Of course there would be a willingness to treat, when they are literally charging you an arm and a leg. For instance, my wife is Canadian and she recently had to get some blood work done that would have costs us around $400, and believe me they were eager to set up an appointment for us. She had the same blood work done in Canada a week ago and it only cost $50. She is a born Canadian but because she was living here for a certain time had lost her health care status meaning that she had to pay.

 

dont understand you posting i thought they were the same (big bro == nanny nation)


another thought not brought up so far:
is for small ->medium companies health care administration uses alot of their resources


what is good health care?
when looking at huge population sample better infant survival, less occurrence of certain disease, etc. over a big enough sample its easy to get reliable information.

 

Considering how many political issues are tied to the dissatisfaction of Canadians over health care in the past ten years, I really don't think you've got a lot of room to talk.

Why do you think they're talking about switching to two-tiered (or multi-tiered) health care up there? Because the current one sucks for people that would like immediate care and have immediate needs (and the money to pay for it).

It's good in that everyone is (more or less) equally treated. It's bad when you don't have that kind of time to wait around while everyone abuses the system. And believe me, they ARE abusing it because they think it's free.

 

Well, JonBoy, Canadians complain about problems with the health care system, just like anywhere else. But in studies of the outcomes of the healthcare systems, they show higher levels of satisfaction than in many other countries. But what we are measuring isn't whether people say nice things about their health care systems or not. We are measuring what works and what doesn't. Unless you can come up with hard data that contradicts the studies that I've posted here, all of which show poorer outcomes in health care in the U.S. than in most industrialized countries, you are just blowing hot air. Waiting times are comparable in both the U.S. and Canada according to the study I've posted -- the only place where it is significantly better in the U.S. is that the wait time for knee replacement surgery is 4 weeks in the U.S. and 8 weeks in Canada. And I might add that there has been a recent drive by the Ontario government targeting wait times for joint replacement surgery. I didn't say that the Canadian system is flawless, and indeed, the study that I posted at the beginning of this survey ranks it No. 5, not No. 1 internationally. But the U.S. was at the very bottom of that study, and fares poorly in studies by the CIA and WHO. Against that, you give anecdotal information that Canadians complain about the health care system. So do Americans, do they not? Otherwise, why is it perennially an election issue? Or are all Americans just beside themselves with happiness and satisfaction about their health care system?

 

IBTM, anyway...

I've heard a lot about not using preventative medicine and how we (Americans) are so apt to try to cure something once it is out of control.

By living healthier, we would cut down a bunch on medical costs. But..

We don't...

Not to mention we are very sue happy and that clogs up our system even more....

Also price for drugs and hospital services are WAY out of control. Have you ever looked at how much a week in the hospital costs? Ugh.

In any case I think we have an OK system here. Like everything else, we need to change the way things work.

I don't know about universal health care, but there definitely needs to be
1. More preventative (healthy) measures in how we live our lives.
2. Some sort of insurance paid for by all of us for the ones who truly need it; children, elderly etc.
3. There needs to be a system where there are many companies for health care that you could get "quotes" from, like car insurance.


IheartS2Ks in '08

 

Far from it. The results are the same; but the way we get there is entirely different.

 

Thanks for explaining. Sorry if I came across as condescending, I really didn't intend to at all. You have a strong point and it's recognized.

The fact is, I've got a lot of love for US healthcare, as well as certain privatized services such as MRIs. Wait time on an MRI in Toronto was roughly 4 months at the time. Can still be be from 3 weeks to 4 months. I drove to Buffalo on a Friday a few years back and had it done with a day's notice.

 

Maybe more Canadians are dying before they ever get treatment so they're not even considered in the studies. They die of waiting.

 

[QUOTE=MikeyCB,Jan 10 2008, 03:44 PM]Thanks for explaining.

 

[QUOTE=zeiss,Jan 10 2008, 12:14 PM] Evidently, you haven't read these studies, which are largely based on health care outcomes -- infant mortality, survival rates for operations and other medical treatments for specific illnesses, life expectancy, years of life spent with good health.