Canadian Medical Coverage/US Coverage

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itchy22
Here in Canada most of our medical expenses are covered,but in the US you have to pay most or all of the bill. Some lucky ones have coverage from employment but I still dont understand why your government finds it so hard to help the less fortunate citizens out. Any thoughts?
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Juuust_James

Thats simple to answer, our Country is controlled by two Political Parties whos #1 objective is to gain majority control of the Government -so Bottom line despite what they say in their Campaign speeches -they only care about themselves. If they Did care one iota about the poor and Homeless -they would be taking pay cuts from their 6-figure salaries, and doing away with their Chauffeur driving Limos, and Million Dollar Mansions, but instead its the american people that take the pay cuts, and worse lose their jobs, while they're all living high on the hog
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Primeboy

Our current government is making every effort to increase quot;dependency quot; wherever possible. Ever since the War on Poverty began under President Johnson, the number of people on one form of government assistance or another has increased, often dramatically. There are built-in disincentives keeping people out of meaningful employment. On top of all this, Obamacare will add 30 million new people to government-supported health care.

Who's going to pay for all this in the coming years? I am sure it's not all the college grads who now live with mom and dad because they cannot find decent employment while straddled with incredible college debt. I am also sure it's not the 10,000 baby-boomers who retire everyday and expect to receive full social security and Medicare benefits. And I know it's not going to be the thousands of businesses that reduce their workers to part-time to avoid paying benefits.

Many promises of government largesse amount to intergenerational theft perpetrated by the worst generation on its young. Margaret Thatcher nailed it when she said that socialism works as long as other people's money holds out. Well, what are we going to do when the well runs dry? I know: quantitative easing, maybe one more time. But, as they say in Jersey, quot;Fuggetaboutit! quot;

There are many positive steps that can be taken to ensure that all truly needy people get appropriate governmental assistance in coping with health and living expenses without creating new and indefinite taxpayer-subsidized lifestyles. nbsp; nbsp;It all goes back to re-establishing a culture of shared values, including good work ethics, individual responsibility, brotherly love and shared sacrifice. Great civilizations have come and gone because they failed to act in their own best interest, even though they knew better. Ask any Trojan!

nbsp; nbsp; PB
Past Member
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery" ~ Winston Churchill
eddie
I am a nurse and have been one for over 40 years, I feel somewhat qualified to answer your question.
The homeless in our country are homeless because they chose to be, I could go into a long explanation about that but won't.
Anyone who needs health care can recieve it, You can go to any ER in USA and be treated. An there are free to income based clinics everywhere, any hospitall that accept Medicare or Medicaid must admit and treat a patient as needed.
The hospital that I am employeed at gives thousands dollars worth of free care and this is a standard every where in this country.
If you qualify for Medicaid which millions and millions do, ALL of your health care is free, you scripts are never more than $1.00. You are provided with a debit card for food , you utilities are payed for if you want to work part time you recieve free child car and a car, you get a free cell phone monthly with minutes added each month need new furniture or carpet see you case worked and get it. Also often in the ER you will a patient for a minor could or some resp. problem and for example a vaporizor , they will ask arent you going to give us one we don't have any money, Sounds sincere, but you had to go outside to find these individuals because they were out smoking! Last I heard smoking was expensive.
I could go on and on with examples!
PB I agree totally!
Eddie
 
Living with Your Ostomy | Hollister
itchy22
Thanks for the great answer. I do disagree with the homeless comment , though. I was homeless once and NOT because I wanted to. As for smokers,well, unfortunately we baby boomers grew up in a cloud of ignorance about the dangers of smoking and by the time most of us realized, it was too late.Addicted to a substance far more powerful than even heroin
hockey
I hope that you are not implying that ---(MEDICARE IS FREE) You pay for it before you get and you still pay for it while you are recieving
Past Member
I feel we'll qualified to answer this question as I lived in the USA for 21 years and Canada for a total of 32.
The reason many Americans are afraid of a single person medical system is propaganda. They are inundated by false information by the entities who stand to lose the most, insurance companies. They spend millions a year convincing people they are going to lose medical care altogether if they give everyone a real health system. That nurse who posted that everyone has health care is wrong. Health care is not ER. ER does not have the ability and it's not prepared to do any preventative care. It's horrendously expensive and the staff is not capable or has the tools to do anything but emergency care. It's like taking your car to a bmw mechanic to change the oil on an old Buick. They aren't interested.
Some of the other posts are just repeating what the right wing pundits repeat over and over. They haven't done any research for themselves they choose to believe unqualified talk show hosts because its easy and fulfills their need to blame others for the condition of their healthcare system.
It's based in profit, not care or preventative medicine. Doctors run as many people through the door as possible to maximize profit. A system based in profit will not look after those less fortunate. Nor do they treat poor people with respect and dignity. They treat them with revulsion and as beggars.
I prefer a system where health care is a right.
toria
I dont know where you lived in the USA , i lived in CA . WA. KS and OK and paid my taxes for 34 yrs. cost me 80dollars cash just to see a specialist, apparently i had to be 65 yrs old before i could claim medicare, i was only 63, with no insurance. i knew there was something really wrong with me as i was urinating blood. My job paid minimum wage. i came back to England and as i was born here was entitled to the National Health Service . I was diagnosed quickly, bladder cancer, operated on, and then had a stroke i survived and was given the all clear. That was 5 yrs ago. I had to leave my family over there, kids grandkids and now great grandkids ,that i have never seen, Here i pay nothing for my ostomy supplies or medication, I could never afford to live in the USA again, maybe a vacation one day. Your Medicare is not free. Thank goodness for socialized medicine. I do not like living here but I am very very grateful and so glad i did not become an American citizen. You have a beautiful country but you do not care for your old and sick.
Past Member
I lived in wa fl oh. I had medical but the costs of my surgeries for crohns took me to bankruptcy. I discovered the medical care I received in a midsize American town substandard. So many medical mishaps and mistakes. I was happy to move back to Canada. The type of care I receive here is much different. There are flaws in all medical systems. I prefer the Canadian one.
DBJ
I have been a nurse for 33 years here in the US. I have been VERY BLESSED with having great insurance from my job and my husbands. I am one of the lucky ones because I could be in bankruptcy as well due to 7 failed surgeries, for a bladder that would never work due to a hysterectomy for cervical cancer.
I feel our health care system is made of nothing but greed and we have lost our caring side.
I have a bad feeling about Obama care because we are not getting any straight answers as to what we are getting nothing but confusion. Something our government loves to keep us in.
Great confusion and FEAR-----

In this country there has always been the rich and poor. Along with the middle class that is dissolving more, and more into the poor class. We have lost thousands of good paying jobs along with health care.

Seems like everyone is unhappy about our health care problem but--no one seems to know how or WHAT to do to fix it

I am sure Canada is a better system--
Past Member
The Canadian system has many faults but in addition to having medical care people don't have to sell everything they own when they go to a elderly care facility its part of the medical system. People do manage to leave legacies for the children here.
From what I saw the Obama system that is a major problem is leaving it in the hands of insurance companies. If nothing else Obamacare is a start. All medical systems are constantly changing, hopefully there will be some positive changes soon.
I believe the Canadian system makes a huge mistake by not sending an informative billing statement to people going to the hospital or to see a doctor. People might be a little more aware and not overuse it.
eddie
I HAVE DONE RESEARCH IN FACT A GREAT DEAL! YOU MY FRIEND INSTEAD OF CALLING PEOPLE THAT HAVE A DIFFERENT OPNION NAMES, PROBABLY ARE RIGHT WHERE YOU BELONG. YOU ADMIT YOU PREFER CANADA, I'M HAPPY FOR YOU PERHAPS THAT GREAT COUNTRY MAY HAVE A LITTLE PROBLEM YOU CAN HELP THEM WITH! BELIEVE IT OR NOT WE HAVE SOME INTELLIGENT PEOPLE IN THE USA WHO CAN WORK OUT OUR DIFFICULITIES.
EDDIE
eddie
If you come to our small rural hospital's ED complaining of abd. pain you will get a CAT scan regardless of ability to pay. How soon would you recieve a CAT Scan in Canada???
eddie
gutenberg
Hi there eddie, my sweet red neck and hair lovely, let me try to answer that one for you. As I was laying on a gurney after having the heart attack brought under control the doctor asked me if I ever had an aneurysm, I answered yes, but the only word I could recall was 'fusiforth" or something like that, so I told him to call my doctor and when he came back he said I had no aneurysm, at which point my younger brothers started raising hell. If he said he has one, he has one, end of story. so the doctor says he will try to get some orderlies to take me to the CT lab, but the boys were having none of that and told the doctor to lead the way, which he did for about a few seconds because we were flying down the hall with the sheets flying back in my face, these boys knew where the lab was and when we arrived they grabbed me and almost threw me across the CT table. So with scan done and back to emergency for the big wait and finally the doc came in and the boys asked ''how big" and the doc says quite large and one of my brothers started in on him, we like numbers doc, and as he hesitated one brother asked if it was bigger than a watermelon, and finally the doc says 6.5cm, then the cursing started we had lost a couple of friends who had 5.5cm so we were aware of the consequences, but not aware that I would have to wait a year before they could operate because of the heart attack. All in all, I would say it was about 1 1/2 hours from the time I was admitted.
Now I don't for a minute mean to say this is anywhere near the norm, and if not for the heart attack and a couple of brothers raising hell I would hate to even guess how long a person had to wait for a scan. I know, not much help, but its the best I got, Ed
eddie
Thanks Ed, we had a Med student here from Canada, and of course I spoke with him about your health care system. He told me that his mother had to come to the states to get a CT scan (she had severely elevated liver enzymes ) because she would have to wait at home up to six months for a scan. perhaps he miss-spoke. I believe we have a good healthcare system here that is going to be hurt by Obama-care. I have worked in Healthcare since I was 18 years old. I know many people who didn't pay their bills and they did not lose their homes or cars thank God! I have never known that to happen in this state to anyone and cannot find any evidence that this did occur, although if you try to get a loan it will affect your credit score. The only reason I feel so strongly about this is that I believe in competition without it, there is no reason to strive to improve, my life would be a lot easier if I was constantly making rounds questioning patients about their care, telling other nurses that light is on stop chatting and answer it, that patient needs something. My Mom use to always say be careful what you pray for you may get it! It has been my experience with all the government agencies I have dealt with (not all but most of the time) they don't care and to put it bluntly they screw up.
eddie
gutenberg
I can't disagree with you eddie, sometimes its just serendipity that one gets the proper and timely care in the Canadian medical system. In my earlier post I was showing off about how quick I got my scan. A year later when the vascular surgeon operated on my aneurysm you wouldn't believe, (or maybe you would) but from that day onwards my life has turned into pure hell because of that surgeon, he caused me to lose my large bowel after two operations and another operation for the blockages. I try hard to forget the bastard that started all this as it was driving me nuts. I thank my luck for finding this site and hearing about others who had it a lot worse, Canadian and American. Ed
eddie
I don't want a battle about who is best, we both have some great advanges and disavantages. What happened to you should not happen to anyone. My biggest fear is the cuts and there will be big cuts you cannot pay if you have no money left, this was left out. Also just to apply you need to complete 26 pages of documents. And the people who control our taxes have full access to all your medical infromation. They do'nt even know yet today what is in this law the pages stack from the floor to the ceiling! That's crazy and there is no tort reform. Oh well I could go on and on but this is the USA's problem. I want to keep my physician and choose my surgeon no play to lottery.
love ya!
eddie
eddie
when I was young jusy grad. from High School, we never disagree becouse you always say I'm right or ignore the conversation like any smart man would do!
eddie
spade
In the USA it is all about MONEY!!!! Our leaders could care less about the average worker,
or the seniors in this country...they are to busy getting kick backs from Special Interest Groups to do the right and moral thing.
gutenberg
I don't disagree with you but there has to be some middle ground and in a binder of no more than 25 pages, and anyone going over that limit gets a fine, like paying for the forest they had to cut down for their last try. Ed
Anoniem18

While the Canadian system is far from perfect and you get what you pay for, i.e western Europe with its higher taxes, I have very few complains about the health care system here. When I took my then wife to emergency due to severe cramps they wanted to give her some tylenol (acetominiphin) and send her home I would not allow that (big argument) and eventually she had an operation that day. Well my position has always been my healthcare is my responsibility and the system is there to support me. I had a CT scan within a couple of days, I had an MRI 3 hours after my surgeon requested it (but then he went to the MRI department personnaly). and I paid a bare minimum for all the medication and medical supplies after the operation.

On the other hand I am required to pay for all my ostomy supplies but the provincial governement (equal to state) pays 300 every six months, and of course it is all tax deductible, from income!

Hopefully you have income to deduct from. All in all not quite as good as say the UK but I think probably better than the USA. But then our taxes are higher.

Ed

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