I thought it was Government that had the bureaucracy?


Health Care Nightmare

Question Bluestream, would you rather keep your health care plan you have now or trade it for what we have in the USA?

I think at a certain income level, healthcare is probably better for an individual in the states, but what that number is I don't know.
I suspect there is for more slack in the US in terms of hospital beds available in most places because the US system is so profitable. Here our hospitals are run near full more often as it doesn't pay to have excess capacity.

Another question to you Canadians. Do people up there go broke and file bankruptcy because they cannot pay medical bills?
Here in the USA, even people with health insurance often go broke due to medical expenses.

Our (that is, Canada's) 'universal' health care is not as universal as the name would suggest; there are huge holes in it, some of which could bankrupt a family. For example, a friend receives a weekly transfusion to keep his lungs from being destroyed by an antibody. The medication is incredibly expensive ($1500/week?) and is covered by our province's medical system, but not by most other provinces.

Having said that, I received excellent care after breaking my leg skiing a few weeks ago. I know it's not free - I pay a lot in taxes, and about 1/3 of my taxes go to health care, but it was great to not be out of pocket for this injury.

Someone with money has the best of both worlds here - if they don't want to wait, they can pay their way as a private patient in the US.

we need pictures and names of the criminals

It's rarer as most medically necessary procedures are nearly free, but what can get people is that lots of drugs aren't covered by the province. Most people do have a drug plan as a benefit at work, but if you don't and didn't buy your own insurance, you could be paying lots of money for drugs to keep you out of the hospital. Once in the hospital everything is covered again for whatever treatment you need, but after you leave, you or your plan has to buy medications again.
I think our drugs are still cheaper than the US, but I was reading we have the highest drug costs of all public healthcare systems in the world because our provinces haven't been buying them directly and haven't negotiated good deals like the other public systems.

The hospital that I worked at up until a few years ago was running around 100-150 patients over capacity. The ER had around 45 rooms but the overflow would go into the halls and other available spaces. In some cases patients were treated in the waiting room. Surgery ran around the clock with scheduled operations well into the evening. It wasn’t a lack of space or people, it was a overwhelming demand for hospital services. As such, it was extremely difficult to provide excellent service but we did so with the help of automation and technology.

Healthcare is really in a state of chaos right now. The worst end of it for the customer is the billing process. In the case of my mother who passed away, we received bills 9 months after we had paid what was told to us the final amount. This was four months after she passed.

The billing system is broken and it’s ysually outsourced so accomplishing any sort of remediation takes months. In this day an age when Amazon can deliver pretty much anything overnight or in two days one has to wonder when this will get fixed.

Generally, as already mentioned, no. Drug costs and costs for diabetics can be problematic, but there's no several hundred thousand dollar surgeries to destroy you financially like you guys have. Also, not having billing as part of our service means that there's less for the patient and their family to deal with. You don't have to worry about the financials.

I have a chronic disorder that requires frequent examinations/procedures/etc and I've had services performed under the worst and the best types of insurance in the USA. (due to job changes)

I haven't yet met a facility that wasn't willing to either reduce the cost of services billed or to work out a payment plan. The hospital billing departments know that people don't just have $100K laying around, so I'm hesitant to believe the sob stories of people who let their lives be ruined because they couldn't make a simple call to the billing dept.

On top of that, it's rather foolish that people will get procedures done without first understanding the cost of what they'll pay. Usually the doctor gets his/her cut, the facility gets their cut, the labs get their cut, the anesthesiologist gets their cut, etc. 10 minutes on the phone will get you a 95% accurate picture of what said procedure will cost.

The real problem is that people don't have the mental fortitude to understand how the billing works (or how their insurance works). This is the real problem.

"nearly" free....

NOTHING IS "FREE".... Someone is PAYING. On the other end of this.... IS SOMEONE is getting PAID for their time and services provided... Supplies are PAID for...



Free free free free....

Lack of any deeper level critical thinking is clearly missing here.

I have a feeling that this thread is going to turn REAL bad, 'right quick', as many on here would say.

Medical in the USA is horribly bloated and over priced, rife with bureaucracy and expertise varies wildly. During the avalanche of claims and insurance payments in aftermath of my serious motorcycle accident last year the in-patient physical rehab joint billed $1700 for "Prosthetics." I was there 8 days, and the only things I used were well worn wheelchairs, aluminum crutches, and the PT people would put a long strap around my mid section as a tether whilst I would do certain movements on the crutches. It was made of seat belt material or whatever. I told the employee health plan insurance this. They inquired. Rehab joint told them it "was for a collar." I was put in a c-collar from first day in the hospital and went into the rehab joint wearing it and even was given a spare from the hospital to shower in. It was a Miami-J type, which you can buy on the internet for less than $100. The rehab joint did *not* provide me any add'l collars nor did I use any "prothetics" while in there. To keep my left foot elevated when in bed they put three pillows under it, no special elevation techniques or anything. Shady $1700 charge quietly slipped onto health insurance bill that was two pages long. Employee health plan did not pay it but *would have* had I not pointed it out.

Agreed there is no free lunch, but when you eliminate insurance companies you can have a more efficient system. Also, everyone has to pay into it, and then the healthy subsidise the sick at the lowest cost. (if any health care can be considered low cost)

Check this out:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/07/canadians-may-pay-more-taxes-than-americans-but-theres-a-catch.html

IMO I would trade the military industrial complex any day for good national health care + a little extra in taxes. Keep in mind the extra taxes are probably less than the insurance premiums anyways and everyone is covered.