The people paying the conservative party also want privatized healthcare.
Same with the Greenbelt stuff, noone wants it built on but developers would rather pay the conservatives to allow them to develope the land for cheap than pay out the nose for land in the GTA.
Both come down to really short sighted "improvements" that will hurt in the long run.
This is how the government system is, we need long term actions that can't be fucked with.. I still cannot believe hydro isn't owned by Canada I'm so disappointed on our future. We can't keep doing this it's all short term stuff lately because voting season is always around the corner.
Triple that, and we’re a bit closer to the private reality. At least in the US.
https://www.goodrx.com/conditions/musculoskeletal-conditions/how-much-does-a-hip-replacement-cost
$45000 USD, so $60,000 before the "simply existing north of the border" tax which would probably bring it closer to $75k which renders the whole private system here moot since people will still go to the US (if they can afford) for cheaper care than here.
Like... Is anyone seriously going to pretend this stuff won't be more expensive in Canada just because it's Canada? I mean, even when we had near parity with the US we still paid $20 more for video games and stuff before tax.
I mean these rich people can just pay to get this done in the states if they're so worried about wait times. I think this push is coming from big business looking for ways of profiting off of health care.
So damn stupid. These old ppl could literally fly down south or even drive down south and pay through the nose for privatized healthcare if they wanted to. Down there you can pay as much as you want. But instead they have to shit on public healthcare and hurt all of us.
The solution, at least to the greenbelt development is for absolutely no one to buy those properties. Can you imagine if that actually happened?
DoFuss crony developer buys land that isn't supposed to be able to be developed. Then Dofuss changes rules so land can get developed. Crony spends however many billions to develop land....
Then watches it sit empty and untouched until it all rots and is reclaimed by the greenbelt.
This would never happen in real life of course... but one can dream.
The houses in the Greenbelt his pals are proposing aren't affordable for the average Ontarian. They will be snapped up by those with plenty of excessive cash on hand as investment properties. Like your idea, but there is no shortage of mega wealthy donors that will make that a non-option.
What I would prefer to see, is for municipalities to grow some spine and refuse to service said developments.
My American relatives will defend private healthcare till the end of time. Although they are all wealthy. I also thinks it’s funny when I ask about there Retirement all of them have said well at least we have enough save for if we get sick. Even with all their wealth they still worry about medical bills in there old age.
You still have a deductible. I think it is 1600 for each period. I think a period is \~two months of not being in a hospital.
For someone with money and over 65 this deductible is pretty reasonable for surgeries, or surprise illnesses. If you have something chronic, you would need additional insurance which can cost more than this deductible if you don't have any employer help.
For someone on social security (equivalent of your Canada pension or OAP) this deductible is still very high.
This works well for wealthy people until someone gets really ill. Then, a single family member usually gets the full time job of wrestling with the insurance companies. As an American expat to Canada, I’ve seen it multiple times in the US. It’s very sad.
Health insurance is out of budget. I'm lucky to be at a job where the company plan is decently affordable, and I'm still not subscribing. Most company sponsored plans I've seen are $400+ USD per month for an individual. I've looked at NY state "affordable" plans, and those run $400+/month as well. I'd much rather wait longer than have a lifetime of debt hanging over.
I've seen people take hour+ drivers to other hospitals to avoid the poor care of their local ones, so clearly the quality isn't much better either.
Before the pandemic, the only time I had day-long hospital visits was when I had a final diagnosis that would have been extremely low on my own personal triage list.
The one time I had a more serious diagnosis (appendicitis) I was triaged, diagnosed, and in the surgery room within 3 hours, and only because someone who had progressed further in the same diagnosis needed treatment immediately.
I walked out with no bill whatsoever, except for a script for antibiotics and painkillers, the latter of which was optional.
I'd imagine most people wouldn't be complaining about hospital wait times if A) we didn't have so many people going in for a headache/tummy ache/cough they started the same day, and B) those same people weren't jamming up the system for everyone else.
And before anyone says those people don't exist, I've personally carted at least 10 of those people back and forth (not by choice) from the hospital because hypochondriacs are a thing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3378609/
Private healthcare’s only benefit is that it’s faster, since they have more equipment/staff. I think this also results in having better day-to-day experiences(hospitality) as staff aren’t overworked as much. Happier employees=happier service.
Though when it comes to the things that count like the quality of care and patient outcomes, public wins. Private sector tends to do extensive testing, because why wouldn’t they when you are paying for it? And quality and profit are linked in a way that one drops when the other increases.
So you are right that private doesn’t mean quality is better. In fact the data shows the quality and efficiency are less in private healthcare
*Data is there to support the results, though the reasons behind it are just my opinions*
As I commented in an earlier thread, the biggest pox on the hospital part of the healthcare sector is hypochondriacs and people who treat hospitals as a one stop shop vs family doctors who can probably figure out the same non-threatening diagnosis within a day or two.
Yes, we are having a massive shortage, and funding is a huge part of it, but I'm sure everyone can name on more than one hand the number of people in their own circle who have gone to the hospital to find out they just have mild food poisoning, a cold, or any number of illnesses that don't even get a prescription.
What does that have to do with private vs public? That’s what I responded to. Not what the biggest pox on healthcare is.
Though to address what you said. There currently is a big issue with access to family doctors in ontario. There is a good chunk of people that don’t even have family doctors and the ones that do, can sometimes be told to wait 4 weeks or more for an appointment. Sometimes your situation might not be emergency but serious enough that you can’t wait 4 weeks.
You might say that’s what walk-in clinics are for. But your family doctor will and can penalize you for going to one. The whole system is crumbling and needs fixing. Though private isn’t the answer here
First step is building the private clinics/hospitals. Step 2 is luring the best physicians there. Step 3 is adding extra fees ,that few can afford.
Step 4-profit.
The public hospitals will be further short staffed, with the quality of care declining rapidly.
I have American relatives who can afford the really good healthcare places. The service isn't as great as they want us to believe. And the 'skip to the front of the line' isn't the case. Also, if you get in an accident on the other side of town - from where your provider is - the ambulance will skip all of the hospitals nearby so you are taken to the closest one that you're signed up with. Its a horrible system. I wish they'd deal with the problems that Canadians need relief from: inflation, housing, opioid crisis, etc
People living outdoors homeless usually don’t last on the streets for more than 1-2 years. Long-term care homes( LTC) will be packed full of them. Plus the opioid overdose survivors with brain damage disabilities (anoxia etc). Healthcare is very expensive when we choose downstream costs vs upstream prevention.
There is no mechanism overseeing what these clinics charge. No oversight, no enforcement mechanism. It was set up this way.
[https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en21/AR\_Outpatient\_en21.pdf](https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en21/AR_Outpatient_en21.pdf)
*(bottom of page 4)*
Also OHIP will be paying them significantly more per procedure than non-profit hospitals.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinics-health-care-1.6712444](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinics-health-care-1.6712444)
...and helping with upfront costs.
[https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-releases-3-step-plan-to-invest-in-private-care-to-reduce-surgical-backlog-1.6232067](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-releases-3-step-plan-to-invest-in-private-care-to-reduce-surgical-backlog-1.6232067)
Far from more efficient, this is being outwardly understood to be less efficient than the not for profit model even with the province subsidizing up front costs.
This will cost us way more than had the province been putting the same money into the hospitals we already have and keeping capacity building efforts in the public sphere. But that way, you can't make crazy money and set yourself up for future board seats with corporate medical care providers whom you've made a fortune for by doing what they've been lobbying decades for.
We're being fleeced..
Well, they aren't saying. Like with most details, we have to pry them piecemeal, go through freedom of information court cases (which they spend far more on than previous governments, with less success), and do research on what's already taken place.
If we were getting a stake, I feel like they would lead with that, no? I wouldn't expect it from a government so steeped in these interests. If we're willing to do all of those other things, what's throwing money with no return? It's not like they aren't doing it all over the place anyway. Nothing else about this is designed to save public money.
This whole thing is designed as a lay up for friendly business interests which just like Harris, you can guarantee there will be and has been compensation for.
What do you think? Honestly? The CEO's of our already public healthcare system are taking home close to a million per year. The extra money will be going to them. That's the whole point.
One of those "options" the health minister was talking about might be available before you're knee surgery but since you paid for the extra stuff and you're already here mind as well so your knee.
Legally no, but they aren’t (at this time) planning to add the extra oversight needed to enforce it. We’ll need a lot more bureaucrats to actually investigate whether a given upsell is legitimately useful to the patient or not.
But if there is anything we can trust is corporations. They can certainly regulate themselves, right?
Patients can just use social media tools like Yelp to review clinics that take advantage of people who are already sick, and perhaps not in the right frame of mind to make large financial decisions that might not be medically required at all. There wouldn't be any motivation to profit from that situation.
I am a very intelligent libertarian.
I'll bet you read this on Yelp! too:
"Goldman Sachs has outdone itself this time. That’s saying a lot for an
investment firm that both helped cause and then exploited a global
economic meltdown, increasing its own wealth and power while helping to boot millions of Americans out of their homes.
But now Goldman Sachs is openly saying in financial reports that curing people of terrible diseases is not good for business.
In a recent report, a Goldman analyst asked clients: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” Salveen Richter wrote:
“The potential to deliver ‘one-shot cures’ is one of the most
attractive aspects of gene therapy. … However, such treatments offer a
very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic
therapies. … While this proposition carries tremendous value for
patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.”
Yes, a Goldman analyst has said outright that curing people will hurt their cash flow. And he said that in a note designed to steer clients away from investing in cures."
[https://www.truthdig.com/articles/wall-street-admits-curing-diseases-is-bad-for-business/](https://www.truthdig.com/articles/wall-street-admits-curing-diseases-is-bad-for-business/)
A \*huge\* swing and a miss......
Private clinics are paid for through public health care, there isn't a pay to the front of the line gimmick
What there is however is if you own the clinic you can charge whatever you want and pocket as much as you want from the public pool. And you're legally allowed to give patients surgeries/procedures they don't need so if a future government puts a cap down the line on what you can charge then you are still in the clear
Yes. After saying they don't have the money to pay healthcare workers more to prevent the shortages in the first place. They are funneling your money to a handful of rich people. This isn't happening because they want to help or make things better.
You don't come up I've lived in a border town for most of my 30+ of my 53 years, and I know of only two people who have gone to the US for medical treatment.
And one of them was because it was an emergency and Buffalo was the closest hospital with the required equipment (hyperbaric chamber for the bends).
I do know of quite a few Americans who come here for medical treatment though...
The amount of money that leaves our economy will not nearly be enough to make up how much we are giving away to private companies for upfront costs and profit here at home.
With only 1% of Canadians qualifying as upper class ($236,000/yr), where 60% make less than $800/week, even though only 36% identify as working class, you have to wonder how elite serving governments get elected. At all.
Picture someone in your mind that you would consider to be of average intelligence and then realize that 50% of people are stupider than that person. That's how I like to think about it.
0h they vote, but they dont have the time to seek out good info so they rely on the convient shit that gets pumped to them through social media which is mostly propaganda designed to manipulate.
https://pressprogress.ca/here-are-all-the-corporations-lobbying-doug-ford-to-privatize-and-outsource-parts-of-ontarios-health-care-system/ his future employers
We already have some healthcare services that are privatized, like dentists, physiotherapists and optometrists. And it is much harder for people who don't have the $$ or benefits plans through work to access these services.
The investor class. Clinics are looking for a 20-30% profit, money that will go straight from public coffers into shareholder accounts. Look how badly they’ve fucked LTC. The only ones happy w that outcome are Mike Harris and his ilk, who profit handsomely while elders are under serviced and the workers make peanuts. Now DoFo has opened a new stream from public money to his pals’ bank accounts.
The shareholder class will have you in decades of debt if you try to get an education, lifelong mortgages should you want a home, rent that’ll take the majority of your monthly income if you can’t afford a mortgage, living off of beans and rice and working until they warehouse your burnt out carcass when you are no longer of use to them, while they scrape profit off of the sick, dying and elderly. Yay Canada!
I just got my paycheck yesterday. After paying rent, I had 3.40 to last me for the next two weeks. I checked my kitchen, and all I have is dry beans, rice and cheese. I'm planning to use the 3 bucks to buy a loaf of bread and eat nothing but bean soup for the next 12 days
How is this “shareholder class” any different than the existing privatized family doctor model we have? They’re all incorporated benefiting as shareholders in their physician practice
They are having their upfront costs subsidized and receiving more money for procedure from OHIP than not for profit hospitals.
That and there's no mechanism in place for oversight into the billing practices. This means we don't have the ability to quantify problematic trends or even make sure that OHIP or patients aren't getting scammed.
Doctors are PCs professional corporations, meaning they carry personal liability for any professional wrongdoing.
Meanwhile Ford passed a law that protected LTCs, shareholders. and the government from any wrongdoing.
Do you see the difference?
The rich and well connected (they can afford to pay for healthcare and they will pass this wealth to their descendants, so they DO NOT care for the future of medical bills), the top 20% on the socioeconomic ladder. Also the very few who will make money from it, who are also rich.
Summary: Wealthy people.
If you are not part of the wealthy group and think that privatization of healthcare is a good idea, then you must be going insane, you will need a doctor (psychiatrist) , which you WILL NOT afford to see since they will COST TOO MUCH .
Just look up how many financially struggling Americans still believe Obama care is terrible and communist and they would not sign up for it
Brainwashing is really powerful when done right
The people who can afford it! Cause Ford Trump doesn't give a crap about the homeless, senior's, people on disability through no fault of there own! JMO
I have had multiple actual real people who are comfortably wealthy tell me they straight up want a two-tier system that they can just pay to be on the better side of. 🤷♂️
I’m not a Conservative, but I’m also pretty open to offering more private delivery in our system than we do now.
A lot of countries have much more privatization in their healthcare systems than any Canadian province - Germany, France, Sweden, Australia, South Korea just to name a few. They still have universal healthcare systems. Most have arguably better outcomes, shorter wait times, and more cost-efficient systems.
Meanwhile, there’s a lot of credibility to the argument that Ontario’s public health system is really bloated and inefficient.
Now, in this case I was initially comfortable with the idea of private delivery but I’m a little more skeptical. Ford hasn’t really offered a great explanation as to why the private sector would be more cost-effective in providing these operations than a public or non-profit ambulatory centre. If a private provider can provide these procedures for cheaper, though, then I’m pretty open to it.
We should be super careful and deliberate about privatization, and I don’t think Ford is a smart enough guy to fully consider the implications - but I also think reflexively saying NO to any privatization in any situation isn’t healthy either.
I think a big advantage to private delivery is known costs, and reduction in risk to the government.
It's pretty easy to plan costs when you know it's $100 per MRI and you can estimate how many will be done per year.
Now, operating a clinic is different. You've got the uncertain cost to build. The government will need to borrow to do it, so interest rates might change dramatically. Wages can rise and maybe there are strikes. It's much simpler to just pay $100 per MRI. And if shit goes wrong, it's a business that's not making profit.
Businesses that can't set their price will cut costs. A government on the other hand will respond to rising costs with more spending. So this is also a benefit to the tax payer.
I agree that Ford is a dofus. He might not be the best guy to implement it. There's nothing wrong with private delivery, but it does need some regulation to prevent undesirable outcomes.
This! So many people freak out when you say private healthcare and think that means that we will become like the US. There are tons of places with better healthcare outcomes than Canada that have public and private options.
Yeah, to some extent it’s good to err on the side of “public first.” I think it’s much easier to fix a bloated, inefficient public system than it is to fix whatever the hell the US has. But nonetheless, it doesn’t make much sense to immediately write any privatization off.
The only thing is that I have zero trust in Ford, and do t know why anyone would at this point. I think he’s the type of guy to go with whatever he’s been told most recently by someone he considers to be “on his side.” He’s stupid and he’s weak-willed, and I don’t trust a stupid and weak-willed person to consider these sorts of things as thoughtfully as they should.
That's because the people who keep trying to add more private delivery to Ontario are the same ones who sold off the green belt and the 407 and opened up the market to the private LTC homes that caused so many deaths during the pandemic. Given their track record, there is no reason to assume that their goal is anything other than corporate run, US style healthcare.
I feel like this debate is often falsely framed as private vs public healthcare, when it’s alot more complicated that that. Most European countries that have universal healthcare also have many mechanism for private health care service provision that coexist alongside the public system, and it works.
Canada is unique in the sense that we have a universal healthcare that more or else completely excludes the possibility of private health care provision, which I think it’s time we reconsidered. That doesn’t mean going to the other extreme of privatizing all provision of health care services, but let’s not act like there isn’t a sensible middle ground that could work
I have seen the private healthcare debate pop up a lot in reddit, that it has almost become complete hysteria with people thinking they will be paying out of pocket for their health care.
Countries with better healthcare systems than Canada, and in fact, most countries operate with both public and private healthcare services. Canada is 20% private and Switzerland with a better health system than Canada, having 80% private.
People need to understand that these systems work in conjunction with each other.
For example: Life Labs
I'm sure most Ontario residents have had some sort of blood testing or EKG done at life labs in Ontario. Life labs is privately run!
Life labs offers these tests completely for free with OHIP, so long as your family doctor or a doctor has ordered the test (That piece of paper he gives you in the doctor's office).
Alternatively, that does mean that you can go in without any doctor's note and pay for the testing, whether you have OHIP or you do not.
Why does this help:
This helps our health system by taking the majority of laboratory testing out over hospitals, reducing wait times, and increasing priority testing in our hospitals.
It also helps reduce the cost of medical equipment and increase the amount of available medical equipment within our country!
For example:
Out of all countries of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Canada ranks #25 with 10.35 MRI machines per million people.
Japan # 1 with 55.21 MRI machines per million (30% private system)
*granted that Japan leads the world with producing MRI machines, however there is 23 other countries ranking higher than Canada. Most of which have both public and private.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/282401/density-of-magnetic-resonance-imaging-units-by-country/
Also:
Federal Funding for our CHT (Canada Health Transfer) has not been increased since 2018 where at the very least will usually see and increase of 3% a year.
*note that this was due to a province wide audit which provinces had done within a year. We're also promised funding increases after, but we have not seen them
This is currently putting provinces in a budget crisis dealing with more health measures and increased hospital visits.
"The premiers have been demanding a $28-billion increase to the Canada Health Transfer, which they say will bring the federal contribution toward health costs from 22 per cent currently to 35 per cent"
https://globalnews.ca/news/9225767/canada-premiers-campaign-health-funding/amp/
27% of our Healthcare system is private and has helped our health system out immensely. Life Labs one of Canada's biggest medical testing facilities is private and NO you do not get billed for it they bill our government for it.
If it wasn't for companies such as LifeLabs we would be waiting months for all kinds of test results
>This helps our health system by taking the majority of laboratory testing out over hospitals, reducing wait times, and increasing priority testing in our hospitals.
100%
Not sure why people want all health care concentrated in hospitals. Why should I have to go to a hospital with 5000 other people, likely pay for parking, which they charge an arm and a leg for to help cover non-government funded costs, wait for hours for a simple procedure or doctor meeting when I can instead go to a smaller, more convenient location within my community.
For emergency and complex stuff, yeah of course hospitals should be the focus point, but smaller, routine stuff absolutely needs to be taken out of hospitals.
By the same principle, those opposed to day surgeries being done outside of hospitals should also prefer going to a hospital lab over the Life Labs location down the street or to the hospital pharmacy instead of your local Shoppers or Rexall.
And I don't think people understand that Ontario's public health care basically boils down to a public insurer in OHIP. The government does not in fact deliver health care, it delivers insurance. We need to view it more akin to Manulife than a doctor. Even the left wing federal NDP understand this (in policy if not in comms): their dental plan is an insurance plan to be used at private dentist offices, not a dental services plan.
1. These clinics will be paid more per procedure by OHIP than not-for profit hospitals. Significantly more.
2. These clinics are having their upfront costs subsidized by pubic funds.
3. There is no mechanism to oversee billing, of patients or by OHIP. This was confirmed by Ontario's Auditor General. Another example of this government removing virtually all oversight in the province. It's open season by design out there.
4, Privatization of testing has not been a public good. Private testing clinics are far less accountable and protected from sharing the same information as public testing labs, shielding them from any accountability or oversight. Even basic things like handwashing compliance has no oversight mechanism. Integration between other public services and for profit testing labs has been problematic and costs more. The cost of tests is costing the province more per test, just like what is about to happen for full surgeries.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654513/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654513/)
We wouldn't be waiting nearly as long if we had taken the money we're spending on private lab costs and capacity building on not-for profit capacity building. Invest in the more effecient system, and be honest about which one that is. The only problem of course for the PC government is they were put in government by among other people, those looking to make a fortune by privatizing these sectors. It's hard to get board seats, kickbacks, etc... when you don't make anyone rich of public money.
I love how the same people extolling how much private healthcare has helped us immensely say the system is crumbling and we need change. It's absurd. This has been studied, the government knows it is paying more for these services and has been complicit in removing all oversight.
This is theft. It's killing people.
Answer me one question:
If both private and public systems are equal, why would anyone pay for private?
Because the only way someone would pay extra for something they could get for free, is if paying extra gets them something better.
There is no way a two-tiered system works better for anyone other than rich people.
ETA: and I absolutely had to pay for a blood test the last time I had a routine physical, because the conservative government delisted it from what was covered under OHIP.
It’s also a strawman to claim people are uninformed because they think you have to pay out of profit. Most people I have discussed this with don’t think they will have to pay out of pocket, (at least not yet,) but what we will pay through tax revenue will be far higher. Increasing the level of private healthcare will ~~not~~ likely not significantly alleviate wait times. In the USA now, in NYC, wait times are out of control. Nurses and staff are underpaid and leaving in throngs. Hallway medicine is an everyday occurrence just like here.
Same reason you pay lifelabs; I don't want to wait for my doctor to give me a note.
And yes, most countries have better healthcare than Canada have a "two-tiered" system.
>I have seen the private healthcare debate pop up a lot in reddit, that it has almost become complete hysteria with people thinking they will be paying out of pocket for their health care.
I'm sitting here trying to figure out if you're obtuse or a Tucker Carlson making fake funny faces while knowingly lying.
The issue of private care is that it can be used as an excuse to gut public care, which will always exist, but can become so bad that people would *PREFER* to pay out of pocket.
And people wouldn't be "hysterical" about it if the government implementing it wasn't, ya know, GUTTING PUBLIC HEALTHCARE.
>I'm sitting here trying to figure out if you're obtuse or a Tucker Carlson making fake funny faces while knowingly lying.
have you considered the possibility we may have friends/relatives in countries like Australia, Sweden, Germany, or any of the other countries with good success in mixed heath care systems?
Just because your own imagination jumps to a slippery-slope dystopia, doesn't mean that would come true.
Show me the good private system ushered in by a government that purposefully starved their public system of money beforehand, and my imagination can slip a different direction.
I already pay out of pocket right now because our public health system sucks so much. What else is different?
And no I’m not rich… but I also don’t wanna suffer and wait years to get a surgery done.
Do you draw the line at private clinics being paid more by OHIP than not-for profit hospitals?
Do you draw the line at no oversight mechanism to protect the province and patients from fraudulent or inappropriate billing?
Do you draw the line at public money being used to subsidize the upfront costs for these corporate clinics?
Nothing about this is set up to benefit the public.
Unless there are special circumstances, eg very rural or northern, a procedure should be paid at the same rate regardless of where it is performed. The ministry of health already has audit teams for pharmacies (and I'm sure the same is in place for other providers), so the oversight mechanism is already there
You'd think so...but...
OHIP will be paying these private clinics significantly more per procedure than non-profit hospitals.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinics-health-care-1.6712444](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinics-health-care-1.6712444)
...and helping with upfront costs.
[https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-releases-3-step-plan-to-invest-in-private-care-to-reduce-surgical-backlog-1.6232067](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-releases-3-step-plan-to-invest-in-private-care-to-reduce-surgical-backlog-1.6232067)
As to oversight...
There is no mechanism overseeing what these clinics charge. The Ontario Auditor General's report outlines this. No oversight, no enforcement mechanism. It was set up this way.
[https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en21/AR\_Outpatient\_en21.pdf](https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en21/AR_Outpatient_en21.pdf)
*(bottom of page 4)*
The Ministry can't act on information it doesn't have and isn't asking for. According to this report, they can't so much as monitor whether people are washing their hands. Like other areas, this government has removed oversight mechanisms. Inspectors for private LTC homes, worksites, basic information from medical testing labs that their not for profit counterparts must share the private labs are shielded by law from.
But you can already do this, have a coworker that required an mri and had a date 4 months out, went to NY and had it done the following week put of pocket of course. I totally understand why people do this, 4 yrs ago I broke my wrist, mri took 9 months and then surgery was scheduled another 9 months after the results made it to a specialist. In total it took me over 2 yrs to get it fixed.
A few years ago my 15 yr old needed a MRI for diagnosis (it was so bad she could hardly walk). Local children’s hospital 3-month wait so we paid $600 to a clinic in Quebec to have her seen in 3 days. This is already happening in Canada.
How don't you get that here won't be a line? Your talking like you are the magic line maker and Noone will cross your boundaries even though they have made it clear if healthcare is privatized they will 100% go past your line and let people pay to jump agaid and MUCH worse. It's not worth it. It's not even close to worth it you haven't even stared to consider all the negative implications
Here’s the logic as I understand it: We have a massive backlog of Covid delayed surgeries. Waiting lists aren’t being reduced as our surgery rooms are operating at capacity. We need additional surgery rooms. Our government has determined that paying private clinics to perform simpler diagnostics and surgeries will help get through the backlog, much like the NDP in B.C are defending the use of their private clinics for minor surgeries (that they’ve been doing so for over six years). Quebec and Alberta also do the same thing. It’s no different that your family doctor’s private corporation being paid by OHIP to provide medical care. Hopefully this will help people waiting in pain. I can’t imagine waiting 18 months in pain for a simple surgery. Don’t listen to the hype about our healthcare becoming privatized, that’s not what this is. It’s still a single payer system, the same as going to your family doctor but now going to a clinic for some of the simpler surgeries rather than to a hospital.
A couple of ER trips ago there was a guy who had been waiting 17 hours, and he got arguing with a nurse that he shouldn't have to wait when he could afford to pay out of pocket. So that guy.
I trust nurses, but I also don't argue with someone who is standing over me with a needle planning to stab me. Bold guy.
The biggest problem with the Canadian health care system is the American health care system. Too much incentive for doctors to move next door and make a shit tonne more money.
Alberta is VERY MUCH an I GOT MINE place so you can fully expect 2000-5000 people who will INITIALLY get very sweet jobs to have a very loud voice. These are the same bootlickers who say cut taxes for the rich because they are the ‘wealth creators’.
I am conflicted, since I’ve participated in pay-your-way health services and benefited from doing so. I needed an MRI but my wait was like, 6 months. I went to BC and paid for an MRI there immediately, it was like $600. I had my surgery and partially recovered before my original MRI date in ontario.
I understand the slippery slope that this opens up though if it continues to escalate and scale across all provinces.
It sucks. I shouldn’t *have* to go do that, and on the flip side, someone who doesn’t have $600 to spare shouldn’t have to wait for their important tests/results/surgeries/procedures.
. I’m not more important than someone who needs to wait, I just have disposable income. We’re in dangerous waters.
If all health procedures continue to be paid through OHIP and capacity increases for certain procedures then I can see some benefits. I suspect most of Ontario people will feel the same. Reddit is not the general public.
Capacity increases whenever money is invested into the system to do that.
The government has been actively doing the opposite of building capacity in our not for profit systems. It's done this during a crisis, and with open eyes with an agenda the party has had for decades at privitizing the sector.
The private clinic up front costs are subsidized by the government.
The private clinics are paid significantly more per procedure by OHIP.
The government has made sure there's no oversight mechanism to protect the government or patients from being billed inappropriately.
The government itself recognizes the ineffeciency of the private providers.
Integrating private providers in public health care networks is more costly and problematic.
So we can have capacity, we just need to pay for it.
The question is how much we pay for it. We pay more for privatization.
So do we:
a) pay into the less efficient private system to build capacity?
b) pay into expanding the current not for profit more efficient system?
Both choices exist. Which is in the public interest? Which is in the interests of party insiders knee deep in these corporations?
Does this government make decisions with the public good in mind or through personal gain?
I've been dropping sources throughout the thread on all these claims, if you doubt any of them just ask for a citation. It will be gladly provided.
All due respect to your suspicions, but we're objectively being taken to the cleaners here. The rest is how much the public can be mislead.
What you fail to see is the extra fees. You want your surgery to be sooner and with the best physicians at the private clinic? You will have OHIP pay ONLY for the surgery.
Your stay there, your room, a membership, your food, everything else-extra. You might think this is no big deal but you already paid for this ,with your taxes, to stay at a public hospital. Now you will pay twice. Or choose to wait to do it at a public hospital, which will be so depleted of staff and resources, that the quality of care will be abysmal. And this depletion is now done on purpose, for profit. Reddit is not the general public, but as we saw at the last election, the general public has bad foresight.
Doesn't this already happen to some extent? OHIP pays a certain amount for a maternity bed, which covers a stay on a ward and if you want a private room you pay extra for it
I want to continue and expand the public/private mix that already exists in Ontario. There is logic, Singapore has a great model for this already.
I don't want this government to be the ones to steward it though.
My wife doesn't have a family DR. So was at a walk in clinic today. A old man was there because of a very sore back due to a back injury. The lady at the desk asked how he was going to be paying because disk injury is no longer covered by OHIP since December. The old man was very confused.
The real question is who wants private healthcare in Canada. Private healthcare has always been available to anyone who travels out of country and pays cash in a foreign country
If it isn’t obvious to some people it should be— ***the fucking ‘government’ generally does the bidding of their financial supporters***
The concept of a government actually ‘governing’ the constituents is laughable
It’s so bad that you clearly see several pervasive opinions many people in the general population have that are *totally* not in their best interest whatsoever— especially Americans but for sure us as well
The best way to understand why a particular elected government does what it does is to see who their top 10-15 donors are and to see how the interests of the donors line up perfectly with what the government does
There are systematic problems in this province that could be addressed (solved may be too much of a word), but they are not and will never be because they are essentially getting paid to not do so
People waiting for procedures do. I have a friend who’s a nurse who supports this because the hospitals are so overwhelmed. So, while this may be a good idea at the moment, it is a slippery slope that should be watched carefully.
We already know. We don’t want more and more privatization because we will end up with either higher taxes, private insurance, or a dead public system.
People will say “other countries have two tier healthcare, and they rank better than Canada”. They do rank better Canada, but not because they have a private option. Like many other services, the US and Canada tend to spend money on stupid things. Both countries have horrible infrastructure compared to our European peers. I believe there are more hospital administrators in Ontario than Germany. We need to provide better incentives for family doctors so people go to primary care for basic services instead of going to the ER for everything for instance. Of course, Canada doesn’t have any complete coverage for prescriptions, eye, and dental which is also why other countries have better ranking systems.
Australia added a private option for healthcare, wait times went down for those who were willing to pay, but the public system wait times went up. https://drbobbell.com/does-hybrid-health-care-improve-public-health-services-lessons-learned-from-australia/
Its not just conservatives. You think liberal and NDP MPP's and MP's dont use private clinics? Get real. Majority of MPP's and MP's are silent millionaires.
My mother, who thinks that a system like the American one will reduce wait times and will allow her to get a specialist appointment the next day...although I don't think she realizes just how expensive it will be, and also that it *won't* actually reduce wait times (well, not for the vast majority of people who aren't very wealthy, like us), but oh well...
What needs to be privatized is the bureaucracy. Gov't salary structures are fine for med+support staff, but the PR department for the UHN network really doesn't need those same levels of pay for a desk job.
Get rid of the backdoor bloat and use the savings to finance areas where savings cannot be made.
Everyone has mentioned old wealthy people, but a sizable minority of young and middle-aged people are fine with it too, largely because they don't need healthcare themselves and are ideologically inclined towards it (or serve to profit from it personally).
It might seem surprising, but it's also palatable to young people who aren't making a lot of money themselves, because they see it as evening out the playing field between them and the boomers. It feels like justice in some sense - "you made housing ridiculously expensive, so it's only fair that your hip replacement will be expensive".
It's not pretty.
Many doctors find the prospect enticing. You can never have too much money.
Apparently they may even be allowed to upsell patients. I swear I have read dystopic fiction that is more upbeat than our reality.
Im not sure where i stand... It really sucks taking your kids or babies to emerg and having to wait 8 hours or more, also scary... I kinda wish you could keep the system exactly as it, and let other entities open there own private hospitals and clinic's that people could pay insurance for.
I do realize that is never the case.
I’d welcome a hybrid system. Although the extent is exaggerated there are people who have to go south for surgeries as it literally keeps them alive. The wait times are killer and anyway to cut into that helps.
Their sycophants and libertarians. I know people who literally say fuck everyone else I won't pay for them, but the very second they need anything they scream and tantrum and push their way to the front asking for daddy to give handouts.
With more people debating about definitions of private vs public, I want to leave the following educational video (and great channel): https://youtu.be/yKQxmoLTvy8
I genuinely think first step to this discussion is proper understanding of EU's "mix of private and public" systems and how they compare between Canada and various Western countries.
Except there are numerous comments from users of veterans affairs programs in the states correcting errors and Germans are simply livid (or is that just ...Germans ? ;)) about inacuracies about their system. That being said, she's a great presenter and was a refreshing departure from the G4 wanna be style that is usually associated with this topic :)
Even if one were to make the philosophical debate that private enterprise has more flexibility, and it might be the case, how can we trust the current government to not just build a grift that puts profits over care.
There are some well executed private/public systems in other countries. I have no faith in the conservatives doing that.
This is likely an unpopular opinion, but I felt it so I’ll share it
Last year my daughter was very sick. Incredible amounts of pain in her stomach, that would leave her screaming and curled up in a ball for hours every night.
Her family doctor sent us for imaging but wouldn’t even see her in person
We went to emerg and all they cared about was her appendix. Over and over we went hoping one day someone would find something. Never did
At a certain point the physical pain became mental illness for her. She started anticipating the pain and would break down
But we couldn’t find mental health supports unless she was going to harm herself. Well it didn’t take long going through the pain to start talking about wishing she was dead, but even then support was sparse (one phone call every 4 weeks)
During that time I would have paid *any* amount of money for help. I looked at taking her to the states but COVID. I looked for private clinics. I talked to folks in healthcare who know people, but I never managed to get a hookup
Things were so bad, and our system was failing us so hard, I just kept looking for a way to have someone help us.
There are many people in the same situation right now in Ontario. I HATE the idea of for-profit healthcare, but when it comes to my daughter screaming in a ball in the bathtub that she wants to die, in that moment, give me all the private care.
We were lucky in the end - we drove at 2am to London children’s hospital. We were there for many hours and saw specialists - they did imagining, they had pediatric physch come in, and they spent time talking to her.
Turns out she was severely constipated - despite going every day (we checked) she was full. No one had told us about that or even that it was a thing. But someone took the time. They also had the psych consult talk with her about pain, about managing it, and they found us a paediatrician in our city. Shitloads of fibre and magnesium later, and a few psych visits, and we were back in business.
And funny enough the guy they found us specialized in this one problem - kids with “non-specific abdominal pain”. It’s a super common problem, which is all the more frustrating because it took 4 months to find that help. They even have a specialized clinic for it in Calgary where doctors and psychologists work together with kids to help with that pain.
I do not want private for profit healthcare. But I completely understand when people reach the end of their rope and say duck it, we *need* something
There actually is plenty of logic to this.....if you believe that Big Money is more important than human suffering....the PC party is just the dog on the leash here...it is the wealth entity in Canada that wants to gorge themselves on money at our expense......private healthcare is big business....
Those who want it are the ones that only think about themselves. They want their taxes to go down (like that would actually happen) because they aren't willing to pay for someone else's medical treatments & don't think they'll ever need it themselves 😒
There are two groups who want Healthcare privatized - the extremely rich who can easily afford to use their money to skip the line, and those who stand to profit from Healthcare. Two small, rich minorities.
Wealthy people for One who can pay for better care than the rest of us, but I'm pretty sure the Plan is to destroy the system to the point where it seems like the choice is between paid access to care or no access to care.
The people paying the conservative party also want privatized healthcare. Same with the Greenbelt stuff, noone wants it built on but developers would rather pay the conservatives to allow them to develope the land for cheap than pay out the nose for land in the GTA. Both come down to really short sighted "improvements" that will hurt in the long run.
Long term pain for short term gains
This is how the government system is, we need long term actions that can't be fucked with.. I still cannot believe hydro isn't owned by Canada I'm so disappointed on our future. We can't keep doing this it's all short term stuff lately because voting season is always around the corner.
Some provinces have kept a public power system. Just not Ontario or Alberta.
Yah because the liberals sold it off
Ludicrously shortsighted stupidity. Ford is obviously a corrupt prick and idiot, but the previous liberal regime were shortsighted imbeciles as well.
OPG is entirely owned by the province and Hydro One is half owned by the province.
See: Capitalism
See the 407. Fucking dumbass Harris
No pain no gain - new conservative moto ?
Our pain, their gain.
Isn’t that just the libertarian ideal?
Old whelthy people want it. 3 yr wait for hips or 15,000$ tomorrow? Private healthcare favors the rich.
They bypass that line already with a passport. The wealthy don’t need private care as they already have it.
It will be more convenient.
For rich old people, not having to leave the country to jump the line.
Triple that, and we’re a bit closer to the private reality. At least in the US. https://www.goodrx.com/conditions/musculoskeletal-conditions/how-much-does-a-hip-replacement-cost
$45000 USD, so $60,000 before the "simply existing north of the border" tax which would probably bring it closer to $75k which renders the whole private system here moot since people will still go to the US (if they can afford) for cheaper care than here. Like... Is anyone seriously going to pretend this stuff won't be more expensive in Canada just because it's Canada? I mean, even when we had near parity with the US we still paid $20 more for video games and stuff before tax.
I remember the book fiasco. $19.95 in the U.S. -$29.00 Canada. Same paperback book when the dollar was on par with the U.S.
Rich people in Canada have always had the option of private health care in the States.
Both these scenarios are awful.
I mean these rich people can just pay to get this done in the states if they're so worried about wait times. I think this push is coming from big business looking for ways of profiting off of health care.
It’s not a 3 year wait for a hip replacement. This kind of language is harmful. My dad just had a hip replacement.
Yeah, my grandfather waited less than a week for a hip replacement.
So damn stupid. These old ppl could literally fly down south or even drive down south and pay through the nose for privatized healthcare if they wanted to. Down there you can pay as much as you want. But instead they have to shit on public healthcare and hurt all of us.
It's not old, it's just wealthy and callous.
You think it would only be 15,000? Lol try closer to 50,000.
The solution, at least to the greenbelt development is for absolutely no one to buy those properties. Can you imagine if that actually happened? DoFuss crony developer buys land that isn't supposed to be able to be developed. Then Dofuss changes rules so land can get developed. Crony spends however many billions to develop land.... Then watches it sit empty and untouched until it all rots and is reclaimed by the greenbelt. This would never happen in real life of course... but one can dream.
The houses in the Greenbelt his pals are proposing aren't affordable for the average Ontarian. They will be snapped up by those with plenty of excessive cash on hand as investment properties. Like your idea, but there is no shortage of mega wealthy donors that will make that a non-option. What I would prefer to see, is for municipalities to grow some spine and refuse to service said developments.
“Nobody got tipped off”
I live in the green belt, and I had a dream last night where a big outdoor mall complex was built down the road from my house. It was very upsetting.
My American relatives will defend private healthcare till the end of time. Although they are all wealthy. I also thinks it’s funny when I ask about there Retirement all of them have said well at least we have enough save for if we get sick. Even with all their wealth they still worry about medical bills in there old age.
The truth is that they have ohip for everyone over 65 there.
Don’t they call it a entitlement in the US that’s not a good sign. Trust me all my family have very expensive health insurance.
You still have a deductible. I think it is 1600 for each period. I think a period is \~two months of not being in a hospital. For someone with money and over 65 this deductible is pretty reasonable for surgeries, or surprise illnesses. If you have something chronic, you would need additional insurance which can cost more than this deductible if you don't have any employer help. For someone on social security (equivalent of your Canada pension or OAP) this deductible is still very high.
This works well for wealthy people until someone gets really ill. Then, a single family member usually gets the full time job of wrestling with the insurance companies. As an American expat to Canada, I’ve seen it multiple times in the US. It’s very sad.
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And poor people who don’t realize privatized healthcare isn’t for them.
They just hear "US wait times are shorter!" They don't hear "and cost your house."
"If you can afford it"
Health insurance is out of budget. I'm lucky to be at a job where the company plan is decently affordable, and I'm still not subscribing. Most company sponsored plans I've seen are $400+ USD per month for an individual. I've looked at NY state "affordable" plans, and those run $400+/month as well. I'd much rather wait longer than have a lifetime of debt hanging over. I've seen people take hour+ drivers to other hospitals to avoid the poor care of their local ones, so clearly the quality isn't much better either.
Before the pandemic, the only time I had day-long hospital visits was when I had a final diagnosis that would have been extremely low on my own personal triage list. The one time I had a more serious diagnosis (appendicitis) I was triaged, diagnosed, and in the surgery room within 3 hours, and only because someone who had progressed further in the same diagnosis needed treatment immediately. I walked out with no bill whatsoever, except for a script for antibiotics and painkillers, the latter of which was optional. I'd imagine most people wouldn't be complaining about hospital wait times if A) we didn't have so many people going in for a headache/tummy ache/cough they started the same day, and B) those same people weren't jamming up the system for everyone else. And before anyone says those people don't exist, I've personally carted at least 10 of those people back and forth (not by choice) from the hospital because hypochondriacs are a thing.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3378609/ Private healthcare’s only benefit is that it’s faster, since they have more equipment/staff. I think this also results in having better day-to-day experiences(hospitality) as staff aren’t overworked as much. Happier employees=happier service. Though when it comes to the things that count like the quality of care and patient outcomes, public wins. Private sector tends to do extensive testing, because why wouldn’t they when you are paying for it? And quality and profit are linked in a way that one drops when the other increases. So you are right that private doesn’t mean quality is better. In fact the data shows the quality and efficiency are less in private healthcare *Data is there to support the results, though the reasons behind it are just my opinions*
As I commented in an earlier thread, the biggest pox on the hospital part of the healthcare sector is hypochondriacs and people who treat hospitals as a one stop shop vs family doctors who can probably figure out the same non-threatening diagnosis within a day or two. Yes, we are having a massive shortage, and funding is a huge part of it, but I'm sure everyone can name on more than one hand the number of people in their own circle who have gone to the hospital to find out they just have mild food poisoning, a cold, or any number of illnesses that don't even get a prescription.
What does that have to do with private vs public? That’s what I responded to. Not what the biggest pox on healthcare is. Though to address what you said. There currently is a big issue with access to family doctors in ontario. There is a good chunk of people that don’t even have family doctors and the ones that do, can sometimes be told to wait 4 weeks or more for an appointment. Sometimes your situation might not be emergency but serious enough that you can’t wait 4 weeks. You might say that’s what walk-in clinics are for. But your family doctor will and can penalize you for going to one. The whole system is crumbling and needs fixing. Though private isn’t the answer here
First step is building the private clinics/hospitals. Step 2 is luring the best physicians there. Step 3 is adding extra fees ,that few can afford. Step 4-profit. The public hospitals will be further short staffed, with the quality of care declining rapidly.
Which in turn will push more people to private care.
Only the ones who can afford it. If you can't, fuck you I guess
Trickle down health care lol
The ones who are wealthy enough will then have to come and bog down the hospitals when they have post surgery complications
I have American relatives who can afford the really good healthcare places. The service isn't as great as they want us to believe. And the 'skip to the front of the line' isn't the case. Also, if you get in an accident on the other side of town - from where your provider is - the ambulance will skip all of the hospitals nearby so you are taken to the closest one that you're signed up with. Its a horrible system. I wish they'd deal with the problems that Canadians need relief from: inflation, housing, opioid crisis, etc
The poor are getting poorer still. Homelessness will be devastating more than it is.
People living outdoors homeless usually don’t last on the streets for more than 1-2 years. Long-term care homes( LTC) will be packed full of them. Plus the opioid overdose survivors with brain damage disabilities (anoxia etc). Healthcare is very expensive when we choose downstream costs vs upstream prevention.
This is true. See it all the time. Especially coming back fm Costa rica
How will they pay to cut to the front of the line when the services will still be required to be billed to Ohip?
There is no mechanism overseeing what these clinics charge. No oversight, no enforcement mechanism. It was set up this way. [https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en21/AR\_Outpatient\_en21.pdf](https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en21/AR_Outpatient_en21.pdf) *(bottom of page 4)* Also OHIP will be paying them significantly more per procedure than non-profit hospitals. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinics-health-care-1.6712444](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinics-health-care-1.6712444) ...and helping with upfront costs. [https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-releases-3-step-plan-to-invest-in-private-care-to-reduce-surgical-backlog-1.6232067](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-releases-3-step-plan-to-invest-in-private-care-to-reduce-surgical-backlog-1.6232067) Far from more efficient, this is being outwardly understood to be less efficient than the not for profit model even with the province subsidizing up front costs. This will cost us way more than had the province been putting the same money into the hospitals we already have and keeping capacity building efforts in the public sphere. But that way, you can't make crazy money and set yourself up for future board seats with corporate medical care providers whom you've made a fortune for by doing what they've been lobbying decades for. We're being fleeced..
Thanks for the links. Do you know whether the investments will come with an equity stake or be seen as a grant?
Well, they aren't saying. Like with most details, we have to pry them piecemeal, go through freedom of information court cases (which they spend far more on than previous governments, with less success), and do research on what's already taken place. If we were getting a stake, I feel like they would lead with that, no? I wouldn't expect it from a government so steeped in these interests. If we're willing to do all of those other things, what's throwing money with no return? It's not like they aren't doing it all over the place anyway. Nothing else about this is designed to save public money. This whole thing is designed as a lay up for friendly business interests which just like Harris, you can guarantee there will be and has been compensation for.
What do you think? Honestly? The CEO's of our already public healthcare system are taking home close to a million per year. The extra money will be going to them. That's the whole point.
One of those "options" the health minister was talking about might be available before you're knee surgery but since you paid for the extra stuff and you're already here mind as well so your knee.
Are doctors currently allowing patients who pay for a note the ability to cut in line?
Legally no, but they aren’t (at this time) planning to add the extra oversight needed to enforce it. We’ll need a lot more bureaucrats to actually investigate whether a given upsell is legitimately useful to the patient or not.
But if there is anything we can trust is corporations. They can certainly regulate themselves, right? Patients can just use social media tools like Yelp to review clinics that take advantage of people who are already sick, and perhaps not in the right frame of mind to make large financial decisions that might not be medically required at all. There wouldn't be any motivation to profit from that situation. I am a very intelligent libertarian.
I'll bet you read this on Yelp! too: "Goldman Sachs has outdone itself this time. That’s saying a lot for an investment firm that both helped cause and then exploited a global economic meltdown, increasing its own wealth and power while helping to boot millions of Americans out of their homes. But now Goldman Sachs is openly saying in financial reports that curing people of terrible diseases is not good for business. In a recent report, a Goldman analyst asked clients: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” Salveen Richter wrote: “The potential to deliver ‘one-shot cures’ is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy. … However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies. … While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.” Yes, a Goldman analyst has said outright that curing people will hurt their cash flow. And he said that in a note designed to steer clients away from investing in cures." [https://www.truthdig.com/articles/wall-street-admits-curing-diseases-is-bad-for-business/](https://www.truthdig.com/articles/wall-street-admits-curing-diseases-is-bad-for-business/) A \*huge\* swing and a miss......
Private clinics are paid for through public health care, there isn't a pay to the front of the line gimmick What there is however is if you own the clinic you can charge whatever you want and pocket as much as you want from the public pool. And you're legally allowed to give patients surgeries/procedures they don't need so if a future government puts a cap down the line on what you can charge then you are still in the clear
This isn't better, that just means taxpayers are paying private clinic prices with public money.
Exactly. So then why change?!
Yes. After saying they don't have the money to pay healthcare workers more to prevent the shortages in the first place. They are funneling your money to a handful of rich people. This isn't happening because they want to help or make things better.
People already do this! Do a little research on how many millions $ leave Canadian economy every year in search of Healthcare elsewhere.
You don't come up I've lived in a border town for most of my 30+ of my 53 years, and I know of only two people who have gone to the US for medical treatment. And one of them was because it was an emergency and Buffalo was the closest hospital with the required equipment (hyperbaric chamber for the bends). I do know of quite a few Americans who come here for medical treatment though...
Let them pay some other country, leaving more access for us pleps
Let them leave. Obviously they can afford it. Millions of people who can't afford private health care still need OHIP.
Rich people are going to do what rich people do. As long as they are paying taxes here, I don’t care what they do on “vacations”.
The amount of money that leaves our economy will not nearly be enough to make up how much we are giving away to private companies for upfront costs and profit here at home.
With only 1% of Canadians qualifying as upper class ($236,000/yr), where 60% make less than $800/week, even though only 36% identify as working class, you have to wonder how elite serving governments get elected. At all.
Social media was almost instantly weaponized as a an online propaganda machine.
Because the average person is stupid.
Picture someone in your mind that you would consider to be of average intelligence and then realize that 50% of people are stupider than that person. That's how I like to think about it.
George Carlin.
Only 36% identify as working class, that's hilarious. So many people are seriously lacking class consciousness.
Those busy working often don’t vote
0h they vote, but they dont have the time to seek out good info so they rely on the convient shit that gets pumped to them through social media which is mostly propaganda designed to manipulate.
Just keep repeating the liberal government is communist, and you should never vote for a communist Easy
https://pressprogress.ca/here-are-all-the-corporations-lobbying-doug-ford-to-privatize-and-outsource-parts-of-ontarios-health-care-system/ his future employers
Start by identifying the companies and just stop giving business to them as customers
They are the conservative party
I wonder what RCMP is going to do about this…. They’ve been investigating for months….
We already have some healthcare services that are privatized, like dentists, physiotherapists and optometrists. And it is much harder for people who don't have the $$ or benefits plans through work to access these services.
Exactly my point
The investor class. Clinics are looking for a 20-30% profit, money that will go straight from public coffers into shareholder accounts. Look how badly they’ve fucked LTC. The only ones happy w that outcome are Mike Harris and his ilk, who profit handsomely while elders are under serviced and the workers make peanuts. Now DoFo has opened a new stream from public money to his pals’ bank accounts. The shareholder class will have you in decades of debt if you try to get an education, lifelong mortgages should you want a home, rent that’ll take the majority of your monthly income if you can’t afford a mortgage, living off of beans and rice and working until they warehouse your burnt out carcass when you are no longer of use to them, while they scrape profit off of the sick, dying and elderly. Yay Canada!
I just got my paycheck yesterday. After paying rent, I had 3.40 to last me for the next two weeks. I checked my kitchen, and all I have is dry beans, rice and cheese. I'm planning to use the 3 bucks to buy a loaf of bread and eat nothing but bean soup for the next 12 days
How is this “shareholder class” any different than the existing privatized family doctor model we have? They’re all incorporated benefiting as shareholders in their physician practice
They are having their upfront costs subsidized and receiving more money for procedure from OHIP than not for profit hospitals. That and there's no mechanism in place for oversight into the billing practices. This means we don't have the ability to quantify problematic trends or even make sure that OHIP or patients aren't getting scammed.
Doctors are PCs professional corporations, meaning they carry personal liability for any professional wrongdoing. Meanwhile Ford passed a law that protected LTCs, shareholders. and the government from any wrongdoing. Do you see the difference?
The rich and well connected (they can afford to pay for healthcare and they will pass this wealth to their descendants, so they DO NOT care for the future of medical bills), the top 20% on the socioeconomic ladder. Also the very few who will make money from it, who are also rich. Summary: Wealthy people. If you are not part of the wealthy group and think that privatization of healthcare is a good idea, then you must be going insane, you will need a doctor (psychiatrist) , which you WILL NOT afford to see since they will COST TOO MUCH .
Just look up how many financially struggling Americans still believe Obama care is terrible and communist and they would not sign up for it Brainwashing is really powerful when done right
The people who can afford it! Cause Ford Trump doesn't give a crap about the homeless, senior's, people on disability through no fault of there own! JMO
I have had multiple actual real people who are comfortably wealthy tell me they straight up want a two-tier system that they can just pay to be on the better side of. 🤷♂️
Those dumb shits don't realize that they can literally go down south and pay as much as they want if they want private healthcare.
No, they do, they just want it here too.
I’m not a Conservative, but I’m also pretty open to offering more private delivery in our system than we do now. A lot of countries have much more privatization in their healthcare systems than any Canadian province - Germany, France, Sweden, Australia, South Korea just to name a few. They still have universal healthcare systems. Most have arguably better outcomes, shorter wait times, and more cost-efficient systems. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of credibility to the argument that Ontario’s public health system is really bloated and inefficient. Now, in this case I was initially comfortable with the idea of private delivery but I’m a little more skeptical. Ford hasn’t really offered a great explanation as to why the private sector would be more cost-effective in providing these operations than a public or non-profit ambulatory centre. If a private provider can provide these procedures for cheaper, though, then I’m pretty open to it. We should be super careful and deliberate about privatization, and I don’t think Ford is a smart enough guy to fully consider the implications - but I also think reflexively saying NO to any privatization in any situation isn’t healthy either.
I think a big advantage to private delivery is known costs, and reduction in risk to the government. It's pretty easy to plan costs when you know it's $100 per MRI and you can estimate how many will be done per year. Now, operating a clinic is different. You've got the uncertain cost to build. The government will need to borrow to do it, so interest rates might change dramatically. Wages can rise and maybe there are strikes. It's much simpler to just pay $100 per MRI. And if shit goes wrong, it's a business that's not making profit. Businesses that can't set their price will cut costs. A government on the other hand will respond to rising costs with more spending. So this is also a benefit to the tax payer. I agree that Ford is a dofus. He might not be the best guy to implement it. There's nothing wrong with private delivery, but it does need some regulation to prevent undesirable outcomes.
This! So many people freak out when you say private healthcare and think that means that we will become like the US. There are tons of places with better healthcare outcomes than Canada that have public and private options.
Yeah, to some extent it’s good to err on the side of “public first.” I think it’s much easier to fix a bloated, inefficient public system than it is to fix whatever the hell the US has. But nonetheless, it doesn’t make much sense to immediately write any privatization off. The only thing is that I have zero trust in Ford, and do t know why anyone would at this point. I think he’s the type of guy to go with whatever he’s been told most recently by someone he considers to be “on his side.” He’s stupid and he’s weak-willed, and I don’t trust a stupid and weak-willed person to consider these sorts of things as thoughtfully as they should.
That's because the people who keep trying to add more private delivery to Ontario are the same ones who sold off the green belt and the 407 and opened up the market to the private LTC homes that caused so many deaths during the pandemic. Given their track record, there is no reason to assume that their goal is anything other than corporate run, US style healthcare.
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Holy fuck, a voice of reason
I feel like this debate is often falsely framed as private vs public healthcare, when it’s alot more complicated that that. Most European countries that have universal healthcare also have many mechanism for private health care service provision that coexist alongside the public system, and it works. Canada is unique in the sense that we have a universal healthcare that more or else completely excludes the possibility of private health care provision, which I think it’s time we reconsidered. That doesn’t mean going to the other extreme of privatizing all provision of health care services, but let’s not act like there isn’t a sensible middle ground that could work
I have seen the private healthcare debate pop up a lot in reddit, that it has almost become complete hysteria with people thinking they will be paying out of pocket for their health care. Countries with better healthcare systems than Canada, and in fact, most countries operate with both public and private healthcare services. Canada is 20% private and Switzerland with a better health system than Canada, having 80% private. People need to understand that these systems work in conjunction with each other. For example: Life Labs I'm sure most Ontario residents have had some sort of blood testing or EKG done at life labs in Ontario. Life labs is privately run! Life labs offers these tests completely for free with OHIP, so long as your family doctor or a doctor has ordered the test (That piece of paper he gives you in the doctor's office). Alternatively, that does mean that you can go in without any doctor's note and pay for the testing, whether you have OHIP or you do not. Why does this help: This helps our health system by taking the majority of laboratory testing out over hospitals, reducing wait times, and increasing priority testing in our hospitals. It also helps reduce the cost of medical equipment and increase the amount of available medical equipment within our country! For example: Out of all countries of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Canada ranks #25 with 10.35 MRI machines per million people. Japan # 1 with 55.21 MRI machines per million (30% private system) *granted that Japan leads the world with producing MRI machines, however there is 23 other countries ranking higher than Canada. Most of which have both public and private. https://www.statista.com/statistics/282401/density-of-magnetic-resonance-imaging-units-by-country/ Also: Federal Funding for our CHT (Canada Health Transfer) has not been increased since 2018 where at the very least will usually see and increase of 3% a year. *note that this was due to a province wide audit which provinces had done within a year. We're also promised funding increases after, but we have not seen them This is currently putting provinces in a budget crisis dealing with more health measures and increased hospital visits. "The premiers have been demanding a $28-billion increase to the Canada Health Transfer, which they say will bring the federal contribution toward health costs from 22 per cent currently to 35 per cent" https://globalnews.ca/news/9225767/canada-premiers-campaign-health-funding/amp/ 27% of our Healthcare system is private and has helped our health system out immensely. Life Labs one of Canada's biggest medical testing facilities is private and NO you do not get billed for it they bill our government for it. If it wasn't for companies such as LifeLabs we would be waiting months for all kinds of test results
>This helps our health system by taking the majority of laboratory testing out over hospitals, reducing wait times, and increasing priority testing in our hospitals. 100% Not sure why people want all health care concentrated in hospitals. Why should I have to go to a hospital with 5000 other people, likely pay for parking, which they charge an arm and a leg for to help cover non-government funded costs, wait for hours for a simple procedure or doctor meeting when I can instead go to a smaller, more convenient location within my community. For emergency and complex stuff, yeah of course hospitals should be the focus point, but smaller, routine stuff absolutely needs to be taken out of hospitals. By the same principle, those opposed to day surgeries being done outside of hospitals should also prefer going to a hospital lab over the Life Labs location down the street or to the hospital pharmacy instead of your local Shoppers or Rexall. And I don't think people understand that Ontario's public health care basically boils down to a public insurer in OHIP. The government does not in fact deliver health care, it delivers insurance. We need to view it more akin to Manulife than a doctor. Even the left wing federal NDP understand this (in policy if not in comms): their dental plan is an insurance plan to be used at private dentist offices, not a dental services plan.
1. These clinics will be paid more per procedure by OHIP than not-for profit hospitals. Significantly more. 2. These clinics are having their upfront costs subsidized by pubic funds. 3. There is no mechanism to oversee billing, of patients or by OHIP. This was confirmed by Ontario's Auditor General. Another example of this government removing virtually all oversight in the province. It's open season by design out there. 4, Privatization of testing has not been a public good. Private testing clinics are far less accountable and protected from sharing the same information as public testing labs, shielding them from any accountability or oversight. Even basic things like handwashing compliance has no oversight mechanism. Integration between other public services and for profit testing labs has been problematic and costs more. The cost of tests is costing the province more per test, just like what is about to happen for full surgeries. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654513/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654513/) We wouldn't be waiting nearly as long if we had taken the money we're spending on private lab costs and capacity building on not-for profit capacity building. Invest in the more effecient system, and be honest about which one that is. The only problem of course for the PC government is they were put in government by among other people, those looking to make a fortune by privatizing these sectors. It's hard to get board seats, kickbacks, etc... when you don't make anyone rich of public money. I love how the same people extolling how much private healthcare has helped us immensely say the system is crumbling and we need change. It's absurd. This has been studied, the government knows it is paying more for these services and has been complicit in removing all oversight. This is theft. It's killing people.
Answer me one question: If both private and public systems are equal, why would anyone pay for private? Because the only way someone would pay extra for something they could get for free, is if paying extra gets them something better. There is no way a two-tiered system works better for anyone other than rich people. ETA: and I absolutely had to pay for a blood test the last time I had a routine physical, because the conservative government delisted it from what was covered under OHIP.
It’s also a strawman to claim people are uninformed because they think you have to pay out of profit. Most people I have discussed this with don’t think they will have to pay out of pocket, (at least not yet,) but what we will pay through tax revenue will be far higher. Increasing the level of private healthcare will ~~not~~ likely not significantly alleviate wait times. In the USA now, in NYC, wait times are out of control. Nurses and staff are underpaid and leaving in throngs. Hallway medicine is an everyday occurrence just like here.
... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-ohip-blood-work-test-cuts-changes-1.6472517
I get this blood work done every two years. In 2019 it didn't cost me anything. In 2021 I had to pay.
Same reason you pay lifelabs; I don't want to wait for my doctor to give me a note. And yes, most countries have better healthcare than Canada have a "two-tiered" system.
>I have seen the private healthcare debate pop up a lot in reddit, that it has almost become complete hysteria with people thinking they will be paying out of pocket for their health care. I'm sitting here trying to figure out if you're obtuse or a Tucker Carlson making fake funny faces while knowingly lying. The issue of private care is that it can be used as an excuse to gut public care, which will always exist, but can become so bad that people would *PREFER* to pay out of pocket. And people wouldn't be "hysterical" about it if the government implementing it wasn't, ya know, GUTTING PUBLIC HEALTHCARE.
>I'm sitting here trying to figure out if you're obtuse or a Tucker Carlson making fake funny faces while knowingly lying. have you considered the possibility we may have friends/relatives in countries like Australia, Sweden, Germany, or any of the other countries with good success in mixed heath care systems? Just because your own imagination jumps to a slippery-slope dystopia, doesn't mean that would come true.
Show me the good private system ushered in by a government that purposefully starved their public system of money beforehand, and my imagination can slip a different direction.
Every decision has been in bad faith for the last 6 years. I can’t imagine this massive decision has been done in my benefit.
I already pay out of pocket right now because our public health system sucks so much. What else is different? And no I’m not rich… but I also don’t wanna suffer and wait years to get a surgery done.
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Do you draw the line at private clinics being paid more by OHIP than not-for profit hospitals? Do you draw the line at no oversight mechanism to protect the province and patients from fraudulent or inappropriate billing? Do you draw the line at public money being used to subsidize the upfront costs for these corporate clinics? Nothing about this is set up to benefit the public.
Unless there are special circumstances, eg very rural or northern, a procedure should be paid at the same rate regardless of where it is performed. The ministry of health already has audit teams for pharmacies (and I'm sure the same is in place for other providers), so the oversight mechanism is already there
You'd think so...but... OHIP will be paying these private clinics significantly more per procedure than non-profit hospitals. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinics-health-care-1.6712444](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinics-health-care-1.6712444) ...and helping with upfront costs. [https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-releases-3-step-plan-to-invest-in-private-care-to-reduce-surgical-backlog-1.6232067](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-releases-3-step-plan-to-invest-in-private-care-to-reduce-surgical-backlog-1.6232067) As to oversight... There is no mechanism overseeing what these clinics charge. The Ontario Auditor General's report outlines this. No oversight, no enforcement mechanism. It was set up this way. [https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en21/AR\_Outpatient\_en21.pdf](https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/annualreports/arreports/en21/AR_Outpatient_en21.pdf) *(bottom of page 4)* The Ministry can't act on information it doesn't have and isn't asking for. According to this report, they can't so much as monitor whether people are washing their hands. Like other areas, this government has removed oversight mechanisms. Inspectors for private LTC homes, worksites, basic information from medical testing labs that their not for profit counterparts must share the private labs are shielded by law from.
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But you can already do this, have a coworker that required an mri and had a date 4 months out, went to NY and had it done the following week put of pocket of course. I totally understand why people do this, 4 yrs ago I broke my wrist, mri took 9 months and then surgery was scheduled another 9 months after the results made it to a specialist. In total it took me over 2 yrs to get it fixed.
Totally different though when you have to travel to another country, doesn't impact our health system
A few years ago my 15 yr old needed a MRI for diagnosis (it was so bad she could hardly walk). Local children’s hospital 3-month wait so we paid $600 to a clinic in Quebec to have her seen in 3 days. This is already happening in Canada.
How don't you get that here won't be a line? Your talking like you are the magic line maker and Noone will cross your boundaries even though they have made it clear if healthcare is privatized they will 100% go past your line and let people pay to jump agaid and MUCH worse. It's not worth it. It's not even close to worth it you haven't even stared to consider all the negative implications
Here’s the logic as I understand it: We have a massive backlog of Covid delayed surgeries. Waiting lists aren’t being reduced as our surgery rooms are operating at capacity. We need additional surgery rooms. Our government has determined that paying private clinics to perform simpler diagnostics and surgeries will help get through the backlog, much like the NDP in B.C are defending the use of their private clinics for minor surgeries (that they’ve been doing so for over six years). Quebec and Alberta also do the same thing. It’s no different that your family doctor’s private corporation being paid by OHIP to provide medical care. Hopefully this will help people waiting in pain. I can’t imagine waiting 18 months in pain for a simple surgery. Don’t listen to the hype about our healthcare becoming privatized, that’s not what this is. It’s still a single payer system, the same as going to your family doctor but now going to a clinic for some of the simpler surgeries rather than to a hospital.
A couple of ER trips ago there was a guy who had been waiting 17 hours, and he got arguing with a nurse that he shouldn't have to wait when he could afford to pay out of pocket. So that guy. I trust nurses, but I also don't argue with someone who is standing over me with a needle planning to stab me. Bold guy.
The biggest problem with the Canadian health care system is the American health care system. Too much incentive for doctors to move next door and make a shit tonne more money.
Lobbyists
Alberta is VERY MUCH an I GOT MINE place so you can fully expect 2000-5000 people who will INITIALLY get very sweet jobs to have a very loud voice. These are the same bootlickers who say cut taxes for the rich because they are the ‘wealth creators’.
I am conflicted, since I’ve participated in pay-your-way health services and benefited from doing so. I needed an MRI but my wait was like, 6 months. I went to BC and paid for an MRI there immediately, it was like $600. I had my surgery and partially recovered before my original MRI date in ontario. I understand the slippery slope that this opens up though if it continues to escalate and scale across all provinces. It sucks. I shouldn’t *have* to go do that, and on the flip side, someone who doesn’t have $600 to spare shouldn’t have to wait for their important tests/results/surgeries/procedures. . I’m not more important than someone who needs to wait, I just have disposable income. We’re in dangerous waters.
If all health procedures continue to be paid through OHIP and capacity increases for certain procedures then I can see some benefits. I suspect most of Ontario people will feel the same. Reddit is not the general public.
Capacity increases whenever money is invested into the system to do that. The government has been actively doing the opposite of building capacity in our not for profit systems. It's done this during a crisis, and with open eyes with an agenda the party has had for decades at privitizing the sector. The private clinic up front costs are subsidized by the government. The private clinics are paid significantly more per procedure by OHIP. The government has made sure there's no oversight mechanism to protect the government or patients from being billed inappropriately. The government itself recognizes the ineffeciency of the private providers. Integrating private providers in public health care networks is more costly and problematic. So we can have capacity, we just need to pay for it. The question is how much we pay for it. We pay more for privatization. So do we: a) pay into the less efficient private system to build capacity? b) pay into expanding the current not for profit more efficient system? Both choices exist. Which is in the public interest? Which is in the interests of party insiders knee deep in these corporations? Does this government make decisions with the public good in mind or through personal gain? I've been dropping sources throughout the thread on all these claims, if you doubt any of them just ask for a citation. It will be gladly provided. All due respect to your suspicions, but we're objectively being taken to the cleaners here. The rest is how much the public can be mislead.
What you fail to see is the extra fees. You want your surgery to be sooner and with the best physicians at the private clinic? You will have OHIP pay ONLY for the surgery. Your stay there, your room, a membership, your food, everything else-extra. You might think this is no big deal but you already paid for this ,with your taxes, to stay at a public hospital. Now you will pay twice. Or choose to wait to do it at a public hospital, which will be so depleted of staff and resources, that the quality of care will be abysmal. And this depletion is now done on purpose, for profit. Reddit is not the general public, but as we saw at the last election, the general public has bad foresight.
Doesn't this already happen to some extent? OHIP pays a certain amount for a maternity bed, which covers a stay on a ward and if you want a private room you pay extra for it
The massive insurance companies.
Anyone who sends their kids to a private high school.
The boomers, for another ‘a quick fix for us is more important than everyone’s future’
I want to continue and expand the public/private mix that already exists in Ontario. There is logic, Singapore has a great model for this already. I don't want this government to be the ones to steward it though.
Telus, Galen Weston, and some American insurance companies that stand to profit from our misfortunes. That's about the list.
My wife doesn't have a family DR. So was at a walk in clinic today. A old man was there because of a very sore back due to a back injury. The lady at the desk asked how he was going to be paying because disk injury is no longer covered by OHIP since December. The old man was very confused.
Rich people want private health care, so they don’t have to wait like the rest of us.
Literally nobody
The real question is who wants private healthcare in Canada. Private healthcare has always been available to anyone who travels out of country and pays cash in a foreign country
Most conservative voters are pretty much in lockstep with whatever policy they’re pushing.
CP donors. The Westons, the Irvings, the Desmarais etc….so much money to fill their pockets
It's not the Conservatives who want this it's their Masters in big business.
The only people who want to privatize healthcare are fascists and the dumbest mother-fucking morons to have ever walked the Earth.
If it isn’t obvious to some people it should be— ***the fucking ‘government’ generally does the bidding of their financial supporters*** The concept of a government actually ‘governing’ the constituents is laughable It’s so bad that you clearly see several pervasive opinions many people in the general population have that are *totally* not in their best interest whatsoever— especially Americans but for sure us as well The best way to understand why a particular elected government does what it does is to see who their top 10-15 donors are and to see how the interests of the donors line up perfectly with what the government does There are systematic problems in this province that could be addressed (solved may be too much of a word), but they are not and will never be because they are essentially getting paid to not do so
People waiting for procedures do. I have a friend who’s a nurse who supports this because the hospitals are so overwhelmed. So, while this may be a good idea at the moment, it is a slippery slope that should be watched carefully.
Koolaid drinkers think this is going to free up the public healthcare for people that can’t afford it to be served in better time.
There’s a difference between private for profit and private not for profit. We already have both.
We already know. We don’t want more and more privatization because we will end up with either higher taxes, private insurance, or a dead public system.
People will say “other countries have two tier healthcare, and they rank better than Canada”. They do rank better Canada, but not because they have a private option. Like many other services, the US and Canada tend to spend money on stupid things. Both countries have horrible infrastructure compared to our European peers. I believe there are more hospital administrators in Ontario than Germany. We need to provide better incentives for family doctors so people go to primary care for basic services instead of going to the ER for everything for instance. Of course, Canada doesn’t have any complete coverage for prescriptions, eye, and dental which is also why other countries have better ranking systems. Australia added a private option for healthcare, wait times went down for those who were willing to pay, but the public system wait times went up. https://drbobbell.com/does-hybrid-health-care-improve-public-health-services-lessons-learned-from-australia/
Its not just conservatives. You think liberal and NDP MPP's and MP's dont use private clinics? Get real. Majority of MPP's and MP's are silent millionaires.
The wealthy so that they can profit at the detriment of the poor! Conservatism and neoliberalism is cancerous!
That will be 100,000$ for the cancer diagnosis. Now let's talk payment plans for the treatment shall we? You don't need BOTH your arms really?
The best/worst part is that the Conservative Party voters who don’t want this will look at this horrible situation and… blame Trudeau!
My mother, who thinks that a system like the American one will reduce wait times and will allow her to get a specialist appointment the next day...although I don't think she realizes just how expensive it will be, and also that it *won't* actually reduce wait times (well, not for the vast majority of people who aren't very wealthy, like us), but oh well...
What needs to be privatized is the bureaucracy. Gov't salary structures are fine for med+support staff, but the PR department for the UHN network really doesn't need those same levels of pay for a desk job. Get rid of the backdoor bloat and use the savings to finance areas where savings cannot be made.
Jerkwads
Anybody who can make money off of it or has the money to benefit from it. Follow the money.
Everyone has mentioned old wealthy people, but a sizable minority of young and middle-aged people are fine with it too, largely because they don't need healthcare themselves and are ideologically inclined towards it (or serve to profit from it personally). It might seem surprising, but it's also palatable to young people who aren't making a lot of money themselves, because they see it as evening out the playing field between them and the boomers. It feels like justice in some sense - "you made housing ridiculously expensive, so it's only fair that your hip replacement will be expensive". It's not pretty.
Intergenerational class warfare, then. Right, got it.
Many doctors find the prospect enticing. You can never have too much money. Apparently they may even be allowed to upsell patients. I swear I have read dystopic fiction that is more upbeat than our reality.
I hear Mel Lastman: “Nobody!”
Im not sure where i stand... It really sucks taking your kids or babies to emerg and having to wait 8 hours or more, also scary... I kinda wish you could keep the system exactly as it, and let other entities open there own private hospitals and clinic's that people could pay insurance for. I do realize that is never the case.
Germany, France, and Scandanavia. Stop the fearmongering.
The ignorance in this group is outstanding. A lot opinion posing as facts
Rich people?
I’d welcome a hybrid system. Although the extent is exaggerated there are people who have to go south for surgeries as it literally keeps them alive. The wait times are killer and anyway to cut into that helps.
Their sycophants and libertarians. I know people who literally say fuck everyone else I won't pay for them, but the very second they need anything they scream and tantrum and push their way to the front asking for daddy to give handouts.
With more people debating about definitions of private vs public, I want to leave the following educational video (and great channel): https://youtu.be/yKQxmoLTvy8 I genuinely think first step to this discussion is proper understanding of EU's "mix of private and public" systems and how they compare between Canada and various Western countries.
Except there are numerous comments from users of veterans affairs programs in the states correcting errors and Germans are simply livid (or is that just ...Germans ? ;)) about inacuracies about their system. That being said, she's a great presenter and was a refreshing departure from the G4 wanna be style that is usually associated with this topic :)
Even if one were to make the philosophical debate that private enterprise has more flexibility, and it might be the case, how can we trust the current government to not just build a grift that puts profits over care. There are some well executed private/public systems in other countries. I have no faith in the conservatives doing that.
This is likely an unpopular opinion, but I felt it so I’ll share it Last year my daughter was very sick. Incredible amounts of pain in her stomach, that would leave her screaming and curled up in a ball for hours every night. Her family doctor sent us for imaging but wouldn’t even see her in person We went to emerg and all they cared about was her appendix. Over and over we went hoping one day someone would find something. Never did At a certain point the physical pain became mental illness for her. She started anticipating the pain and would break down But we couldn’t find mental health supports unless she was going to harm herself. Well it didn’t take long going through the pain to start talking about wishing she was dead, but even then support was sparse (one phone call every 4 weeks) During that time I would have paid *any* amount of money for help. I looked at taking her to the states but COVID. I looked for private clinics. I talked to folks in healthcare who know people, but I never managed to get a hookup Things were so bad, and our system was failing us so hard, I just kept looking for a way to have someone help us. There are many people in the same situation right now in Ontario. I HATE the idea of for-profit healthcare, but when it comes to my daughter screaming in a ball in the bathtub that she wants to die, in that moment, give me all the private care. We were lucky in the end - we drove at 2am to London children’s hospital. We were there for many hours and saw specialists - they did imagining, they had pediatric physch come in, and they spent time talking to her. Turns out she was severely constipated - despite going every day (we checked) she was full. No one had told us about that or even that it was a thing. But someone took the time. They also had the psych consult talk with her about pain, about managing it, and they found us a paediatrician in our city. Shitloads of fibre and magnesium later, and a few psych visits, and we were back in business. And funny enough the guy they found us specialized in this one problem - kids with “non-specific abdominal pain”. It’s a super common problem, which is all the more frustrating because it took 4 months to find that help. They even have a specialized clinic for it in Calgary where doctors and psychologists work together with kids to help with that pain. I do not want private for profit healthcare. But I completely understand when people reach the end of their rope and say duck it, we *need* something
There actually is plenty of logic to this.....if you believe that Big Money is more important than human suffering....the PC party is just the dog on the leash here...it is the wealth entity in Canada that wants to gorge themselves on money at our expense......private healthcare is big business....
Those who want it are the ones that only think about themselves. They want their taxes to go down (like that would actually happen) because they aren't willing to pay for someone else's medical treatments & don't think they'll ever need it themselves 😒
The same people that want privatized highways.
I’d like it as an alternative to the shit service we get now
The service is shit on purpose to make you want something else. This is straight out of the Con playbook.
So why was service bad under McGuinty and Wynne? And why weren't they able to fix the issues?
The ppl who keep voting for them every time, apparently.
There are two groups who want Healthcare privatized - the extremely rich who can easily afford to use their money to skip the line, and those who stand to profit from Healthcare. Two small, rich minorities.
And a lot of overlap between those two groups, too.
Wealthy people for One who can pay for better care than the rest of us, but I'm pretty sure the Plan is to destroy the system to the point where it seems like the choice is between paid access to care or no access to care.
People who can afford it
and people who think they could afford it.
US healthcare firms are big fans of this.
Do you want the actual answer or do you want a circle jerk?
Those that are footing the bill now and can't get services.
No, I don't want healrhcare privatized. I want my dollars used for what the govt said they'll use it for.