[DanSC]

Wada Wada:

I did not cost me one red cent and everyone I had to deal with was both extremely professional and helpful. Thankyou Canada!

I bet you think the roads are free too

Single payer healthcare has many merits, but it's definitely not free.

[Wada]

Yah ok so I paid over the years through Health tax, true and I really don't recall it hurting at all. I can compare this to my uncle in Boston who ended his retirement picking up aluminum cans to live because his wife had an inconvient stroke that ate up everything he had over two an a half years and left him indigent.

[Thanos]

I'm fairly certain that most of these types of stories are planted by US insurance companies that want to get into Canada and leave us with a rich vs poor medical system just like the one that exists in the US.

I'd like to think that we could adopt a much fairer two-tier system like the ones the Germans or Scandinavians have. Odds are though, thank to simple proximity to the US and out inherent susceptibility to all the crazy ideas that emanate from America, that we'll eventually be infected by an American-style insurance system that steals from the middle-class and poor and leaves them devastated when catastrophic health problems occur. And fairness really isn't a consideration anyway. Nor is quality or speed of health care. It's essentially all about increasing profit for insurance company shareholders and executives, and anyone saying otherwise is either lying or stupid/delusional.

Kind of in a bad mood today. Regardless, I'm fairly certain that the fix is in. Someday soon we can all look forward to an extra $500 a month being taken off our paycheques just to go to health insurance companies that specialize in not being there when you need help. Or disqualifying you altogether for a pre-existing condition. They'll still take your money though, even though all we'll get from them is the usual big ol' fuck you.

[uwish]

Wada Wada:

All I'll say is IF it were not for our heaalth care system I would not have been here for the last almost fourteen years. I did not cost me one red cent and everyone I had to deal with was both extremely professional and helpful. Thankyou Canada!

well I am sure you did pay and are still paying just through your tax dollars as opposed to a bill for services approach.

But I hear what you are saying. When I had my kidney stone, I went from emergency to CT scan to surgery within a few days and they gave me magical pain killers that were superfantastico!!

[Wada]

See! That's your tax dollars being well spent.

[DrCaleb]

Wada Wada:

Thanks DR. but it's simply the truth.

Sometimes truth is what is needed.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

I'm fairly certain that most of these types of stories are planted by US insurance companies that want to get into Canada and leave us with a rich vs poor medical system just like the one that exists in the US.

I'd like to think that we could adopt a much fairer two-tier system like the ones the Germans or Scandinavians have. Odds are though, thank to simple proximity to the US and out inherent susceptibility to all the crazy ideas that emanate from America, that we'll eventually be infected by an American-style insurance system that steals from the middle-class and poor and leaves them devastated when catastrophic health problems occur. And fairness really isn't a consideration anyway. Nor is quality or speed of health care. It's essentially all about increasing profit for insurance company shareholders and executives, and anyone saying otherwise is either lying or stupid/delusional.

Kind of in a bad mood today. Regardless, I'm fairly certain that the fix is in. Someday soon we can all look forward to an extra $500 a month being taken off our paycheques just to go to health insurance companies that specialize in not being there when you need help. Or disqualifying you altogether for a pre-existing condition. They'll still take your money though, even though all we'll get from them is the usual big ol' fuck you.

If you buy cheap insurance then you get what you pay for. And it should not be a surprise that when you pay $50 a month that you don't get the same care as someone who pays $500 a month.

Likewise, you don't get to have a Mercedes when you can't even afford a Kia. And you don't get to have a nice penthouse apartment in Vancouver if you can't afford it. Too bad.

With health care it's just too f*cking bad that some people have less access to care than some others do.

But to demand EQUALITY!!!! as you folks have done in Canada is to require that levels of health care *must* decline to that of at or near the lowest common denominator for reasons of simple economics. And bitch, moan, whine, and cry, it still won't stop those who have money from using it to buy better care even if they have to leave the country to get it.

These folks in Alberta are simply confonting the question of why should they have to leave their country to get access to the care they want?

[Thanos]

I expect that as American ideas about health care get more and more embedded into Canadian thinking that things here will get worse and worse as time passes. Like I said all that matters in this calculus is that profits for insurance company shareholders and executives steadily increase. What actually happens to the customers of these companies is of the lowest and least important consideration.

[Wada]

I have no problem with my health care paying for someone to go anywhere else to get the care we don't or can't provide but I feel that if someone choses on their own to get services we provide but are to good to wait for like eveyone else and have the funds to go elsewhere then fine but why should my health care system reimburse them. Surely not because they were better off than someone else and thought they could beat the system.

[Bodah]

This is based on 2011 figures
• Average cash income of $11,395; $496 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $25,624; $1,166 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $34,696; $2,328 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $43,949; $3,671 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $54,339; $5,123 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $67,115; $6,663 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $80,752; $8,567 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $98,750; $10,656 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $124,579; $13,946 paid for public health care insurance
• Average cash income of $241,549; $32,116 paid for public health care insurance

http://lavalnews.ca/editorial/Want-to-k ... you-192361

Disclaimer: I don't know how credible my cite is.

I know what I'd do with my 6K if private insurance was available. Hell just give me half of that. It's a no brainer and a win win for everyone if we had a two tiered system. I'm a fan of Switzerlands system myself.

[Dragon-Dancer]

That's really the key to the issue right there. If your condition isn't deemed serious enough to be handled within the next five years then it's obviously not life threatening. People with serious enough conditions get handled post haste. I may not be happy with the lack of capacity to reduce wait times either but perspective is often sorely lacking from this discussion. That being said I don't fault anyone that goes elsewhere to receive treatment at their own expense either. I just fault them for trying to claim the bill in return when they could obviously afford it. I still wouldn't suggest anyone do this or go anywhere to receive treatment without consulting locally first.

[DrCaleb]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

But to demand EQUALITY!!!! as you folks have done in Canada is to require that levels of health care *must* decline to that of at or near the lowest common denominator for reasons of simple economics. And bitch, moan, whine, and cry, it still won't stop those who have money from using it to buy better care even if they have to leave the country to get it.:

As alluded to earlier, that is a false assumption. Care is care. Doctors don't do a better or worse job depending on the pay they get.

Many of the people who are counted as "escaping the opressive yoke of Canadian style socialized medicine" are usually self diagnosing and ignoring the advise of their physician. When they are told their tennis elbow will be given 4 - 6 weeks to heal and have the swelling go down before they can determine what the real problem is - they jump on a plane and pay $10k for uneeded surgery which is happily given in a for-pay system.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

These folks in Alberta are simply confonting the question of why should they have to leave their country to get access to the care they want?

The guy in the article is only seeing a right that was provided by a court decision - but it's totally for show, because all Cancer treatment providers in the province are government owned facilities. There are plenty of private facilities for which you can already buy private insurance for, and get services that the Canada Health act does not cover, but none of them are cancer treatment facilities. They therefore have no choice but to leave if they want to self diagnose and seek alternate care or seek shorter lines elsewhere.

[bootlegga]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

A wait for health care is not access to health care.

Now picture the good doctor being told that after 2014 he won't be allowed to come to the USA for his surgery, either, because the 'Affordable Care Act' prohibits foreigners from coming to the USA for elective surgeries.

Good - then we won't have to hear from you guys how much "better" your health care system is than ours.

We'll just have to get by on own our without help from our occasionally abusive big brother!

[bootlegga]

Wada Wada:

No! I have not, but when you know that more than half of Canadians have back problems why does this jerk feel he should be moved up in the cue. I'd move him to the end just for being a fucktard. And coming from a doctor who should know better.

He's not a doctor, he's a dentist. After all, that's why he could afford $77,000 surgery - very few Canadians could come up with that kind of money in a such a short time frame.

I feel for the guy, having been told to wait up to five years, but the fact is this wasn't an urgent health issue. Had he been diagnosed with a bad heart, he'd have had surgery right quick.

I have no problem with people having to wait for non-critical surgery if the issue isn't life threatening - and that comes from a guy who watched while his father waited months for both of his hip replacements.

In an ideal world, we'd have enough money to give everyone all the urgent and non-urgent surgery they need, but economics and the geographic size and low population of Canada make that next to impossible.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

What actually happens to the customers of these companies is of the lowest and least important consideration.

What happens to the patients of that dentist if he were to have been laid up for five years waiting for back surgery like he was supposed to?

Seems to me you're putting ideology before pragmatism here.