Canadian health care — it's their right

Great article! The US can learn a lot about national healthcare from Canada. But they won't.

Hello -- I'm an American whose girlfriend is Canadian. As a result, I've learned a lot about Canada, in particular, the health care system. Excellent article.

You mention: "The U.S., however, has more doctors per capita, more MRI units and more CT scanners."

Resolving that one issue (more doctors, MRI units, and CT scanners) would go a long way towards reducing wait times and improving the overall quality of the Canadian system. So where will the money come from to make this happen?

That's where Canadians can have a good debate -- figuring out a way to pay for an even BETTER system. (Not a debate that revolves around gutting the essential fabric of the system that currently exists and turning it into a grotesque for-profit travesty)

Just imagine having a child or a loved one who needs medical care, and having to tell them it's inaccessible because you're not wealthy enough to afford it. Or alternatively, having your child receive treatment and then being presented with a hospital bill in excess of US$200,000. How would that make you feel as a person? It's heartbreaking. How could a middle class Canadian family absorb those costs? Impossible.

Thank you for letting me share my thoughts,
Stephen in Pennsylvania

I would like to make a comment. I work for the Department of Human Services of Oklahoma. I see clients who come to me, day in and day out, seeking help with their medical bills. It breaks my heart to have to tell someone, such as the young lady with an auto immune disease attacking her lungs, that she is not eligible for health care in the United States. She is ineligible because her income of $1012 / month puts her well outside the eligibility standard for Oklahoma and many other states as well. In Oklahoma, if you fall between the ages of 18 and 65 and you don’t have children in your household for whom you are the parent or have guardianship then you don’t qualify for Medicare … at any level of income. Woe be unto you if you are homeless.

Theres a small mistake,, Québec's “single-payer” public insurance system covers prescription drugs for whoever dont have a private insurance. Theres a year fee, its something like 500$. The poors and the ederly people dont have to pay to be covered. Because the public regime is very big, the health minister can control the prices. At the end, the prescription drugs in Québec are cheaper than everywhere else in North America...

One would think that American Health Insurance Firms & others opposed to Universal Health Care in the USA don't want Americans to know how well the Canadian system works & one would 100% right.

In principle, the Canadian health care system is ideal. In practice, it is far from ideal. The problem? Wait times. There is not enough money in the system. We have an extremely well-run local hospital (town of about 6,000) but it no longer does surgery. In an effort to reduce costs to meet the Provincial monies available, several hospital ahave amalgamated. I have been waiting for over a month and a half for a simple in-and-out surgery to repair carpel tunnel syndrome, but must compete for surgical time in a larger hospital nearby. Wait times are the real problem and that means that not enough resources go into the system. The other problem, of course, is that the system is micromanaged by the government, which means that it is inherently inefficient. I do get "free" drugs ($100 deductible), however, here in Ontario because I am over 65.

As Stephan points out, our biggest problem here in Canada (at least in Ontario) is a shortage of doctors - both primary care physicians and specialist/surgeons - and diagnostic machines like MRI. This leads to our major problem which is wait times. Since the medical schools are provincially funded, the provincial government controls the number of doctors through funding of the medical schools. It is also very difficult to import foreign trained doctors because the College of Physicians and Surgeons makes them go through impossible hoops before being certified.

We are also experiencing a cut back in emergency services and what are effectively hospital closures because of funding problems. Our local hospital (town of about 6,000) no longer conducts surgery and we must compete for surgical time in a larger nearby hospital, which further increases wait times. We now have at least one company I know of that offers "wait-time" insurance. If you have to wait more than 45 days, the insurance will pay for the trip to the US for the treatment. That's not a good sign.

I'm a Canadian currently living in Ontario. I've also lived in Saskatchewan (3 yrs) and British Columbia (7 yrs) and can say that there are numerous errors in this story...

The comment that 7% and 18% of low income and high income Canadians go without coverage can not be true.

- For the low income, most provinces have options for coverage for the poor - if someone was under the poverty line, they would not have to pay anything. Most of the rest automatically pay for health care through their income taxes.

- For the high income, they would automatically have coverage in almost all provinces just due to the fact that they pay income taxes.

- Provincial health plans for the most part collect income taxes from all taxpayers and apply a portion towards health care coverage... in some provinces, B.C. for instance has an additional fee based on income, some individuals may pay an additional amount, usually less than $1,000 per year, even in the top income ranges.

- In Ontario, we have a payroll health tax whereby any company with a payroll above $400,000 per year will be taxed about 2% on payroll amounts over this amount - again, this is paid by the employer.

Do Canadians want more NON-PUBLIC options for health care, yes.... some do, probably less than 1/1000th of the population would want access... nowhere near what's implied in this article!!!!

Are their wait times for some procedures, yes, but not for life threatening issues, anything of that nature will get you to, or near the head of the line quickly!

As to the U.S. situation, much of what's going on there now went on in Canada in the 1960s when public health care was first proposed here --- the industry was aghast at the possibility of public care, and so was a significant portion of the population. The industry screamed that we'd be ill treated by a public system! Today you'd be hard pressed to find any Canadian who would prefer the U.S. model!