Canadians: tell us about your health care system

[Anthony Scira]

Thanks for the Canadian point of view. System does not sound bad at all. They keep telling us you guys are dying in line over there and are trying to jump our borders to give us your hard earned money !

[Glen Gunderson]

Also, in BC we pay insurance premium of 100 per person per month, as well as user fees for many services. This amount is indexed, so poor people don't pay any premiums at all. Our taxes pay for the remainder, and consume about 20% of our GDP. For this, everyone is covered, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and regardless of ability to pay.

I think you're getting the family rate mixed up with the per person rate. BC's MSP premiums are:

1 person: $54
2 person family: $96
3 or more persons family: $108

Although, those are all going up by a few dollars on January 1st, 2010.

[Dan Mages]

From my own experience with Canada's medical system. I lived Whitby, Ontario, in the Toronto Metropolitan area in 90-92. My brother, a friend of ours, and I decided to go do a little night time sledding. Yeah, not the smartest move. My brother broke his arm and was rushed to the hospital in Whitby. Because it was a compound fracture, they had to send him to another hospital in Oshawa to be treated because they did not have a doctor on staff that could treat him. It was another day or two before he had surgery to have it set correctly and a pin inserted. It still gives him trouble to this day.

Someone mentioned the income taxes in Canada. That is only half the story. When I was living there, the sales tax on many goods was 15%.

Someone mentioned Japan's healthcare. Japan also has 860 trillion yen in national debt. That is bordering on, if not exceeding 200% of their GDP.

Another person mentioned that the rich get the best healtchare. Yeah, and quite often because they work their tushes off to get where they are. I have known my wife for 5 years now. Since the day we met, she has worked full time, gone to law school at night, and excels at both. She hopes to finish law school next spring. She is compensated very, very well for her efforts. Will someone please explain why we should pay more in taxes to pay for the government benefits of a person who is lazy, does nothing to enrich themsleves, works in a minimum wage job, and expects the government to take care of them?

If you think I am being critical, I have seen it first hand. When I was in culinary school, there was a girl who was there on a state funded program. She decided to go to culinary school to continue to welfare payments that were about to run out for her and her illegitimate child. She made no effort to excel in the class and barely made it through the program. At the end of the program, she was happy to mention that she was pregnant with her second illegitimate child and will be able to collect welfare for 18 months to 2 years. She had no desire to work in the profession. She was just there to game the system and collect welfare checks.

Dan

Dan

[Gord Pat]

Bridges? Buildings? I don't follow.

I just pay tax, Belinda, it's not subdivided into building tax, road tax, or health care tax. There is no specific "health tax" here.

Of course, I'm not a tax expert. But you could read the wikipedia entry on Canadian Taxation, and that'll give you a capsule summary of our system I guess.

Hmmm Art, I guess you subscribe to Mr McGuinty's way of thinking.
According to him the "Health surcharge" as he calls it is not a tax , to me it is a tax , it's collected when you file your yearly tax return and is based on your income. Unfortunately the tax monies received under the health surcharge are just dumped into general revenues and not allocated specifically for the Health Budget.
I just mention this hoping it gives a clearer answer to Belinda's question.
BTW it is mentioned in the capsule summary you pointed too.
No malice meant no flame intended.

[Jim King]

This has been very interesting to see the opinions from different perspectives. Here in Iquitos, Peru we have health care for the general population that is about the same as the 60´s in the States. It is very economical and many times free. This is a very poor country by US and Canadian standards and there is health care for all.

We have several general hospitals owned by the government. A medical doctor here is paid the same as any other trained profession and normally work in at least two hospitals to make ends meet. We also have privately owned hospitals which are a about 20 years behind you up there but very good. Intensive care is about $100 a day.

For my employees I paid about $30 a month for full coverage which included the family menbers. We still have house calls for the people who dont like to go to the hospital. We have no blood bank but there are about 800 young well fed soilders which are on hand with a call to the base commander. I give blood every three months to the son of our secretary and having it done in the house with a nurse for several hours and a doctor for a couple of hours and the needles, blood bag etc the total cost is $80.

Malaria and Denge are treated free to encourage people to get treatment quickly. I have had Malaria 26 times and Denge 3 times and no charge for the treatment. Birth control is free but the church is fighting it.

The dental care and cosmetic surgery are world class and have created a medical tourist industry because of the extremly low costs. Below is a photo of our doctor at our house giving me an IV for Denge.

We do have a couple of drawbacks, one is that it is not a good idea to get sick on Sunday as most doctors are recovering from Saturday night at the disco.

I have not heard of anyone addicted to seeing a doctor as many seem to be in the States. I have never heard of a doctor or a medical facility here being sued for anything. Doctors do not need or have insurance. Another perspective.

[Greg Peterson]

Will someone please explain why we should pay more in taxes to pay for the government benefits of a person who is lazy, does nothing to enrich themsleves, works in a minimum wage job, and expects the government to take care of them?

Not everyone working a minimum wage job is lazy and expects government handouts.

Our America decided that providing an education for everyone was an important if we wanted our nation to prosper. Our America decided that providing a dignified life for our elderly was reasonable, just and within our means. Our America decided that our elderly should not suffer needlessly at the hands of illness and disease. I'll wager that many retirees over age 75 have likely withdrawn more from the system than they paid in. But our America doesn't limit their access based on what they contributed.

An educated and healthy workforce is critical to our ability to compete on an international stage.

Jim - The hypochondriac argument is just a knee jerk argument without any bases in fact. Are there people that go to the doctor at the first sign of a sniffle? Sure. Does everyone go to the doctor at the first sign of a sniffle? No. Likely we all know someone that we may consider a hypochondriac but A) technically is not, and B) these so called hypochondriacs are far and few between. If you know 100 people and one or two would fit this loose description of being a hypochondriac, is this condition really that significant?

[Eric Larsen]

When I was in culinary school, there was a girl who was there on a state funded program. She decided to go to culinary school to continue to welfare payments that were about to run out for her and her illegitimate child. She made no effort to excel in the class and barely made it through the program. At the end of the program, she was happy to mention that she was pregnant with her second illegitimate child and will be able to collect welfare for 18 months to 2 years. She had no desire to work in the profession. She was just there to game the system and collect welfare checks.

And you, and I, and everyone who pays taxes are paying for her lifestyle now. Some people are going to milk the system. Poor people are going to milk the system. Average people are going to milk the system. Rich people are going to milk the system.

We can't change that. We can change the system.

[Neal Clayton]

Neal,

How have you covered it?

I fail to see how you have covered it. Someone quotes a figure from no particular source about how much an insurance executive made last year or over the past 5 years. Everyone immediately assumes that is enough to foot the bill for everybody's medical expenses. It won't begin to cover the medical expenses.

When you have a well thought out, financially responsible suggestion for a national healthcare system...call me...I'm in the phone book.....I'll back it in a flash.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/healt...ory?id=9036632

if we're spending 2.5 trillion on health care, and insurance companies are showing profit margins of 5% on average, that's 500 billion a year. if there are 50 million uninsured, @ 100 dollars a month (what the average 30-something person pays for health insurance) to medicare, that's enough money right there?

and this isn't even considering hospital profits.

note that profits do not count salaries. doctors, administrators, etc. can make the same amount of money they make now, even more possibly. just talking about removing profit from the equation.

[paul cottingham]

I think you're getting the family rate mixed up with the per person rate. BC's MSP premiums are:

1 person: $54
2 person family: $96
3 or more persons family: $108

Although, those are all going up by a few dollars on January 1st, 2010.

You are quite right, I meant per family. Should have been clearer.

[Dale Hemm]

Rod has provided a lot of great detail about our system; more information than I've ever really thought about. Essentially, we're looked after from cradle-to-grave, with funding coming out of our taxes and some augmenting by medical plans through employment.

Wait times can sometimes be a pain, but overall the triage systems will always get priority cases to the front; and I've never heard of anyone not getting the essential care they required because of an inability to pay.

As for the doctor who claims to have left Canada because he felt some patients died as a result of not getting the tests they required in a timely manner, who knows; people die in hospitals every day. If I was cynical, I would suspect his decision probably had more to do with differences in compensation than it did with differences in heath care systems.

Be well.

[Jim Becker]

I would love to sell 13,000,000 of anything for 25 bucks a share. I would even settle for 5.

But I am easy !

FYI, if the "strike price" is $35 and the market is $25, that would mean you'd be buying the option shares at $35 and turning around and selling them at a $10 loss per share. They are "under water" and for all intensive purposes, worthless. Options are "options to buy at a particular price" not shares granted outright.
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Interesting read, folks, but I too believe this one's gonna get closed real soon now....

Jim
SMC Moderator

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Jim,

Don't confuse anybody with financial details.

[dan grant]

i can give a for instance, first daughter was a premie, spent 89 days in intensive care, had vision problems on release (retna detatched), there was a chance of saving some vision but had to have a specialist do it who practised in houston tx.(funny thing is the specialist was from regina, which is a 150 miles from me, but went to the states for the money) the next day she was on her way, total price for this was well over 100K which the govt picked up, my total cost was the airfare for which my local union paid half, operation didnt help but there was no thought of that, this is my opinion only but i think some people attach the socialist name to health care where really it should be people helping people, not im ok ####you jack

[Jon Grider]

Interesting read alright, but as the OP, I agree that it may be time for this thread to end. I am a bit surprised at the sarcasm and ruffled feathers or should I say from where the sarcasm came from here. Too bad the opinions of the Canadians was not the main bent of this thread as I originally intended.
My bad for starting this thread, I really didn't want this to become a divisive issue amongst us USA Creekers, I really did just want to see how Canadians liked their health care, as I don't have any contact with Canadians other than this internet forum.I thought it relevant as we seem to be stepping in that direction, like it or not.

Well, hope everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend. I'm going to go to the shop and make some sawdust.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Closed at the OPs request.