[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by Ohiogirl

I had tenants last fall who had to leave early to go back to Canada for emergency surgery. Is that the only option? What happens if you have a heart attack or something while you're in the States?

If Canadians travel in the USA, they buy travel insurance. (My husband's employment provides travel insurance for us). As Mom2five pointed out, in the event of a serious illness, the Insurance Company will try to airlift you back to Canada if possible. If you cannot be moved, the Insurance Company will pay for treatment in the USA.

Prescriptions are not covered. However many Canadian corporations and unions provide this benefit for employees. Also, it is my understanding that if you are below a certain income level, there is a government plan available.

Taxes are very high in Canada, that is completely true. Of course the system is not "free"! Obviously it is funded by taxpayers. But if you suffer from a catastrophic illness such as cancer, stroke or heart attack, you will receive the very best care. If you have a serious health care situation that requires cat scans, MRIs, etc., they are readily available.

My humble opinion is based solely on my own personal experiences.

[chelsea24]

My husband won't be 65 until August. He can't wait! I hate to hear him say this. It's like he's burning daylight or wishing his life away! Why???? Because we pay $1,700 a month for insurance! And it's bad insurance at that! I still have several years to go before I'm 65, but I just see him wishing his days away so at least one of us is on Medicare! That sucks! I'm all for Universal Healthcare!

[BuckeyeNuts]

I am still wondering how the Canadian system handles prescription drugs. Are they free? How does it work?

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeNuts

I am still wondering how the Canadian system handles prescription drugs. Are they free? How does it work?

The Canadian healthcare system does not cover dental costs or prescription drugs for people under the age of 65. Unless you are hospitalized. (But I think that perhaps low-income people can apply for these benefits).

Many Canadian corporations, government employees and teachers receive dental and prescription coverage as part of their benefit package.

[Muncle]

Okay, Canada's health system is sensational and we should all move to Alberta or Val d'Or except for the friggin' snow and low temps. It's been interesting to hear how much of the taxes go to health care. I don't know diddly about Canadian tax structure, if it is nearly as biased as the US, but if such a health system were imported into this country, we would end up with 50% of the population paying absolutely nothing --- they don't pay taxes, remember --- and the top 10% will end up with yet another mandate.

But regardless of the economic factors, why does it matter? Hancle's bible quote was nice, but has no bearing on reality. The Canadian program may have universal coverage, especially very supportive of the needy, but Canadians have no choice as to whether they wish to help those who didn't win life's lottery. Does that win any points on the Savior Scale?

But I reiterate my questions from a few days ago:


Does everyone have a "right" to all health care? Do all have the "right" to the same or equal health care? Is there a situation when especially expensive health procedures should be more readily available to those who have more resources to pay for them? Should "elective" procedures be available only to those with financial resources? When the time comes to prioritize certain procedures like organ replacement, should the patient's past or lifestyle be a determining factor (long-time smoker, high-pressure job, bad eating habits, drug use, homosexual promiscuity) and who should make these decisions? What about age? Any other social considerations?

Yes, there are major problems with our health care system, many/most of them financial. As far as I can see, everyone is to blame, i.e., medical professionals, insurance companies, blood sucking trial lawyers, drug companies, governments, both state and especially federal, and most importantly, we, the people. The health care system is a massive creature, ultra convoluted at best. There is no quick fix. All the players involved must make changes and the changes must be reasonable. Putting price caps on drugs would play well in the Daily Kos and on MSNBC, but unless it is done intelligently, it could spell the end of the development of new meds or at least severely hamper it. It's obvious that insurance companies and especially Medicare grossly underpay for many services. Doctors and hospitals have a legitimate complaint. If both were forced to increase these payments, remember that those costs will be passed to the members.

All in all, it is a real conundrum as to what can be done, and more critically, what should be done.





`

[JUREK]

Originally Posted by Muncle

Okay, Canada's health system is sensational and we should all move to Alberta or Val d'Or except for the friggin' snow and low temps. It's been interesting to hear how much of the taxes go to health care. I don't know diddly about Canadian tax structure, if it is nearly as biased as the US, but if such a health system were imported into this country, we would end up with 50% of the population paying absolutely nothing --- they don't pay taxes, remember --- and the top 10% will end up with yet another mandate.

But regardless of the economic factors, why does it matter? Hancle's bible quote was nice, but has no bearing on reality. The Canadian program may have universal coverage, especially very supportive of the needy, but Canadians have no choice as to whether they wish to help those who didn't win life's lottery. Does that win any points on the Savior Scale?







`

Muncle. Every time I visit my roots in Canada I get sticker shock. I compare my wages and taxes to my Canadian friends. Their medical care is not free because they are taxed to death. Watch out if you need a non critical operation. After a lengthy wait two of my friends traveled to USA and payed out of pocket to have procedures.

[serenityseeker]

Originally Posted by Muncle

Okay, Canada's health system is sensational and we should all move to Alberta or Val d'Or except for the friggin' snow and low temps. It's been interesting to hear how much of the taxes go to health care. I don't know diddly about Canadian tax structure, if it is nearly as biased as the US, but if such a health system were imported into this country, we would end up with 50% of the population paying absolutely nothing --- they don't pay taxes, remember --- and the top 10% will end up with yet another mandate.

But regardless of the economic factors, why does it matter? Hancle's bible quote was nice, but has no bearing on reality. The Canadian program may have universal coverage, especially very supportive of the needy, but Canadians have no choice as to whether they wish to help those who didn't win life's lottery. Does that win any points on the Savior Scale?

But I reiterate my questions from a few days ago:


Does everyone have a "right" to all health care? Do all have the "right" to the same or equal health care? Is there a situation when especially expensive health procedures should be more readily available to those who have more resources to pay for them? Should "elective" procedures be available only to those with financial resources? When the time comes to prioritize certain procedures like organ replacement, should the patient's past or lifestyle be a determining factor (long-time smoker, high-pressure job, bad eating habits, drug use, homosexual promiscuity) and who should make these decisions? What about age? Any other social considerations?

Yes, there are major problems with our health care system, many/most of them financial. As far as I can see, everyone is to blame, i.e., medical professionals, insurance companies, blood sucking trial lawyers, drug companies, governments, both state and especially federal, and most importantly, we, the people. The health care system is a massive creature, ultra convoluted at best. There is no quick fix. All the players involved must make changes and the changes must be reasonable. Putting price caps on drugs would play well in the Daily Kos and on MSNBC, but unless it is done intelligently, it could spell the end of the development of new meds or at least severely hamper it. It's obvious that insurance companies and especially Medicare grossly underpay for many services. Doctors and hospitals have a legitimate complaint. If both were forced to increase these payments, remember that those costs will be passed to the members.

All in all, it is a real conundrum as to what can be done, and more critically, what should be done.





`

Does everyone have a right to all healthcare? Obviously a philosophical question to a great degree. For those of us working frontline in healthcare everyday I think the majority might answer with a yes, certainly with some caveats.
Is there a situation when especially expensive health procedures should be more readily available to those who have more resources to pay for them.?[/B] Probably with regard to some elective procedures, otherwise no. Most developed countries of the world determined some time back that equitable delivery of healthcare is indeed a right to some degree. Does everyone get free boob jobs and face lifts? Nah, but the delivery of basic healthcare in todays world really should be a right, especially in developed countries that have the capability. Should only people with with greater financial means get the best/state of the art care for heart disease, stroke, cancer etc? The idea is aborrhent to those of us treating people with these and other tragic conditions.
Should "elective" procedures be available only to those with financial resources?[/ A loaded question that that requires some clarification. Certainly some elective procedures like cosmetic procedures done for more or less vanity purposes should be dependent on your financial ability to pay for them. An "elective" hip or knee replacement is a different story though. While not acutely fractured, the joint may be so degenerated as to cause pain and compromised function. Certainly this type of elective procedure falls in a different category. If your mother needed the joint replacement to have a better quality of life and relieve pain even though she could still "walk" would you deny her this procedure based on her finances? Would you deny it if she was obese and that contributed to the joint degeneration?
When the time comes to prioritize certain procedures like organ replacement, should the patient's past or lifestyle be a determining factor (long-time smoker, high-pressure job, bad eating habits, drug use, homosexual promiscuity) and who should make these decisions? What about age? Any other social considerations?[/COLOR] Certainly in some instances, as is already the case. Those with liver failure secondary to alcohlism have to show some period of abstinence before being considered for placement on the transplant list no matter the severity of it (I believe 6 mos. in some cases).High pressure job??? Not sure how that could ever be construed as a reason to ethically deny anyone parity of healthcare delivery, and would be wildly innapropriate. Eating habits?? Again unreasonable in today's world as it would preclude at least half of the population of our country, including children. Have you seen the obesity statistics? Homosexual promiscuity?? A completely innapropriate statement. Where was the inclusion of heterosexual promiscuity? And again, this would preclude massive numbers of people from receiving care for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV (I assume your point) leaving others without knowledge of that promiscuity at great risk and with no protection. Age? Yes, age limits much of the success in some major procedures and intervention. Social considerations? Would need some clarification but sounds morally reprehensible.
Lets look at the financial problems and realities of our system.We as Americans spent 16% of our GNP last year on healthcare. That is 16% of the total value of all goods and services from all of the industries in the United States, a staggering amount by any measure, and more per person than any country in the world. This is projected to increase to at least 20% of GNP by 2017-a projected 4.3 trillion dollars if we just continue things as they are. Even more shocking is that 5% of the population accounted for for more than half the costs in more than one study!
What are we getting for our dollars? We have higher infant mortality rates and lower adjusted life expectancy than mutiple other countries, ranking 41st and 46th respectively. Is this acceptable for a country spending more on healthcare than any other country on earth? These are just two of multiple areas where we rank intolerably low.
The U.S. is the only country in the developed world except South Africa that does not provide healthcare for all of its citizens as a matter of policy. Instead we do it in a horribly inefficient way with a hodge-podge system of private pay, private insurance, and multiple non-coordinated government programs burdened with beuracratic and administrative costs. Over 30% of healthcare costs are estimated to be administrative in the U.S. How utterly innefecient and wasteful.
Massive changes do have to be made and are way overdue, and a long slow "phasing in" is not a good solution. We have to be willing to make changes in liability reform, decreasing the massive beauracracy and the profits and incentives built in for certain individuals involved in perpetuating the mess. We have to be more realistic about what is reasonable to deliver and to whom. We need to look at reimbursments for doctors, nurses, therapists and more that are involved in delivering primary care, paradoxically the most difficult and time consuming care with the lowest reimbursement rates (see the rapidly dropping numbers entering primary care as our population ages). We need to make use of the massive amount of money so ineffeciently wasted, streamlining the process and disincentivizing waste and profits made of the backs of the sick. We need to make pateints accountable for self destructive habits like smoking and noncompliance with medications. Even more importantly we need the input and participation of real people working within the system and patients of the system, NOT more beuracrats and professional academicians with no real world experiences.
Bold and yes, some painful decisions and adjustments in expectations are in order. The system is already failed, and on the precipice of complete collapse.

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by JUREK

Muncle. Every time I visit my roots in Canada I get sticker shock. I compare my wages and taxes to my Canadian friends. Their medical care is not free because they are taxed to death. Watch out if you need a non critical operation. After a lengthy wait two of my friends traveled to USA and payed out of pocket to have procedures.

Evertime I spend six months in the USA, I am astonished at how inexpensive everything is. Canadian medical care is definitely not free .. it is funded by tax payers. However Canadians aren't really "taxed to death"! Many Canadians are able to own homes in Florida and spend half the year here. But Canadian tax rates are definitely higher. And we have giagantic "sin" taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, etc.

For every "horror story" I hear about the Canadian health care system, I know of ten great stories about people getting immediate help when they need it. I personally have had some non-critical surgeries with no problems with wait times.

Every country struggles with health care dilemmas. Canada is currently struggling with a "two-tier" health care proposal. Those who are wealthy could shoot to the top of the heap. The rest would wait in line. But the line would be shorter because the wealthy would be using private facilities.

[Sidney Lanier]

Originally Posted by serenityseeker

... The point is to provide an opportunity for basic health care for all. The fact is we have a ridiculously fractured and inefficient system that provides relatively little for the massive amount of dollars spent. There are several countries that spend less than us and provide overall better care by internationally accepted standards.

Wrecking a system that works???? For who? Perhaps you but not not for about a million working families that can't afford health care, not for those stuck with only medicare on extremely fixed incomes, not for children whose families are to poor to get care. It is a pitiful shame that our country is so poor in our response to this situation with these groups among others.
This is not about "...freeload like they do all the other freebies". We are not talking about people who "refuse to pay and do other things with there dollars" as the majority. I know, I live and work and watch people struggle and die within this system EVERY DAY with financial constraints being a large contributor.

Those of us in the real world of medicine, in the trenches every day, know this is NOT a "system that works" by almost any measure. This isn't about punishing welfare abusers, this is about doing the right thing for our country, our healthcare system, and the providers struggling within that system. Health care and its provision require ethical considerations that don't fit the "I've got mine, you do the best you can to get yours" model, nor does it fit traditional and corporate models in a cookie cutter fashion.

The abuse within the programs certainly should be culled, as or even more importantly so should the overwhelming stifling bureaucratic stranglehold that is likely one of the biggest culprits along with immoral and greedy insurance companies, HMO's, PPO's and more.

Kudos to countries that took responsibility to make sure the health care of the people (ALL, not just the rich or those on welfare) was a priority. Kudos to them for delivering in a more efficient and humane way with better outcomes than we have been able to do thus far.

No system is perfect but to ascertain that ours is working just fine is so far from the truth as to be ludicrous.

I couldn't agree more! I do not intend this to be a political statement, but I've been told that my politics (which I choose not to discuss in any context) comes through when I say in the same breath that I have always had excellent health coverage while at the same time I am deeply troubled by those who simply cannot afford health care AND by the attitude of those who have excellent care who assume that anyone who doesn't is automatically a freeloader and a manipulator of the system. I worked as a volunteer with a field-based Hospice in our rural corner of New York State, and I have NEVER seen people MORE victimized by insurance companies at a time when they are LEAST able to deal with it.

I posted earlier in this thread about my Canadian family's positive experiences with the Canadian health care system, and none see it as 'free.' Most of my family, requiring varying degrees of health care, can afford private insurance but don't have it because they say they don't need it.

Many of you know of my accident in December when I wrecked my hand so badly that only now am I finding out that the hand surgeon and the hand physical therapist, looking at the x-rays, together wondered how much function I'd ever be able to get back. Well, it's coming back--slowly and almost miraculously. Today I received in the mail the Explanation of Benefits for the physician's assistant who essentially took my grotesque, broken hand and put it back together in The Villages Hospital ER, to the point that the hand surgeon said that he (the PA) had already done her (the MD's) job! He spent hours with me, competent and compassionate--and I learned today that his total charge was a munificent $413. HOWEVER, the insurance company had 'negotiated' with him to accept what IT was willing to pay, and he had no choice but to accept if he is to practice his skills. So ... from the $413 was immediately subtracted $319.15, making his total payment for his incredible services to me a 'whopping' $93.85.

Yes, this incredibly outstanding physician's assistant might do better financially by selling shoes. How can he continue practicing what he trained for, just as I questioned earlier how the lab doing the blood test for someone I know stay in business on the less than $3 it's paid by the insurance companies for doing a stat test. Of course, as the lab technician explained to me, it's the uninsured who pay full freight and therefore cover the actual costs for the insured! Is THIS socialism? For the number of hours that the PA spent with me, our oldest son, a grocery clerk in a supermarket in upstate New York, earns more! Don't tell me this system isn't broken....

[Boomer]

Originally Posted by chelsea24

My husband won't be 65 until August. He can't wait! I hate to hear him say this. It's like he's burning daylight or wishing his life away! Why???? Because we pay $1,700 a month for insurance! And it's bad insurance at that! I still have several years to go before I'm 65, but I just see him wishing his days away so at least one of us is on Medicare! That sucks! I'm all for Universal Healthcare!

We could not wait to become teenagers. Then to be 18. Then 21. How about 62? And then 65.

Mr. B. and I each have access through our former employers. But we watch our contributions to the premiums rise rapidly with each renewal. And we know that retiree insurance not provided under a contract can be cut off. Sometimes we wonder when that shoe might drop.

But at least, for now, we have access to decent, recognized group plans. But that does not make me any less concerned about the enormity of the health care issue. It's a big picture. And we are all in it.

We have friends who are working hard and working tired, trying to at least get one to Medicare before they can retire.

I bet stress related health issues might decrease if people could retire at an earlier age without having to lie awake wondering how to pay for health insurance -- if they can even get it.

The people I know are not looking for a free ride. They just wish that there were somewhere they could buy a "ticket to ride" at a reasonable price.

Access to good plans. Affordable access. Just let us buy into that plan DC has. At a reasonable cost. Or buy into Medicare early. Access to affordable retiree health insurance would not only help out with stress issues that can lead to physical health issues, but retiree health plan access would open jobs to younger people. And it would help business, too.

I know there are many our age who take retiree health insurance for granted because they have retired from jobs where the access to good coverage goes with the territory. That seems short-sighted to me.

Anyway, the solution does not need to be an either/or. The knee-jerk reaction to the fear of socialized medicine has allowed politicians not to solve this problem. They just push that socialized medicine button and people freak. And they freak loud. Push that either/or button and make the problem go away. Go away for those in DC who have their bloated behinds all covered, at our expense, in more ways than one.

And while the problem has been pushed to the back burner for all this time, greed has run amok in the health insurance business, just like the banking business. Talk about some bonus-reaping CEO's.

Make affordable access to good group plans available for buying into. Middle ground. Why is that so hard? And lives would be changed for the better. And it would help the economy. More disposable income. Business would get a break. And more people could retire and move to The Villages.

Boomer

[serenityseeker]

Boomer and Sid, obviously well thought out posts, thanx for your input. VERY real truths and some good suggestions. Appreciate the contributions.

[Cassie325]

Originally Posted by serenityseeker

Boomer and Sid, obviously well thought out posts, thanx for your input. VERY real truths and some good suggestions. Appreciate the contributions.

[Whalen]

Originally Posted by serenityseeker

Boomer and Sid, obviously well thought out posts, thanx for your input. VERY real truths and some good suggestions. Appreciate the contributions.

SS
Also appreciate and agree with your input on various threads.