I recently came to the conclusion that my own health insurance (through my employer) is basically just glorified life insurance. It doesn’t cover hardly anything so I get bills for any procedure my doctor recommends, plus I have a huge co-pay for every visit, and I have to pay for parking at the doctor’s office. In other words, unless I actually end up in the hospital I have to pay out of pocket, so I either have to be completely healthy or terminally ill to avoid paying out of pocket. Our insurance didn’t used to be like this, but the company keeps trying to save money, opting for cheaper and cheaper plans. I’m at the point where I avoid going to the doctor and just try to ignore any ailment.
Hi there,
I didn’t imply that Canadian healthcare is superior or inferior to any other system, anywhere else in the world. The only point I raised is that the Americans that I’ve had the pleasure of becoming friends with have been, without fail, surprised that Canadians pay premiums, on a monthly basis or via our taxes, for our healthcare. These people are neither unintelligent or sheltered. I think that there’s a lot of myth surrounding our socialized healthcare system–that’s neither bad, no good. Not everyone has been able to travel to or work in other countries, like you and I have. We’re lucky to have the benefit of life experience to draw on. I’m shocked by how much Americans have to pay for healthcare, medication and childcare. But it’s not my place to say that the system is inferior. I’m not a citizen and I’ve never had to deal with it, first hand.
Well, I’m sure that acronym has at least one other loving translation…
Lemme tell ya, moving from Ontario to Alberta was shocking in a lot of ways, not least of which were the health premiums. That I didn’t know about. That I didn’t pay. And when HR came to me to say the Province wanted to garnish my wages I was soooooo confused. My company paid the premiums for us, but I had to pay tax on that for… reasons?
Seriously makes no sense that y’all have premiums. Just put it back in the taxes! So much easier!
@Robbo - one of my best friends had a baby last year. High risk pregnancy and C-Section to boot. Cost to her… nada. And she took a year off work for mat-leave. Paid fully for half, paid 55% for the other half. Just went back to work at her old job last week, no muss no fuss. I honestly don’t know how people have babies in the 'States.
Let me put it this way. My friend is having surgery to remove his appendix today. He’ll be covered because he’s on Medicaid for disability (for now, anyway), but he called me last night to drive him to the hospital ER because he was in too acute pain to take the bus and couldn’t afford an ambulance ride, which would not have been covered. He was describing his pain as 10/10 and told me he was having trouble breathing, but he still had to put cost calculations first, which is, apparently, what the free market devotees want!
The ambulance cost thing is nuts.
It used to be like that here too. You’d get a $800 bill if an ambulance took you to the hospital.
But its a flat fee now, $40.00
I hope your friend recovers quickly and that his insurance doesn’t reject his claim.
With a lot of tears, handwringing, extremely expensive (and often very substandard) infant care, and other sacrifices. I’m surprised their aren’t at least government-backed low-interest loan packages from the government to cover the first year of child care. Child tax credits are bullshit. My wife was about to start a new career when we had our first baby, but was still in school, so it was cheaper (and less stressful) for her to stay home than to pay for/find childcare. Then we had a second, and we’re so “lucky” that we can afford to have her work part time from home with them (well “afford,” we’re a family of four in a one bedroom apartment)
Yup - never paid any kind of premium - ever.
Partially.
Uh. It’s pretty damn clear the US system is inferior, and nobody is surprised that you may occasionally have out of pocket expenses or that your taxes pay for it. What was the point of this article besides making some vague “It’s not all its cracked up to be even though it’s clearly a better system”? The whole thing reeks of some conservative op-ed column from some Tory wonk.
I may not believe in god, but I do believe in Tommy Douglas.
It’s just impossible to know how much an ambulance ride might cost in the US.
Maybe you’d get transported by the fire department, and maybe it would be free, or it might have a nominal charge $50, $100 with the fire department funding it. Or it might have a full charge of $1000 or $2000. Maybe your insurance would cover it. Maybe your insurance would pay $400 and that would be the end of it. Maybe insurance would would cover $900 and the ambulance company would call that good. Or, as it was in my case -and this was a transfer form one hospital to another, not an active emergency- the bill might be $7000, the ambulance company might take the $900 from the insurer and then bill you for the rest. And then maybe you would call them up to WTF, and they’d start talking about payment plans, or, if you pay right up they’ll let you go for $4000. You could go find an expert to help you fight. You could spend months wrangling with it. Very likely you’d at least get it down to $2000 or something, after all a quick phone call full of obvious sales pressure tactics and they dropped it to $4000, it’s clearly essentially a scam, right? They are just seeing what they can squeeze you for, seeing how much fight you’ll put up. Finding where your ‘bah i’ll just pay to make this go away’ point is.
Even a city EMS ambulance costs you here in Philly. Around $1,000 a trip, and often not covered. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20160822_Byko__Time_to_end_city_ambulance_gouging.html
Hi Jeezers,
I don’t recall bringing my politics into this. The point of this piece was to talk about a misconception about our healthcare in Canada that I’ve run into on multiple occasions in America. I was hoping that by talking about our healthcare in Canada, I could open up conversations with folks here about other things they might want to know about Canada. There’s no agenda here, other than that.
Also, I’m a socialist.
I’m a proud Canadian and always will be. It will always be the country, despite the fact that I travel almost constantly, that I think of when I think of home.
As much as I enjoy traveling America, I’m not interested in being a citizen here or anywhere else. It’s possible to embrace the people, culture and landscapes of a country without giving one’s self over to it. I feel much the same about the United States as I do about Spain, Mexico and Ireland.
Ontario charges a $45CDN co-pay for any medically necessary ambulance trip anywhere in the province (including air ambulance trips). For hospital-to-hospital transfers, there is no charge. The fee can be waived for various reasons — welfare recipients etc.
If you are uninsured under the provincial plan, a non-resident, or the trip is deemed not medically necessary, you will pay $240 flat rate for land ambulances, and the full cost of air ambulances, which is when it can get pricey.
Even implying any socialized medical system is less than perfect and infinitely superior to ours in all possible aspects is heresy in some places.
I’m not saying Canada doesn’t have a better system on average for many (Unless you’re First Nations, then you appear to be royally buggered) but the knee-jerk antipathy to anyone who dares to point out the flaws in those systems is amusing.
“The Fraser Institute, a Canadian public policy think tank, estimates that 52,513 Canadians received non-emergency medical treatment in the U.S. and other countries in 2014, a 25 percent jump from the roughly 41,838 who sought medical care abroad the previous year.”
And the continuing problem with multi-month wait times or being told the nearest facility that will take you is a 100 mile each way trip.
