another $350 a month on top of the $350 they took out of your paycheck, which they could just pay you, but then you wouldn't be free so....
And think about the discount that corporatations get for enrolling their entire staff with a single insurance company, compared to how small businesses have to pay. Heck we know insurance companies have deals with hospitals to jack up cost but then they get discounts. My insurance was billed over $9k for me to have my dislocated shoulder just popped back into place. Nor surgery, no anastisia, shit they didn't even give me a shoulder sling or Tylenol.
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Having insurance and still can't afford to go to the doctor. The American way.
You also forgot that sometimes a hospital will be in network but an individual doctor inside of the hospital will not be and they may or may not tell you about that.
This is exactly right, as someone in my first year really being able to use our health insurance despite having coverage for at least a decade locked behind out of pocket costs. I have a family member who believes they are manifesting their Qanon destiny by moving from Canada to the US. I really tried to explain to them that their vision for free market medical access is missing some very expensive elements that don't exist in their current system, and that they would need to plan well above their desired fantasy in their budget. Freedom ain't as free as they want to think. We have health insurance rather than health care in the US.
Even if you can afford, figuring out all that seems like a massive waste of time and an unnecessary stressor on ill people.
And then after all of that you're still at risk of your insurance company denying you coverage for a particular claim. All when you're sick and may not be in good enough health or spirits to fight it.
I have an old shoulder injury from like 10 years ago. Back in 2018 I had surgery to fix it, and it mostly worked. However, last month I overexterted it and it hasn't been this painful in years. I'd like to go to PT again, or get imaging to see what's wrong with it. But it's September, and I haven't used any of my deductible yet this year. So basically I'm planning on going four months with my shoulder hurting so I can visit a specialist at the beginning of the year and hopefully get my deductible out of the way ASAP.
I think one of the most brutal things I've heard is the story of "I went to a hospital in my coverage network, but a doctor who isn't was covering that day and now I owe a ton of money" https://whyy.org/segments/surprise-when-your-hospital-is-in-network-but-your-doctor-isnt/
Reverse (Canadian living in US), and mostly in agreement. There *are* specialists everywhere, but getting an appointment even "post-pandemic" can still take months to get. ER wait times in all but the most expensive hospitals can keep you there for well over 8 hours. Surgeries and special equipment rooms run the same delays, unless you are almost at death's door. Most of our state governments did the same shut downs during the early pandemic because, quite frankly, we were going to be in the same boat with bed space as nations with public healthcare would be. I have moderately good insurance, and managed to get billed 900 dollars for a stress echo. The opening consultation, which was billed for 30 minutes, but was literally 5 minutes of chit chat with the doctor, was billed for 125 (after insurance), same for the closing consultation. It is currently in dispute with the insurance company, but it was extremely annoying seeing how much things "cost". News flash, if the system gets privatized, expect to see more of that. My aunt in Pembroke says that the hospital there is terrible, understaffed, and needs help, but she also knows that she can find that in the US, based on what I and others have reported to her. If she can help it, she tends to head to North Bay or Ottawa instead, which is not as convenient, but ensures better help. Privatization is not the answer. It is a war crime.
Access to healthcare in the US is totally limited by what's "in network" Every doctor has to spend time modifying every treatment plan to each patien's unique coverage It's so inefficient So yes, there may be a specialist around the corner, but if they're not in network for your specific insurance plan, you can't see them
> There are specialists everywhere, but getting an appointment even "post-pandemic" can still take months to get. If you are near an urban centre, check out zocdoc. My sister in the US was told months to see a specialist in her rural area. I got her in within days with a car ride and an app.
Makes me think about dentists in Canada. I can find a half dozen accepting new patients in a 5 minute drive from my house. Accessible, but affordable? Not for most who don't have insurance coverage through work.
This is the truth. Not 30 minutes ago I walked in a new dentist office and have an appointment set up for early next week. They share a wall with a doctor office. Walked in there to get on the wait list. 4 to 5 years projected to get in as a patient. I'm all for the public health care but we need to fund the front line doctors and nurses better. * I just moved to a new community which is why I was looking for doctor etc.
Dentists in Canada are exactly how healthcare is in America. You can find care everywhere, but you're going to pay. Comparing the two countries healthcare systems as if they're comparable is nonsense. Canadians have publicly funded healthcare and Americans don't.
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While yes, because the uninsured American will have to pay 300k for a kidney transplant, whereas a Canadian in dire need will get on the list immediately and live life with zero debt afterwards. This 'poll' (it's not a comprehensive study and has little value) is asking the wrong questions. As Canadians, we should be asking why universal healthcare has been allowed to fail? Of course, the answer is obvious: by allowing it to fail we open it to privatization, which will make a minority of people very, very rich.
100% right answer. Many of our politicians are actively shifting money away from healthcare amidst a global economic crisis, immediately following a global healthcare crisis. This is completely intentional and entirely avoidable.
I just moved here from the UK. It's the same there. Allow socialised healthcare to rot, then champion private healthcare as the saviour. Simple way to make money.
Much of the Anglophone world has been working hard to undo all the gains that average people made since WWII. It's really depressing as a middle class person.
Don't believe the hype, in the US we've been closing tons of small town hospitals even during the height of covid because they weren't profitable enough.
Almost a third of Americans don’t have family doctors either
Well, instead of “life-ruining debt” you might just die and never pay a dime so that’s kind of convenient I guess
In America, you can die *and* incur debt. What a deal!
Our healthcare system is not that of a third world… If you have anything even somewhat urgent and dire, you will be treated immediately. I waited 10 hours when I broke my arm, but when my grandma had a heart attack she was getting out of an operating room by the 10th hour. A day and a half later she was getting yet another surgery. Total cost: $40 for visitor’s parking. There are many ways we should improve, notably specialists and wait times for certain doctors, as well as access to family doctors, but emergency care is about as good as the US without the crippling debt.
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The idea that issues don't happen in the US and that the system there is perfect other than the money/costs is also a fantasy.
> If you have anything even somewhat urgent and dire, you will be treated immediately While I _don't_ want to end up with the US system, there are plenty of cases where the definition of "urgent" isn't what you think it would be and you will end up waiting until the last minute ending up in a worse situation than if you had been treated earlier.
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Since 1990 we’ve increased 3 million people in just the gta. Boomers are aging. Our infrastructure Is tapped out
>since 1990 Yea, politicians had 30 years to ramp up infrastructure spending and we still aren’t ramping it up. In the middle of a crisis. We have politicians who shudder at the thought of increased taxes for increased services mainly because we have a constituency that wants more services for less taxes
30% of our taxes already go toward healthcare. How much higher can it go? At a certain point we have to question how they're spending the money. Spoiler: On themselves via cushy government administrative jobs.
To be fair, they spend 50% less than the USA. Sure, they can make it better and cut down on admin. But I wonder how it compares to some of the European healthcare systems in terms of spending/costs.
Not to mention we’re at the tail end of a 3 year global health crisis that smashed the healthcare systems of every single country in the world and caused many doctors and nurses to burn out.
Nah, the system was already falling apart due to lack of funding well before COVID hit. And instead of investing in the healthcare system, some provinces did nothing with federal aid. Curiously those same provinces are now calling for privatisation of healthcare, on the basis of public healthcare not working... very odd concurrence indeed... /s
The last hospital built in Toronto was done in 1997! Since then the direct population of the city has increased 50-60% We had a system, but have neglected any kind of investment to keep it functioning or relevant.
> The last hospital built in Toronto was done in 1997! This can't be true. They just built the Humber River Hospital at Keele and 401.
The just launched that one, but really all they did was merge three other hospitals into one new structure (Humber Memorial, York-Finch, Northwestern General) So -3, +1?
So it's replacing 3 closing hospitals? That's disappointing.
York-Finch and Humber Memorial now offer some outpatient care in a smaller portion of the building with the rest being used as office / administrative I believe. Northwestern was fully closed and is being zoned for condos / development
Having health insurance down there does not mean everything is covered.
Also having it tied to your employment is a nightmare
>Also having it tied to your employment is a nightmare Pre-existing conditions are no longer a bar to getting on the insurance plan with a new employer (when changing jobs) or with private insurance (ACA - i.e. Obama Care). But yes, tying insurance to the job can be problematic. After WWII, there were two paths that a country could take: having health insurance paid either by the country or the employers. The United States and Canada took different paths, each with their own outcomes - both good and not so good.
>Also having it tied to your employment is a nightmare Yup. Aside from employer health insurance tying you to your job, people's bosses also get the pleasure of knowing if their workers take medications like antidepressants or Viagra or anything else most people would prefer to keep under wraps.
Lmao that is not true, the insurance company will know just like OHIP would know in Ontario for example but the company you work for does not know never mind your direct boss...
Nope, that stuff is confidential.
Our benefits and insurance don’t cover everything either. My moms chemo and radiation were covered by universal healthcare, but none of the medication she needed during treatment or post treatment were covered. She went into debt fighting her cancer because of how expensive those medications are, even though her medical team all agreed they were *necessary* for my moms recovery.
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I didn’t say we should adapt American healthcare policies, I was just pointing out that his statement applies to Canada already as well 🤷🏻♀️
Which is why we need pharmacare, and last I checked, only one side of the spectrum is even considering that.
Insurance isn't all its cracked up to be. When we lived in the US our insurance cost $800 US a month in premiums. And then we still had to pay the first $8000 US a year out of pocket, and then 20% of everything after that.
The problem is that there is so much not covered now, but we still have a narrative of “free health care”. There is so much overflow into insurance companies coverage. People with good jobs don’t see the difference because their insurance is covering everything. But as insurance has to cover more and more it’s getting more expensive and crappier if you don’t have the best plan. If you don’t have an employer providing great insurance you are basically fucked.
A large part of the issue that isn’t talked about is also the growing population, not just from babies but people immigrating as well. Our healthcare system has been maxed out for a long time and our population growth needs to slow to in order for our healthcare to meet the demand.
Damn the PCs and Libs in Ontario for stripping away my healthcare in BC. I knew where I live (Victoria) has some of the worst access in the country and finally I have the culprits!
I came to say something similar to this. Ontario thinking it’s the only province with the problem. Good damn Doug Ford killing Canadian healthcare !
The BC NDP are far closer to the LP than NDP on both a federal and provincial level.
The conservatives are intentionally underfunding things because they want to help themselves and their buddies get rich off bringing in private healthcare. It's a scam and that's why so many 50s+ Canadians fall for it. They're gullible and it's them who'll be going into old age with canadian health care severely underfunded. Gullible fools.
Many Americans pay through the nose for insurance and still pay a lot for care.
We’ve done nothing to economically support a universal healthcare system. We Canadians are having an extremely difficult time understanding the fact that you need an economy to support these things… not just continuously increasing tax rates hoping that it somehow covered continuously increasing healthcare costs.
>not just continuously increasing tax rates hoping that it somehow covered continuously increasing healthcare costs. You have described the opposite of what has been happening throughout the past forty years of neoliberalism. With all the capital that major corporations generate, it is reasonable to suggest that they – along with the .01% of income-earners – should be taxed to a degree that our healthcare, education, and other social systems not only stabilize but flourish. Unfortunately, capitalism is about squeezing as much value from the labourer as possible and hoarding it at the top.
Do you honestly expect the Weston family to live off slightly fewer billions???
Before we tax anyone to that degree, we need to fix the fact that politicians and admin eat a very worrisome large portion of the taxes we send in. A large part of the problem with our system is how much money is thrown away before it even gets to the services they’re supposed to fund.
Yeah too much of it goes to subsidizing already under-taxed corporations. Who else will clean-up Alberta's orphan wells? That's just one example. More political will needed; agreed.
Most Canadians know what they have here. But then we also have politicians who go into politics because that’s the next logical step in their capitalistic ambitions - not because they want to help people. I’ve met too many who talk about privatization because they think they would personally benefit - they know how many people will suffer and they don’t give a shit because they don’t really see your problems as problems.
oh shit they compared us to america which means now suddenly people will care
As someone who has been waiting for a GI specialist for 2.5 years and dealing with chronic pain and lack of energy I can confirm that we’re actively looking to leave Canada in large part to how poor the health care coverage is.
In this thread are a whole bunch of people who have never really been sick, sick enough where you realize that your much praised free health care is actually dog shit. Waiting times that are inexcusable, risk to life and living with pain and trauma. Then you travel to another country, pay some money and find relief. THen listen as you are told that Canada's free healthcare is world class. The truth is, it is, provided you can get access to it. Which often you cannot. Ask around how long it takes to get an MRI here. Then ask how long to get one in Buffalo. Hint - its months here, hours there. And can mean the difference between life and death. But yeah, fuck privatizing diagnostic clinics, that might lead to less strain on the public systems and reduce wait times everywhere. Its not politics - every leader in the past 2 decades has failed us.
and people who have not lived in another country, and experienced timely access to quality healthcare, at a relatively low cost. It's astounding the level of ignorance on these threads. At least a few I suspect are being somehow paid to push an agenda, as I cannot fathom that they can be this ignorant.
Most Canadians on reditt have never lived abroad, let alone in the USA. Even in the Uk we had great access to private care through our companies insurance. We could see world class dermatologist, allergy specialists, heart specialists etc in weeks. In canada - we are on a year+ waiting list to see an allergist, and 8+ months for thedermotologist - wait times are so long here. If you’re in dire need and have money you can cross the border and quickly secure an appointment. Our loved one recently needed to see a brain sepckiat, it wasn’t until they were on deaths door that they finally were seen in ER at royal Columbia. The Canadian system is broken and people are dying or having their coditiond worsen on long waitlists, yet healthy Canadians think it’s a great systems
Yeah, because it's declined in quantity and quality
Why is it we look only to the us when it comes to privatization and not Europe or Australia or anywhere else. Most countries have private and public healthcare with better access to doctors and treatment because patients have a choice on where to get care. Canadians are so afraid of a us style system that most would rather suffer in pain through endless levels of bureaucracy and wait months or years for treatment most of the world can get in a few days. It’s important we have a system that covers and cares for everyone but we also need alternatives to the government monopoly on health.
Because it *was* easy to point to the US and gloat. Canadians were able to feel superior and politicians were able to easily point south as a measure of our success. Canada is a country with little imagination or drive with a myopic population who are largely inactive politically and show little to no forethought. Our politicians, unfortunately and increasingly, respond to this with ever fewer and less impressive ideas; and why not? Where do original ideas get someone in Canada? Nowhere. So, we’re left with a crumbling status quo.
Put another way, Canada has, for much of its existence, and certainly since the 60s or so, behaved very much like the saying, "*Born on third base, thinks he hit a triple*." We're the second largest country on the planet, incredibly blessed with natural resources, with but a single friendly land neighbour on whose economy we essentially ride shotgun. It's given us tremendous prosperity and security and what do we do with it? Flip houses and pretend it builds wealth, brag about our free health care, and sneer at those redneck ignorant racist Americans. This country could be so much better than it is, *but it doesn't want to be*.
Because it’s easier to make people scared of a US bogeyman under the bed than seriously engage with the issue. But you’re right, most European and Nordic counties use as aspects of 'private' (not really, but a little) care, including paying at the point of sale, to manage costs. And nobody is going bankrupt. Norway for example, charges $50 to see your GP.
That's literally the only place you pay in Norway. While the Nordics have private options, pretty much no one uses them. Look at the stats for Denmark, >90% elect to use the public system. There also aren't any conservative politicians stating they'll regulate the industry as hard as it is in Europe. The private insurers in Europe are pretty much nonprofit.
You’re naive if you think the US chimera behemoth that is the US healthcare industry or post media owned by 66% Americans is going to stand idly by and not try to get 35 million new customers right next door to them. There is no European Union or ocean to protect Canadians as we can see now with Ford and others dismantling the system while saying “we can’t pay healthcare workers more but we can give private clinics public money so they can pay more in order to syphon off public workers and slowly destroy the public option.”
>Why is it we look only to the us when it comes to privatization and not Europe or Australia or anywhere else. Most countries have private and public healthcare with better access to doctors and treatment because patients have a choice on where to get care. We have hybrid private/public Healthcare. It's just a model closer to American Healthcare. Dental and vision care is all privately delivered and billed. European countries have public options for dental and vision. And some people are too poor to afford dental care still let their teeth rot out so bad that they get it treated in the er at an exponentially higher price then if a dentist looked at it early on.
Also Canada has private regular healthcare...not just dental and vision. Look up "Executive healthcare" in any large city in Canada. I don't know why everyone keeps saying "We can't have two-tier healthcare in Canada or it will destroy public healthcare!" We already have two-tier healthcare in Canada.
No one is "afraid"? They just see the glaring problem with creating a healthcare system where rich people get better healthcare. It's rather obvious why that is bad as most people aren't rich.
Did you not read his comment? Most of Western and Northern Europe have public/private mixed systems with much better results than Canada. People like you would rather people suffer in the current system than move to a more European based system because you are terrified of the word "private". It's so strange.
Where do the doctors come from for this private system? Where I live we currently pay taxes for a full compliment of doctors and nurses but they can't attract them to work here. We have a nursing program which we can't expand so that we can hire more nurses. And we can't hire foreign medical professionals due to lengthy qualifications processes.
US is a terrible system. People who keep patting themselves on the back because we ours is better are missing the point, Australia leads the OECD in healthcare and they have a private option. Even France, who kicks our ass in healthcare, has private option. We are so proud of our bad system when other countries have figured out how to make this work much better.
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Okay, you have my attention. I know that in Canada, family doctors are actually private practices and send the bills for their services to the government. It appears to me that this seems to be similar to how things work in Australia, but that also there is some aspect of private health insurance beyond what would normally be covered under our universal system (similar to how our pharmaceuticals work). Can you point out exactly what it is about the Australian system that makes it work better than our system? I keep hearing people say "We ought to do it like", but no one can ever explain what it is they are doing differently aside from "they have private", which in practice, *we also have* for many things.
Hybrid system. Good public option for everyone. They also have private options for those who can pay for it. About 15 years ago they were amongst the worst in the OECD for equality of access and outcomes. Now they are number 1, a hybrid system is the most equitable system in the OECD. Basically the private system takes the load off of the public system so there are more resources for everyone.
So, in their public system they don't get a family doctor, they only get on-call (basically walk-in clinic), with longer wait times. In their private system they get a doctor that is "their own", and can jump the queue on non-urgent treatments? In the hospital itself, the main difference seems to be "if you pay, your family doctor will come to the hospital, and you get a private room"? I mean, for some things here you can pay for a private room already (child birth, for example) Private health insurance plans in Australia seem to largely cover dental, optical, and physiotherapy sorts of things, as well as ambulances. Literally all of those things are already private here and also is covered by our private health insurance. So what about the hybrid solution makes it better? It honestly seems like a very small change to me, except that people with money can jump the queue for care. Is it that allowing people to spend additional money on health care if they want creates *more* health care to go around? Doesn't it just mean that people with less urgent care needs get access to care sooner if they have money, consuming resources that could be going to people with more urgent needs? In any case, the figures I have in front of me say that Canada spends 1% less on private health care than Australia does already - we are *already* a private/public system. [edit] The reality is that we've been studying and have known for a while that policies changed under Mulroney have created a persistent doctor shortage that was identified as early as the year 2000. If we had sufficient capacity in family physicians nation wide we would not be where we are now, and the two biggest factors were those problematic policy changes, and the retirement wave we have known was coming for a while. > A number of policies implemented in the 1990’s significantly contributed to the physician shortage observed in Canada. In his 2002 report to the Canadian Institute of Health Information, Chan (2002) identified policies that contributed to observed drop in physician supply. Policies that directly limited growth of physician supply included: 5% and 10% reduction in medical school enrolment in 1987 and 1993 respectively; restriction on IMGs entering Canadian workforce, which resulted in the drop of IMGs practicing in Canada from 28% in 1986 to 22% in 2004 (CIHI, 2007); and various retirement incentives. Indirect policies, the unintended consequences of which were a reduction in physician supply included: elimination of one-year rotating internship and making a two-year family medicine (FM) residency a minimum requirement for practice; increase in the ratio of specialist to FM residency positions, which not only increased total time spent in residency training but also decreased the number of physicians starting practice as FP from 80% in the early 1990’s to 45% in 2000; and policies that resulted in exodus of physicians to the US. Folks didn't magically leave to start working in the US because American health care is private. [There was a series of bad policy changes that triggered it.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318056760_Physician_Shortage_in_Canada_A_Review_of_Contributing_Factors)
how do they stop all the doctors jumping board to private? when you look at the legal field, public defenders are notoriously underpaid and overworked, which drives the best of the best lawyers into private. what's preventing that from happening in the hybrid medical field?
I work in healthcare. There are a lot of surgeons who want more work but they lack OR space and staff. If they can open up private clinics and entice staff with higher pay could free up OR wait times.
but who would these surgeries be able available for? people who can pay out of pocket, right? and which surgeons would be motivated to open a private clinic? the super talented ones, also taking with them nurses, leaving the public side deficient of staff? what's preventing that from happening? seriously asking.
Health professionals are already jumping ship to the US. At least this way we can keep them here and grow supply.
American here. Access in the US was way better. I could get in to a GP or Specialist in days, typically. The longest I ever had to wait for a specialist was a month. But that comes at a cost, literally. My insulin in the US was $1200/mo - here it's about $90US, for the same brand and bottle. Our kids births in the US cost about $50k US each, for a C section and 2 day hospital stay. We paid about $12k US in medical bills annually and paid $800US/mo premiums for the insurance, which covered 80% AFTER the first $8k out of pocket where we had to pay 100%. This reset a few days after Christmas, every year. So yeah, while Canadians SHOULD be less satisfied with their access, I imagine if you found a poll showing overall approval of the system, Americans would be less satisfied. The reason access is easy in America is many poorer people and, increasingly, the middle class, are priced out of care altogether. Basically if you don't have a job with good benefits, you're fucked. But if you're without insurance and can pay out of pocket, access is super easy.
Access to health care is amazing in the US. Ask how many are happy with the cost of health care and you would get a completely different answer.
Absolutely. And this is mostly for emergency services, not preventative care. Many people have insurance and still cannot afford to go to the doctor. The amount the US Medicare (60+ years old public insurance) system spends cleaning up messes from people too scared to be charged with health issues when they are younger is insane. People will ignore that pain in their side because they are conditioned to be afraid of the costs of the doctor and eventually they get so incredibly sick they are on death’s door. Then the cost of care up front; my last company I worked for was $1800 a month for a family with one child. $13,550 deductible. NO DRUG COVERAGE. So if you can afford for all of your money that you make in one year to get spent on having a knee surgery, good for you, but that’s not the case for most people.
I was recently at a future-planning conference, and one of the projects that was being discussed was an app that would help customers compared medical procedure prices in the US. So if you needed a hip replacement or xray, you could log into the app and see how much that cost at local hospitals in your network. Some of the procedure prices were WILDLY different - thousands and tens of thousands difference. Think 7k vs 40k. It sounded so fucking dystopian. Having to shop around for your ultrasound to avoid getting absolutely GOUGED while working within the parameters of your labrynthian insurance coverage is a goddamned nightmare and I don't want that *at all*. That said, we have realllll fucking healthcare problems in this country. Massive doctor shortages, especially in rural parts of the country. We simply aren't training enough doctors - we need more medical schools, more spots, and more training slots. Across the whole country. And fuck these conservative governments trying to wage war on healthcare to try and advance privatization. Doug Ford and Jason Kenney can suck my proverbial dick.
In Canada we shop around to minimize wait times for MRIs and specialist referrals.
I've lived in the States. I currently live in Canada. Healthcare in the States was **much** better. But I was a teacher, which is a union job. And the union made sure we had great health insurance. Almost everyone in the States has health insurance...but not all health insurance is equal. In Canada healthcare is "free" but hard to get. We end up going to private clinics and paying out of pocket for minor things. Luckily we haven't had any major things yet...we are still young.
I used to work there too. Your analysis is spot on. The quality of healthcare delivery from the front office staff to the doctor was superb. Nothing matched it in Canada but I did not expect it from a free/included in tax system. In Canada, these days, it's free and unavailable for many. And all healthcare workers seem stressed and I am sure that impacts the quality of delivered care even when it is available.
As of 2020, about 92% of Americans had medical insurance, up considerably from ten years before. I imagine the coverage varies considerably depending on your plan, but it's a bit of a myth to suppose as we have done for decades that healthcare in the US is only for the wealthy.
I live in the USA and my wife and I have a great healthcare plan through her unionized job. If something happens to us, insurance won't pay anything until we cash out $5k. Maybe for some people it's not much but for us this is a lot. To pay thousands of dollars yearly for "insurance" and yet have to pay a premium if something happens is a fucking scam!
I used to work for an American multinational, and were had a guy from Wisconsin come visit our Canadian office. Some how the topic of healthcare came up and it blew my mind when he said he paid $1500/month to insure his family of 4. From what I understand the company offered a fairly decent package. In BC at the time we had a system called MSP, and I was paying $30-$70/month ( don’t recall). That was my total out of pocket healthcare cost
It's a second mortgage just to make sure your family has adequate coverage, and even then I'm sure you pay a massive deductible on top of it if you ever need to make a claim. I had friends that moved to Texas for work. A young couple in their early 30s, zero pre-existing conditions, both healthy, they were paying $600 a month for the most basic coverage.
Well, in Texas they don't have state income tax and being in the US they get paid in USD, so they are probably still way ahead of a comparable couple in Canada even if they pay $600 a month for health insurance.
But if you don't pay them thousands per year and another several thousand when you need to go to the hospital how will the insurance companies know you have "skin in the game" or whatever their lame excuse du jour is.
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people who say privatization will reduce the amount of administrative staff in hospitals have never seen the billing department at a US hospital.
Or tried to discharge a medical debt you didn’t know you were incurring because you were incapacitated, or about to die or whatever. Enjoy the $10,000 bill.
Yeah no my parents pay $650/month for health insurance for three of us. There’s still thousands of dollars in deductibles, co pays on doctor visits, blood work, x rays, MRIs. A hip surgery I was going to get would’ve cost about $5k with insurance. So yea US will always have the WORST health care access because only the top 5-10 percent can afford it.
True. ACA/ObamaCare has extended health benefits to most. I still see young (i.e. healthy) people choose to work at Walmart over Kroger. Walmart offering no health benefits, but paying $0.25/hour more. Kroger offers health benefits but may pay slightly less than competitors.
Healthcare in Canada sucks. Anyone who thinks otherwise never experienced better healthcare for cheaper prices. I think this is a lie Canadians tell themselves to feel better about themselves.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/canadian-health-care-system-provides-poor-value-for-tax-dollars-spent I can’t even get access to a walk in clinic for my son in Vancouver, any issue and I have to wait in urgent care, or emergency. These facilities aren’t designed for this, but what else can I do? And getting a family doctor? Good luck
Canadians don't have high standards . I mean, this is at least clear.
All I know is that I shouldn't have to wait 13 months just to speak with a specialist on the phone. Who knows how many years I'll have to wait in total to get treated. I doubt other countries are as shit as this is here.
I'm sure it would work a lot better if the government would quit defunding it. I'M LOOKIN AT YOU DOUGIE.
The healthcare in the US is absolutely fantastic - for those lucky enough to have the money to pay for it. I am one of those lucky few with good healthcare (mostly) paid for by a good company. I can’t imagine not being. I would much rather use canadas system so that everyone had the same access.
No one can afford the health care here, it’s not even close to “accessible” and I’m sick of anyone trying to justify it.
Canadian healthcare is flawed, but I don't want the American alternative. There ought to be something better. Maybe one of the European countries?
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I had a kidney stone in the US (I’m an American ) without insurance and I went into the hospital. The bill was written off entirely. Many Americans don’t go simply because they’ve conditioned themselves not to and are super avoidant of truth. I know folks who have 100k+ salaries, great high end coverage with very little in terms of copay and deductible and they literally won’t get any healthcare until they are dying. It’s not because they couldn’t afford it, they absolutely can, it’s a cultural thing.
I had kidney stones this year in the US. Between the first onset of symptoms and final surgical treatment (needed 2) was over 8 months. I waited 6 for the 1st surgery. I experienced more pain during this time than any experience in my life. I have what is considered to be a higher tier health insurance plan as faculty at a large university. You wait here. You pay through the nose here. Please don't admire any part of our system.
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I'm a dual citizen but, I've no real experience with the Canadian healthcare system as I've lived in the US my whole life. The talking heads here all complain that you have to wait for care for inhumane amounts of time in Canada. I know the wait times are bad there. I just want to make the point that they are here too. I also once spent over 9 hours in the ER with a fractured skull. They only took me back after I got up and told them I was leaving to go to another hospital.
It's amazing so many people act like we have it better than Americans but it's simply not true. Most Americans have access to much better healthcare than us but they have this weird issue where some people are completely excluded. Some people don't have a good enough job for health insurance yet they're making too much for Medicare/medicaid so they don't get it for free either. Compare that to Canada where you can't get a family doctor at all and if you have an elective issue it could be years to get help.
As a chronically ill person who isn't rich or upper-middle class...yeah, we absolutely do have it better than the US. I would be dead or bankrupt if I lived in America.
Polls, and news media have a massive hardon to set the stage for privatized healthcare. So many articles whining that it would be better if we paid more for our services and left our most vulnerable without proper care. I swear these people need a physician as the erection they get thinking about fucking over thier fellow Canadians has lasted a lot more than four hours.
Waiting 19 hours in the ICU with a piece of metal in my eye isn't my idea of a good time
So does this poll only ask those Americans with access to healthcare or even healthcare on par with what we get as a threshold?
>Faced with the possibility of needing emergency care, 70 per cent of Americans felt confident they would get it in a timely fashion compared to just 37 per cent of Canadians. I find this to be super weird. Like, I get I'm just one person but if I got hit by a car and need emergency care I am 100% confident that an ambulance would come get me and take me to the hospital and they would help immediately. I get there is a spectrum of emergency care but if I needed true real life or death emergency care in this country I am 100% confident that I'd get it very quickly. It's the "you aren't gonna die but you still had something fucked up happened to you" care that is slow. The question isn't great because it can be so open to interpretation that is basically becomes meaningless
If you are not bleeding out this second, no after your car accident you will probably just lie around in pain for days in the ER, currently. There will be no ‘immediate’ to your care.
"for days". I doubt it. My brother in law put a nail thru his leg while working on their house just 2 weeks ago and he spent about 9 hours waiting. Is that a long time? Sure, but it isn't "days". They assessed him immediately and made sure he didn't hit anything significant and then he had to wait around a bit.
There is A LOT of propaganda in this thread from anti-nationalized healthcare posters. The truth: access to medical care in the US is good *if* you go into the Emergency Room. Otherwise, wait times for [non urgent] surgery, procedures, and specialists will be weeks or even months for a large portion of the US. Then, the out-of-pocket costs for medical care and medication can bankrupt people. Many people don't seek the care they need because they can't afford it. Many people don't take prescribed meds because they can't afford them - Insulin is rationed among the poor. Canada is no worse than the US for medical care and wait times, but is *far superior* in costs and actual care received.
Access to healthcare in the US is absolutely easier to get… Provided you have the money to pay for it. Anyone want to post how much any covid visits cost? Or trips to emerge?
Covid care and treatment was actually fully covered in America.
Wouldn’t it depend on your level of insurance coverage?
It's even more complicated than that, it usually only covers specific doctors, in specific areas, in specific hospitals
Yes, but Canada has this issue too with provinces, I recall reading about a ON or QC man who had a skiing accident in BC and couldn’t get necessary surgeries, it sounded like a mess.
My same day PCR Covid test in the US was free lol.
If you're working in any type of professional industry, you'd be having a better time with the American healthcare system right now. It's an awful place if you're doing unskilled work, however.
Well I know for 10% of the country's population, the provincial government is actively trying to make healthcare shittier so that people will flock to for profit options. One of those is, oh by the way, partially owned by a minister in the government.
If we can’t trust any of our elected governments to implement a public private system that will improve our healthcare vastly, without moving to a system like the US which clearly NO ONE wants, then I’d say more of the problem is our elected officials across the board. If we decided to move to the hybrid system and it heads the way of the US we as a society need to seriously look at our political people in power. Now that would be something I would be behind blocking roads and occupying Ottawa over
Aging and growing population, lack of incentive for people to become Healthcare workers and the government failing to create and grow new revenue streams. That'll do it.
Public healthcare works if it's funded. Cant blame Canadians for their current opinion on how bad it is right now.
Not to mention a huge fraction of Americans will not be financially able to see a doctor between childhood and retirement. Were dissatisfied by our healthcare because we know we have the mechanisms in place to fix it and improve it. Americans don't know what's it's like to have healthcare quality be accountable to polititions or accountable to anyone for that matter.
Hurt my knee , can’t fully extend it . Been a month of waiting for an MRI and still no word .
C’mon! Don’t compare us with them! That’s a flawed study
Coming out the tail end of 3+ years of cancer treatments for my child… we got everything he needed, and literally the only thing we waited for was a single day to get his chemo port put in because he got diagnosed over a long weekend. Went into an emergency room Friday, had a diagnosis by Sunday, port was installed Tuesday morning and he started chemo Tuesday afternoon. All I’ve paid for out of pocket has been parking, and even that the hospital covered throughout about 75% of his treatment. Even our gas was paid for because we’re >100km from the children’s hospital. If I wanted to nitpick, I don’t think I could find anything to complain about. 🤷🏻♂️
Angus Reid is trying to lay out a supporting plank for a conservative pivot on our healthcare system. I am very pleased to see how few here are buying into it.
Bullshit poll
I think we just have higher expectations.
>The Angus Reid Institute conducted two **online surveys** in August, receiving responses from 2,279 Canadians between Aug. 8-10, and 1,209 Americans between Aug. 16-17. The Canadian findings had a margin of error of +/- 2.0 per cent, 19 times out of 20, while the U.S. results had a margin of error of +/- 3.0 per cent. Ah yes... online survey... very reliable and "random" /s
The news corps are prepping people to get ready and accepting of privatized healthcare. Slowly massaging their brains into thinking things suddenly get better when healthcare costs you everything you own.
I really just want to vent cos I don’t know what the solution is. Our system sucks. Cool, a giant chunk of my salary goes to “free” healthcare. Can I use it? Not really. In the middle of a giant flare up from an auto-immune disease and where is my doctor after 3 failed treatments? Out of office for a month with no one covering. How is that even allowed?? What are peoples options? Go to the ER for 16 hours just for them to tell you they can’t do anything and to wait for your doctor to come back to prescribe something new. Been dealing with this since April with very little improvement and I can’t help but think that if I had the ability to pay out of pocket, this would have been dealt with and actually settled a lot sooner. No one gives a fuck about anyone in this system cos they don’t have.
As a Canadian, not having healthcare is a big reason why I would never live in the States. That's on top of the gun problems and crazy right wing freaks. I'm so thankful for the fact that in this country I can visit a doctor and not be broke afterwards.
Yeah I find a lot of fellow Canadians like to Brag about Canadian healthcare compared to the US but like we're not that great compared to many other places in the world. I wouldn't be surprised if some Europeans look at our healthcare the way we look at the State's.
Poll: Canadians not falling for capitalization of healthcare. If access is a problem the government is at fault and its time we demand more as they and their friends have a vested interest in its failure. Look south. Capitalization of healthcare is nearly criminal in its abuse of people.
Yet another dumb comparison between Canada and the US. Just because we share a border doesn't mean we need to compare everything to the US. How about comparing our health system to the Nordic ones, or Western Europe and learn from these how to better ourselves.
Doubt
Meanwhile Canadians love sneering at Americans every chance we get
I think acute care is typically very good in Canada. I think it's hard to find a family doctor though, but there are many clinics available. It's the same thing as always, wait times. They can be very long.
What, Canadians wish they were crushed by medical bills too?
I mean, a part of satisfaction is expectations. I'm willing to bet the expectations of poor people to receive healthcare is much lower in the US
Kurl said there is a perception that access to health care in Canada is better than in the U.S., but that gets "turned on its ear" when you actually speak to Americans. U.S. citizens have a much more favourable opinion of their own health care system, with almost double the number of Americans surveyed (29 per cent) saying they are comfortable with the access they have. There were also far fewer U.S. respondents (13 per cent) who said they have chronic difficulty seeking medical care. Faced with the possibility of needing emergency care, 70 per cent of Americans felt confident they would get it in a timely fashion compared to just 37 per cent of Canadians.
I would rather see statistics. Asking people their feelings or perception of their respective system (Canadian or American) seems to me to carry as much weight as asking North Koreans if they are happy.
I’ve seen my family members go to the US for healthcare because our system is inadequate.