Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Actually this is a great question. I have often wondered how the Canadian and UK healthcare system works. It has to be better than ours. I had one operation..and boom 20k! I will be paying for that the rest of my life! I will be interested to hear future posts about this subject!
I don't think you'll be surprised if I tell you this is not the first time we've addressed this issue on this forum, as it's a real topic of interest on this American board when it comes to Canada. But it has been awhile since we've had a healthcare thread, so I'll give it a shot and sum up some of the basic consensus from the past ones, which also coincide with my opinions.
1) Canadians pretty universally prefer our healthcare system to yours. The American healthcare system is a boogeyman in Canada. Although we don't have the personal experience with it that you do and many are confused by it because ours is so different, the United States is the only country we share a border with so we pay a lot of attention to you guys, and will typically hear about it from friends, relatives, or visitors who have lived or live in the United States. We love the security of knowing that whatever happens to us, we will always be covered, are glad that we can go to any hospital or doctor we like, and that people in this country do not die of chronic diseases because they cannot afford treatment or insurance. It's viewed as good for the economy because it keeps fewer of the poor from becoming unemployable, and because people don't worry about money when it comes to regular checkups, we know that this way of doing things reduces the economic burden of disease because this leads to more prevention of illness, rather the having expensive heroic treatments once someone has already becoming sick with, say, diabetes.
2) We view our system as more affordable. Sure, we pay for it with our taxes, but our country expends 11% of its GDP on healthcare whereas the US spends 18%. This is what happens when you have a single payer - economy's of scale. Our economy does not expend resources on advertising hospitals, there are no healthcare insurance agents, we do not have hundreds of thousand of people processing and rejecting claims for medical insurance, and hospital billing departments are a tiny fraction of the employment they'd be in a US hospital. This means savings passed on to the consumer. It also means better bargaining power with pharmaceutical companies, meaning cheaper drugs.
3) All that said, just because we don't prefer your system to ours doesn't mean we're happy with our system. Most of us recognize that their are serious, serious flaws with our healthcare model. Unfortunately, the average Canadian is only familiar with these two models and this stifles the debate around how to improve our system, which does not produce the same results for the dollar compared to some of our peers in developed world. Our current structure leads to some inefficiencies and poor management practices in hospitals. Physician, and residency, shortages in our country are an issue, as are non-crisis emergency room and elective surgery wait times. I should point out at this point that there is no such thing, in fact, as a Canadian Health Care System because healthcare is a provincial jurisdiction and each province has a separate system. There's lots of reforms every one of these systems needs to become better at what they do and it isn't happening fast enough or efficiently enough.
Bottom line, the vast majority of us far prefer our system and its philosophy to yours, but if you're shopping for a new system I don't like ours enough to recommend it. Perhaps France's or Denmark's systems may be of interest? They seem to have gotten there's closer to right then we have.
I have heard some good stuff about it and bad stuff, can an actual Canadian explain how the system works?
It's average. Some provinces do a better job of healthcare than others. I find the quality carries from hospital. However there is no Canadian hospital up to par with the United States. Canadian healthcare is much less modern but still passable (in some areas).
It's average. Some provinces do a better job of healthcare than others. I find the quality carries from hospital. However there is no Canadian hospital up to par with the United States. Canadian healthcare is much less modern but still passable (in some areas).
I have heard some good stuff about it and bad stuff, can an actual Canadian explain how the system works?
Quote:
Originally Posted by snowchaser2002
Actually this is a great question. I have often wondered how the Canadian and UK healthcare system works. It has to be better than ours. I had one operation..and boom 20k! I will be paying for that the rest of my life! I will be interested to hear future posts about this subject!
20k is well spent paying for top quality healthcare. You could not get the same quality in the Canadian system. Don't forget Canadians come HERE for healthcare. Your average border hospital is flooded with Canadians.
It's average. Some provinces do a better job of healthcare than others. I find the quality carries from hospital. However there is no Canadian hospital up to par with the United States. Canadian healthcare is much less modern but still passable (in some areas).
20k is well spent paying for top quality healthcare. You could not get the same quality in the Canadian system. Don't forget Canadians come HERE for healthcare. Your average border hospital is flooded with Canadians.
Sorry but what's the point of this thread? So you can come here, waste people's valuable time trying to genuinely explain to you what Canada's healthcare system is like, and then you talk down on them saying how much it sucks in your book?
Also, what exactly is quality care? Are you a healthcare professional or MD? Does quality care entail 5-star hotel room service, $1,000+ cost for restroom usage (yes, that is a real cost incurred by friend of mine in a Boston hospital)? Most people go to the hospital to get cured with the most efficient resources possible, and are probably not looking to get pampered like on a cruise ship.
20k is well spent paying for top quality healthcare. You could not get the same quality in the Canadian system. Don't forget Canadians come HERE for healthcare. Your average border hospital is flooded with Canadians.
That is not true, I've seen statistics, the number of Canadians who go to the US for healthcare reasons specifically is extremely small. Most Canadians who go to US hospitals in border cities are there because they happened to be in a border city for shopping or tourism and got sick, or, as I understand in the case of Detroit, because there are partnerships with Windsor.
I'm a former Canuck (Hamilton Ont) to the USA an now in Mexico (Retired)
One thing that caught my eye when reading the posts was the mention of Pharmacy.
In the US you visit a Dr who writes a RX prescription that may cost an arm and leg.
Here in Mexico most Pharmacys sell over the counter RX items w/o any DR's signature exception being Narcotics.
I saw an ad on TV for Lyrica (Germany) that I tried and it did wonders for me. Pharmacist suggested a Generic that also worked and was cheaper in price........NO MD fee to pay.''
Decades ago visited family in Hamilton/Port Colborne and while there purchased two bottles of "222" for my mother from the Pharmacist over the counter.......almost like todays Mexico.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
get all that bs off FOX?
