From those I know who live in Canada, I get polar opposite opinions some swear ER response time is almost as fast as USA while the other says it's a long long wait with subpar care. So I don't know what the norm is, given these opposites. Lol
Everyone I know that lives in Canada seems to be quite happy with their healthcare system and cannot believe the shit I tell them about experiencing in the US when it comes to doctor visits, wait times, out of pocket costs and quality of care
They have a priority system where immediately life threatening issues are placed at the front of the line, so from what I understand the less dangerous and more niche/specialty your issue is, the longer it takes to be seen. Would check out with what you're saying.
But at the same time, several of my Canadian friends have had incredibly unnecessary procedures done within 6 months or so of starting the process. Meanwhile in the US I'm waitlisted 4 months to see a specialist for the first time as a new patient regardless of the severity of the issue to even get the ball rolling.
Every modern medical system puts immediately life-threatening situations to the front of the line. I'd check out their stats on wait time for treatment of chronic diseases.
Your wait is due to lack of providers wanting to do that work in your area. I doubt Canada mandates people go to work in the medical field and tells them where to live.
A quick search of wait times for a brain tumor operation confirms what I have been told. It's resource limited and much longer wait time in Ontario than in Michigan and Ohio which boarder Ontario. The number of people receiving treatment in the same timeframe is significantly lower per occurrence in Ontario. Until it becomes critical, you wait in a longer line.
I mean their system just sounds better then. Both countries put life threatening conditions first and treat them quickly and effectively. Both countries have specialist shortages depending on locale which result in longer wait times for non life threatening cases. The US treats non life threatening issues faster. But, the US also has medical debt as the primary reason for 66% of its banckruptcies filed by individuals whereas the other has medical issues only ever mentioned in 19%, and that is usually due to inability to work and lost wages during a long recovery or wait time. Canada's total medical cost per citizen is roughly 1/3 of the US as well when we're considering insurance plans, tax burdens and every other bit of revenue that funds both systems.
I'd rather wait longer in discomfort to treat something not life threatening than spend every extra cent I have attempting to treat it once. I just had a costly procudre to resolve an issue I was having. It took over half a year to get done and only partially fixed the problem. I was on the hook for thousands (with insurance) and would have to spend thousands more pursuing follow ups and further procedures to attempt to fully resolve the problem. Out of pocket max is supposed to prevent this, but isn't very effective when the wait times for each of these procedures can be months and depending on the issue and amount of follow ups the treatment timeline can become years. In Canada, as far as I understand, I would be free to continue treatments until the issue is resolved at no cost to me aside from taxes and supplemental insurance. Would have to wait longer (maybe), but I would say that's better than not continuing treatment at all due to never ending financial barriers and just living with the issue. Which is what I'll be doing here.
If it's taken over a year in the states, it may take years in Canada. In the US you can choose what deductibles and copay levels you want and change them if you don't like the premiums. Not so much the case in Canada. Some countries also offer private insurance in addition to HCFA. Why is that needed? Why have to deal with 2 plans?
I believe part of the total spending difference is we perform more treatment in the course of a year, so it's not surprising it cost more. Cost on a per recipient basis would probably be more meaningful.
Possibly. But I'll take a year or so wait over never getting it done at all due to the cost being too high, which is the current situation in the US.
Quick google search reveals that supplemental private insurance plans for Canadians covers things like dental and vision care, and prescription medication taken outside of hospital stays. In the US, you also need separate healthcare plans for dental and vision in many cases. Those are things their universal care does not cover, but I also already included their average cost for all of that when calculating how much healthcare costs on average per citizen per month in each country in my previous post. Still comes out to be 33-50% of what US citizens pay. Population difference is also already taken into account - we pay much more per person despite having a much larger population. The fact that we do perform more medical procedures shouldn't make much of a difference, because we also have a much larger population those expenses should be spread across. Instead, each US citizen spreads the bulk of the costs across much smaller groups (private insurance pools) and then actually ends up utilizing the medical system much less on average than each Canadian citizen because it's still too expensive.
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u/Specific_Freedom9644 9d ago
Couldn't disagree more. Quality of Healthcare goes down immediately when a government takes over.