Reminder when you complain about health care in Ontario, you have to keep in mind others don't have it so good :
https://i.imgur.com/TQzBo8el.jpg
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Reminder when you complain about health care in Ontario, you have to keep in mind others don't have it so good :
https://i.imgur.com/TQzBo8el.jpg
We have set our selves back a good 3 years in delayed surgeries here in Ontario.
They will have to work 10 % harder and more to complete the backlog of surgeries within the next few years. Many will die from the delay.
The UK is worse with a backlog of up to 5 years .
Crazy
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I had a total right hip replacement in Sept. Everything great thanks. I know of someone in the States who got the same thing. It was 130 thousand US $ billed to his insurance co. His plan had a 5000 $ deductible that he paid. He said without the insurance, he could not have afforded the cost of the procedure, and would have had to endure the pain for the rest of his life. He is in his early 50's ,so he might have 30 years left. Much to long to suffer.
Yes, we can whine about stuff in Canada but we have good hospitals.
Been to Sick Kids a lot. Best staff and doctors I have ever seen.
If you start looking into those things in the states you will find that the bill is $130,000 and then after squabbling between the hospital and the insurance company the hospital will be paid a 1/4 of that by the insurance company, end of story. It's a racket, the hospitals and insurance companies are in it together.Quote:
Originally Posted by fishermccann
You were lucky, the medical system is now saying it will take 3 years to clear the backlog and many will die while waiting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fishermccann
My wife had a procedure done during the second wave, had to pay for it though. It's classified as cosmetic unless it was cancerous.
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Yes I was GW. As my original operation date was May , a four month delay was nothing to really complain about. It was only pain, not life threatening.
My wife started her first round of 6 months of chemo to treat Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma Mar.23/20. Her 69th birthday. About 2 - 3 weeks after it was done lumps started coming back. Another CT scan and blood work showed the lymphoma had morphed into a more aggressive type. Three months more of chemo, then off to Princess Margaret for even more aggressive chemo and other treatments and to gather her own stem cells to have them regenerated and grow more. Some more chemo, PET scans, etc: etc:. Stem cell started the day after her 70th birthday.
We are back and forth to Lake Ridge Cancer Clinic every week for blood work and injections of different types.
This has been quite a period of time for us. Without our health care here I doubt we would have been able to do all this.
No real assurances yet that we are in the clear. I have to give her a shot now. This just reminded me.
Always more than one way to look at a topic. When they finally, after 14 months of major hemorrhaging and botched biopsies found the cancerous tumor in my head. I had to wait 4 more months with a ticking time bomb, before it was surgically removed. Start to finish bordering on 2 years.
Cost me nothing. Because it has a very high rate of reoccurrence I spent the time researching. Found a place in San Fran where people are accurately diagnosed, and treated in 3-4 weeks.
When my fiancé was diagnosed with cancer in 2017, it took 4 months for treatment to begin. Chemo regime ended in Nov. Radiation started. After two doses of radiation, the results from genetic testing finally came back. Braca two positive. As a result, her entire family, and their children all genetically tested for free. Three months after testing positive, she had her ovaries removed. Six months later both breast. And if I recall 6-8 months later, reconstructive surgery. Most free, but we still paid thousands out of pocket. And some will argue, a waste of tax payer dollars because had the braca two gene been found at the get go....
Cost to tax payers. Likely in the hundreds of thousands. I recall her steroid shots ( bi weekly if I recall) were $2,500 each.
Are we better off than the US? Yes, when you look at it from one angle. No, when you look at it from another. Absolutely not, when you consider the taxes paid. Healthcare should be far better. Some studies suggest we are near “3rd world”, more realistically for what we pay, and the glaring problems, “value for the buck” on the whole.
As a footnote. My eldest son is on his way to becoming a MD. He is in Australia. In his 3rd year, becoming an Orthopedic surgeon, after earning a HBASc., a Masters Degree in Food and Nutrition, at Columbia in NYC, and a Phd, in Physiology at Western . He has said our system is superior to Australia. He also advised his parents, the wife and I, to get the first jab offered , as soon as it was available.. We took his word , we got our first shot on March 15th.
Can’t find the ones I recall reading. But while searching for those, I came across this one.
Most topics, whether this or a couple others easily named shouldn’t be viewed in vacuums.
https://globalnews.ca/news/3599458/c...s-peers-study/
should have added.
We Canucks often look down our noses at the US. Personally you couldn’t pay me, to move there. This being one reason.
but the reality is, we really don’t have much to be smug about. Not when you weigh things on the whole per se. is our healthcare “better”? Sure, by miles. But it’s wanting. Very.
There are plenty of good and bad stories on both sides of the border. I have had 2 relatively young family members, (women in their early 30's) suffer from cervical and ovarian cancer. One died because of a failure in the system and her story was documented CBC radio. The other one survived in spite of the system and she only survived because of other family members in the health care system demanding action from their peers. If the other family members would not have intervened her diagnosis would have been delayed by 5 to 6 months. The original doctor ordered a CAT scan but it was a 5 month wait because it was not an emergency.
I have lived the US and experienced the insurance system down there..."Go ahead and get sick and then we will tell you we will pay for it or not depending on your level of your coverage." That's not perfect either.
Depending on who you are and what your means are you are going to prefer one system to the other. Myself, I would prefer the US system where you can get your wallet out if you need something done bad enough.
You can also argue that the US system limits entrepreuriship and innovation. Health coverage connected to a job is a big deal for a lot of people. There are plenty of people not taking risks in life or business because they are afraid to quit their job and lose their coverage.
The idea of our coverage being good just because it is "free" is a pretty low standard.
works both ways....my wife's Uncle was up from North Carolina....he had to pop into a local ER to have a boil on his butt looked at. In and out in about 1hr, then handed him a bill for $750. Probably not as bad if it had been a US hosptital...but still reminded me what 'stuff' costs in our Hosptials.
I never complain about our health care, some of the best health care in the world when you consider what it costs us individually . I had Kidney surgery with two nights in the Hospital and all it cost me was $28 for parking.
Reality is, the bill was most assuredly more than all the provincial taxes they took off my pay check for the past 25 yrs...
Totally agree. But to compare us to the only industrialized country in the free world without government health care , is an apples to oranges type of comparison. Heath care maybe the only thing that Cuba leads the world in. They are far from ‘free ‘.
My son cut his foot on a shell at the beach in Florida. Needed two stitches. In and out in 45 minutes. First bill was like $4500.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikePal
I just gave it to my company provided travel insurance ... I didn't get involved ... but I did see the final settlement ... $1500 or something.
(1) Insurance companies know how to negotiate, (2) proves how much prices are inflated, because I'm pretty sure that hospital wouldn't operate at a loss ... and (3) it still was $1500 for 45 minutes!!!!
I always said the big issue with the US is you could do everything right in life, but one person in your family gets sick, and you are done ... THAT is a fatal flaw. No one that is having to care for a sick child should have to go bankrupt dealing with it ... that is exactly where government (people) support should come in.
The one thing that is a plus down here is the availability of equipment - if you need a test using a MRI or any other procedure you can get it in a matter of days - no wait
We have that here to Joe...if i need an MRI, I can book one within 48hrs and its only a 30 minute drive. Cross the US bridge and head for the Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in Ogdensburg and pay the nice lady $800 US...HaHa..Quote:
Originally Posted by JoePa
Maybe you could make a trade and ship JoePa some of our cheaper prescription meds the Americans crave.
Just a few personal experiences.
One of my first eye openers, was atleast 20 years ago. I was in St Mike having dislocated my thumb. Next to me was an elderly man, having a cast put on his leg. He got presented with a bill for a few grand. He was an American tourist.
Joe about equipment. I don’t know why they botched the first two biopsies they did on me. Just know they did.
A work colleague endured something far worse. I don’t recall all specifics. Just that he was diagnosed as terminal at one of Toronto’s best. Lived the next 18 months like he was dying. On advice from friends he flew to the mayo clinic on his own dime. Nothing seriously wrong. The hospital here offered him a crazy amount of $ not to sue. He didn’t want a penny ( nice guy that way). On the advice of a lawyer he accepted pennies (something about there had to be a settlement so he wouldn’t sue down the road). So he took pennies, but stipulated that the hospital use the difference between their offer and his amount to buy updated equipment which was the cause of the faulty diagnosis.
I think, over the the last twenty years as I’ve aged, and run into life. I’m now around $50,000 in out of pocket expenses for things not covered or this/that.
While it’s certainly not common here, (yet). People do go bankrupt here to. Two seconds on Google for Go Fund me trying help out Canadian families with medical expenses is all it takes.
then there are wait times. People dying waiting. Quotas on elective type surgeries. Canadians paying for better/faster treatment in the US despite paying a ton in taxes, or simply
vaccines.
Our system, while good.isn’t all that.
Ahhhh the Healthcare debate. Pros and cons on both sides but the one thing that bothers me the most is canadians thumping their chests at the Americans saying....well at least we have free Healthcare.
With anything in life, it helps if you can add a value to it. Unfortunately though in canada we don't specifically have a health care tax to know exactly how much of our taxes go to pay Healthcare. Our government structured it this way on purpose, but is it really to our benefit?
Let's do some simple yet hypothetical math shall we. Someone who earns say $100,000 a year is in the highest tax bracket so 50% of that is going to taxes. Of the $50,000 how much of that would you say is used for Healthcare? I'm going to be conservative and say 20% even though I believe it to be higher....so $10,000 is earmarked for Healthcare.
Does anyone know the top notch Healthcare plan you can buy in the usa for $10,000 a year? Not to mention that the plan will also include drugs, ambulance, and maybe even some massage therapy.
Now we all know as canadians that our tax dollars do not cover all our Healthcare needs so in actuality we are paying more than the $10,000. So what value does that kind of money get you in canada.....ridiculous wait times for emergency room visits, specialist appointments, MRI's, etc.
It's no denying the USA has some of the best doctors in the world and the most advanced medical equipment anywhere on earth, not to mention the thousands of canadians that head south of the border when serious medical conditions arise.
Want my opinion.....we need a 2 tiered medical system in this country. Nothing wrong with a little competition to keep doctors and hospitals on their toes.