[fifeboy]

Proculation Proculation:

Well travior, the cost is not zero. Like I said in a earlier post, it is zero only if you do not work. I live in Quebec and the cost of the healthcare is about 53% of all the province revenue. That means that if I pay 15 000$ in taxes from a 35 000$ salary, about 7 500$ goes for healthcare. I'm pretty sure that for 7 500$, I could have a quite good private insurance, something that is forbidden to have here in Canada.

I don't know about that. Bart Simpson, our CKA friend claims to pay $9000 a year for his health care, if I remember right. That's tacked on to the top of his taxes. Wonder what happened to old Bart, I miss him.

[Brenda]

Bart changed jobs, and has little time... I miss him too, I hope he and his wife are doing ok.

[Bacardi4206]

travior travior:

My portion of our health plan is about $2400 per year, not counting what my employer pays. My total out-of-pocket limit is $5000 plus $200 deductable per person per year not counting prescriptions with one co-pay alone costing me $95 for a 3-month supply. And if I don't get the mail-order 3-month supply, the same meds at my locak pharmacy will have a monthly co-pay of $60! I had twins born this year and the out-of-pocket amount is huge. Not to mention having to make sure that not only the hospital is part of the insurance plan but also the individual doctors in said hospital. When my first child was born, we delivered in a hopital that was part of the plan but the NICU doctors were not part of the plan which cost me $1600 more than I was expecting.

Like I said, if you add total costs (taxes, insurance, etc.) in Canada and the US, there is little difference in percentage of pay brought home available for use as you see fit. Once the total effect of Obama's hand-out to big business is added into the tax stream, it is only going to get worse here.

Really? Maybe they will move to Canada. New tax paying citizens who actually know how to pay tax's (change from immigration) . Put up some advertisement posters in your neighbourhood when the bad times hit .

Anyways I saw in your earlier post that you were planning on moving up here once you are set financially. If I remember correctly or if they removed the option. I think you get a bonus % income for moving your money over to Canada when you immigrate.

[fifeboy]

Brenda Brenda:

Bart changed jobs, and has little time... I miss him too, I hope he and his wife are doing ok.

Thanks Brenda, I wish him luck too.

[cougar]

Proculation Proculation:

So only a small percentage pays for all the healthcare.

COST

In my opinion healthcare is not funded only by the government. There is some kind of a wicked game between the hospitals, the health insurance companies and the drug manufacturers.

Take a look at what you pay....In my case, living in BC and having a low income I paid $600/year for extended health coverage for myslef and my family. My spouse also paid $600/year for a similar plan. On top of that upto a few months ago, we were paying $40/month for the basic health care coverage (not "free" in BC and still left as a visible payment).

Then you start buying prescription drugs, you schedule dental appointmnets and you may even think that you have an advantage with your plans....Wrong! The rates for all medical services are so inflated, that paying 10-20% of them is enough to cover the actual cost. And when you pay the $1,500 for the health care coverage, you may have worked a whole month or more to earn this money. Count the number of hours someone is spending with you on health related issues (doctor's visits, dentists, emergency visits (not the waiting time, but the actual time of service), the drug pick up times) to figure out who has the advantage.

Also keep in mind that there are a lot of tourists visiting Canada, or people with no coverage. They get ripped off really badly. Access to the emergency room costs them $750, even for a 15 min check up. The walk in clinic is $50 for the same thing.


WAIT TIMES

I've heard many stories, but I will relate to you only my own experience. In September last year I hurt my foot. There was something hard I could feel in my heel. It took between 1 and two months to get the X-ray and see that the thing was not a spur as initialli believed, but most likely a calcified thorn, or who knows what. I was supposed to see an orthopedic surgeon in 6 months counted from December last year (this was when the request was sent) but the other day, after asking why nooone cals me yet, the doctors office replied it was now goint to take between 1 and 2 years to get looked at!!!!!

This is the healthcare you can count on.

Also keep in mind they (the doctors) do not work for you, and the only time you can expect any service is during regular business hours 9AM-4:30 PM, so you better be important in your job, otherwise apart from the lost wages you may lose your job altogether.

Aybody has to say anything else?

[Scape]

40$? Isn't it 54$ for one person? If you're at $42.40 that means your income was around 26-28k and you applied for subsidy. Comparing health care costs to insurance premiums is not realistic. Single claims can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Also, spurs on the foot, albeit painful is not the same as critical care a two year wait period for that is not unheard of.

[llama66]

I had a pulmonary embolism (a result of the ankle surgery) in February I waited 5 minutes in the waiting room at the PLC in Calgary and was admitted to the ER, I had a CAT scan almost immediately, and spent 3 days in the hospital, there was no charge to me as Alberta Health picked up the tab.

I also rolled my ankle last year and tore alot of the ligaments and partially tore the tendon, so I had an MRI and Surgery, in a reasonable amount of time (WCB was able to expedite surgery to just two weeks after seeing the orthopedic surgeon, but normally there would be a 3-6 month wait for surgery.)

[cougar]

Scape Scape:

a two year wait period for that is not unheard of.

Who would want to have this happen to them and wait two years? You?
After waiting the 6-8 months and being told I can expect one more year of waiting I asked them if there was a place in BC where this can be done sooner. They said the shortest wait time was in Trail, BC - 6 months. So if I am lucky I will have a specialist finally take a look at the X-rays nearly 1,5 years after the accident and after driving at least 500km one way.

[Proculation]

cougar cougar:

Scape Scape:

a two year wait period for that is not unheard of.

Who would want to have this happen to them and wait two years? You?
After waiting the 6-8 months and being told I can expect one more year of waiting I asked them if there was a place in BC where this can be done sooner. They said the shortest wait time was in Trail, BC - 6 months. So if I am lucky I will have a specialist finally take a look at the X-rays nearly 1,5 years after the accident and after driving at least 500km one way.

Something that would not happen if you were able to get a private insurance.

[Brenda]

Come over for coffee

A friend of mine was to go for an ultrasound or something after a suspicious lumb was found in her breast. She had to wait over 4 months in her own hospital, and 4 weeks to get into Nelson... That is ridiculous...

[rawmeat]

Proculation Proculation:

cougar cougar:

Scape Scape:

a two year wait period for that is not unheard of.

Who would want to have this happen to them and wait two years? You?
After waiting the 6-8 months and being told I can expect one more year of waiting I asked them if there was a place in BC where this can be done sooner. They said the shortest wait time was in Trail, BC - 6 months. So if I am lucky I will have a specialist finally take a look at the X-rays nearly 1,5 years after the accident and after driving at least 500km one way.

Something that would not happen if you were able to get a private insurance.

I had private insurance when I lived in the US, wait were just as bad.

[DerbyX]

cougar cougar:

COST

In my opinion healthcare is not funded only by the government. There is some kind of a wicked game between the hospitals, the health insurance companies and the drug manufacturers.

Take a look at what you pay....In my case, living in BC and having a low income I paid $600/year for extended health coverage for myslef and my family. My spouse also paid $600/year for a similar plan. On top of that upto a few months ago, we were paying $40/month for the basic health care coverage (not "free" in BC and still left as a visible payment).

Then you start buying prescription drugs, you schedule dental appointmnets and you may even think that you have an advantage with your plans....Wrong! The rates for all medical services are so inflated, that paying 10-20% of them is enough to cover the actual cost. And when you pay the $1,500 for the health care coverage, you may have worked a whole month or more to earn this money. Count the number of hours someone is spending with you on health related issues (doctor's visits, dentists, emergency visits (not the waiting time, but the actual time of service), the drug pick up times) to figure out who has the advantage.

Also keep in mind that there are a lot of tourists visiting Canada, or people with no coverage. They get ripped off really badly. Access to the emergency room costs them $750, even for a 15 min check up. The walk in clinic is $50 for the same thing.


WAIT TIMES

I've heard many stories, but I will relate to you only my own experience. In September last year I hurt my foot. There was something hard I could feel in my heel. It took between 1 and two months to get the X-ray and see that the thing was not a spur as initialli believed, but most likely a calcified thorn, or who knows what. I was supposed to see an orthopedic surgeon in 6 months counted from December last year (this was when the request was sent) but the other day, after asking why nooone cals me yet, the doctors office replied it was now goint to take between 1 and 2 years to get looked at!!!!!

This is the healthcare you can count on.

Also keep in mind they (the doctors) do not work for you, and the only time you can expect any service is during regular business hours 9AM-4:30 PM, so you better be important in your job, otherwise apart from the lost wages you may lose your job altogether.

Aybody has to say anything else?

yes. Under our system a far greater % of your health care dollar goes to actual health care. We pay far less in ancillary costs such as administration, advertising, legal, etc.

In addition Canadians receive a fair amount of pro-bono health care. Our system works under a capped principle. Clinics, doctors offices, and labs bill the government on a per patient/service basis up to a pre-set amount, ie its cap. Once they hit that limit they are no longer able to bill for that service but they are still required to offer that service.

Currently in Ontario the big three medical labs provided over 150 million in free services last year. Factor in the fact that every clinic, doctors office, and hospital are required to do the same and you get perhaps 1 billion dollars in free service per year for Ontarians. Under a different system we would see that eliminated meaning 1 billion more in spending would be required just to maintain our current system.

[Scape]

cougar cougar:

Scape Scape:

a two year wait period for that is not unheard of.

Who would want to have this happen to them and wait two years? You?
After waiting the 6-8 months and being told I can expect one more year of waiting I asked them if there was a place in BC where this can be done sooner. They said the shortest wait time was in Trail, BC - 6 months. So if I am lucky I will have a specialist finally take a look at the X-rays nearly 1,5 years after the accident and after driving at least 500km one way.

Everyone would want service right away. However, how do you balance that vs skilled staff shortages and an aging population? Add to that if you live outside of a major population centre you will not have the same access. Contact the college and ask them how hard it is to get a GP let alone a specialist to sign up and work in a practice that is not in the heart of Vancouver. Then after all that your also looking at a very large chunk of the doctors are aging out of the practice. We simply are not replacing them fast enough and it takes decades to get the skills.

If you are not willing to book in Canada you can travel to places like Asia and get the procedure done and a fraction of the cost it would be in the US and they will have equivalent skills. Honestly, that may be your only option as the system would have to take away from more vital services in order to shorten the wait times for deemed non-critical treatments. We could up premiums but we would still have a shortfall in the people needed to run the system. Private practice only divides the system on itself so you can get zero waits for high revenue cosmetic procedures and the rest of the high risk low return procedures get offloaded upon the public system making an already overstretched system untenable.

THAT is the state of our health care system and for the price you pay we do a lot with the funds we get. There are promising developments in the public system that Alberta has trialed that may soon be used here in BC and there is always room to improve but ultimately for the amount of people it services Canadians are getting off cheap.

[Scape]

Post Script: forgot to mention, everyone and their dog now want an MRI at the local clinic. Equipment and procedures in general have all skyrocketed in cost in the last 10 years and I work with the provincial drug program so I know how much they have changed. To give you an idea there is now more then five thousand drugs now in the formulary but there is more then twenty in circulation and everybody wants everything covered. It simply can not be done as it is far too expensive and not all the drugs have ready supply or a proven track record. All this adds cost and processing time.

[Scape]

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does ... a_hospital

$1:

I know for a fact - In January, 2003, the cost of one was $2,700,000.00. So, let's say they've gone up ... oh ... ten percent in five years, would make it ... $2,970,000.00. So let's call it THREE MILLION Dollars.