It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Canada’s stubborn obsession with single payer health care is taking a massive toll on the budgets of governments and the health of Canadians, but that won’t stop Medicare’s supporters from continuing to insist that government payments to a few select private clinics constitutes “privatization”.
You’re seeing a lot of controversy about the introduction of “private health care” into the Canadian system. But you can all relax, because it’s not actually private health care. It’s still public health care, but just the worst possible version of it.
In Canada, it’s illegal to buy insurance for anything covered under the public system. Nobody else does this. In The Netherlands, New Zealand, Japan, the U.K. you can pony up a few thousand dollars each year in private insurance and — if you need stitches — you can either go to the public hospital or use your insurance to get it done privately at an entirely different health care system over here.
That’s private health care.
I’d gladly pay a couple grand a year to have a doctor.
We have no alternate to use when the system is crippled, my husband split his hand open so deeply the fat layer-3rd layer of skin, was oozing out. So off the ER, opps not so fast it wasn’t opened and the nearest facility was 1.5 hour away. They did open the ER five hours later, and many stitches later he has to find someone to take them out. We have rationed care period, those who use the system regularly get great service for those who rarely use the system is so rationed it’s not funny. If we had private clinics he could of gone to one of those, oh and the person who stitched him up did a gawd aweful job of it.
The cure is the existential threat to the staus quo of bureaucrats and unions in charge.
Just ask the Dipper leader, if you can locate him in his flight from voters.
Don’t get in an accident in BC, and if you get sick, make sure it’s one that will kill you. That’s the only way you will get immediate care, even if it means they ship you to Washington for treatment. Otherwise, get in line, hurry up and WAIT, you lucky plebe!
Adrian Dix is the absolute, most useless titwiggle. In most sane governments, this failure of a carbon unit would have been fired long ago. It makes no sense why he is still there, unless all others have refused to be the Hell, er Health Minister.
We are lucky to still have a family doctor, as useless and dimwitted as he is. But, everything else is a nightmare. See a specialist? 3 month wait. Walk in clinic for immediate need? HA HA HA. Go to the ER? Got 9 hours of spare time to wait? Remember the drug zombie ODs have priority over all of us.
What a FCKED UP system we are held hostage to!
The system works for everyone, except the patient. Neat, huh?
Four years ago in Florida I had a bad enough cramp in my calf that I suspected it tore the muscle. A visit to a local clinic where the doctor was pretty sure it was a tear and not a blood clot (similar symptoms) but he recommended additional tests to confirm. Later that day an ultrasound (termed a Doppler) followed the next morning with an MRI proceeded by blood tests. All done in less than 24 hours and all at private clinics. The cost? About $725 Can. The MRI alone was only $200 U.S.
In Canada, it’s always been okay for the wealthy to access private health care. They go south. Works for athletes and politicians too.
In Canada, it’s more important for a MRI machine to sit idle that allow a private technologist to rent it out to see patients willing to pay…
Exactly. So long as all us plebes suffer equally, that’s considered fair & Canadian. Letting anyone pay with their own money to get better service, why that’s grotesque & American.
It’s a cultural problem. Good luck fixing that.
I don’t know about the rest of the Country, but in Manitoba our Health System is basically shot. In our town access to the ER is only available on Tuesday and Thursday between 8am and 4pm. Outside of those hours we have to call 911 and hope for the best. Our Lab has been down graded from 5 days a week to only 2 days. Diagnostic services or access to a Specialist in Brandon or Winnipeg is a 6 month to one year wait. I am one of the fortunate that has a Nurse Practitioner, although presently it is a 3 week wait to see her. The powers that be, blame it on staff shortages, yet to date they refuse to recall the medical staff that was fired for not taking the jab. I have gone from having little faith in the system to zero at every level.
End up in the hospital & you are likely get talked into signing up for MAID or put on a Ventilator, given Remdisivir and have your organs harvested.
If a nation wants (the option offered at election time) a universal health care system that works, the answer is cradle-to-grave HSAs (health savings accounts) fed by regular tax-supplied deposits much as pensions are meted automatically. All care providers must bill for services from advertised price lists. Funds belong absolutely to the individual and may be spent anywhere and on anything reasonably health related.
Such a free market approach would bring prices down, improve service through competition, and place judgment calls on the “consumer” – perhaps deferring trivial claims in favour of preparation for later, larger needs. Over time, cash inputs, withdrawals or transfers could be doable to account for surpluses or shortages.
Single payer is busy killing those excess people, so all is as it should be.
Yup.
Canadians believe infinitely delayed services are somehow different to denied services.