I see the Canadians here continue to support their arguments by using emergency care stories. That is not what I have ever discussed when it comes to delayed treatment. Enough of the conflating the two types of care. Thank you!
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Good advice IMHO anywhere.
For some non-emergency examples of wait times—from my own experience, because that’s all I can speak to: I never have to wait longer than a day to get in to see my GP (except because my own schedule interferes). If I need immediate non-emergent care, there are walk-in clinics open during business hours or an urgent care centre that has extended hours. I have had referrals for specialists and tests take a couple of weeks or sometimes months (which, by the way, I’ve also read of many Americans having the same experience). I’ve also had referrals to specialists and tests within days if the issue was potentially serious (such as possible cancer) or even if it wasn’t (such as dermatitis). Once I’m a patient of a specialist, I’ve been able to make same- or next-day appointments for urgent issues with numerous different specialists (allergist, endocrinologist, ophthalmologist, cardiologist).
My family and friends have dealt with everything from heart surgery to cancer treatment to needing cysts removed… None of them had to wait long to get these done. I have been able to get blood tests, ultrasounds, x-rays, ECGs, lung function tests, and the like the same day or within days of seeing my doctor, again mostly dependent on my own schedule. Friends of mine who have had MRIs and CT scans (I haven’t had one in years) have gotten them done within days to weeks of seeing their doctor—again, we’re talking about non-emergency issues here.
The government is taking actions to reduce wait times in areas where they are longer. But, again, from my understanding, much of this issue is not due to our system’s structure but rather due to shortages of equipment and personnel in some areas, particularly remote regions with low population densities. The government does fly people down to larger population centres if they live somewhere that doesn’t have a specialist, test, or treatment that they need.
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As far as delayed treatment goes, yes, it is critical that people find a General Practitioner (GP) who will provide thorough, ongoing care for them on a regular basis.
There are Primary Care Networks (PCN) which are situated in different regions of our province (healthcare is a provincial responsibility) where you can go and get continuing, ongoing care once your GP refers you to the PCN of which they are a member.
The PCNs are set up for different regions in the city where you live. There is no cost for regular blood tests, treatments and x-rays that are necessary and are ordered by your GP.
There are many government initiatives in place that promote the importance on ongoing care by a GP. So yes, I do think our situation is well planned and people can receive medical care as long as they take the time to see their GP on an annual or semi-annual basis.
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Yes, that’s the scenario in our city which is Edmonton, Alberta. We go to a neighbourhood pub that is within a hotel. Flights come down from Yellowknife, Inuvik and other regions up north where the medical care is less plentiful. The are all bused to their different appointments around the city for two days and they actually fill the hotel entirely!
This happens about once every six weeks. It’s quite amazing, I have to say myself!
Very silly to compare the health care system of Canada and the United States. Canada has 38 million people, that is less than the state of California. It is roughly 10% of the entire population of the U.S. Everyone in Canada pays their share of health care costs through taxes. Only 1 group of people pay for everything in the U.S. All of our legislators here in the U.S. are bought and paid for by health care corporations or big Pharma. Nothing is going to change, expecting these cretins to fix this problem by taking the trillions away from the corporations and themselves is foolish.
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That is not quite true. Medicare involves paying premiums, co pays, deductibles, donuts, etc. You can buy expensive supplemental insurance to cover the co pays and deductibles, but this is certainly not at “no direct cost to you”
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You know, given that my average appointment to see my endocrinologist is more than 6 months, and to see a neurologist is also 6 months, I’m not sure this is such a great point of comparison. All the Canadians here are saying they don’t experience terrible negative effects of waiting or “rationing,” and many Americans here experience incredibly long wait times. This sounds more like a talking point.
And, for the record, I have top-level government backed health insurance and still pay as much as 20% of my take-home pay for family’s medical expenses. It’s currently keeping me from purchasing a house, which is an interesting economic phenomenon to consider. I’d trade my expensive, premium healthcare for your Medicaid any day of the week.
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I don’t have Medicaid. never have.
US pays already for a lot more things from taxes than Canada does. Aid to other countries, military (UN peacekeepers/28%funding) 10’s of millions illegal immigrants, (Schools, including college, medical, food aid, housing aid etc.) Our food stamp program alone have more people on it than I think the whole total of the population of Canada, wic programs too. US also has an extensive free and subsidized national school meal(s) programs.
Even our legal immigration and people that are just given green cards is massively bigger than Canada and they qualify for US assistance programs. Assistance programs etc have a higher percent of usage from non citizens. (sometimes double) Canada has age limits, education limits, and work requirements for immigrants, so it costs them far less on the immigrants that they do have.
This is important because if we have MediCare for all, it would be including everyone that is here. The biggest problem the US has is funding for MediCare for all. And the reality is not going to be the health care the 91% of insured Americans are used to getting.
And taxes for MediCare for all would not come from the taxes already being used for other things. It would completely be an additional added tax, obviously only from the people that pay taxes. And our Medicare program collects money from people to be in it too. AND it’s running out of money.
It’s not that we don’t need improvement to our system, we do. But not at the expense of penalizing the 91% insured already.
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I’m Canadian born and retired currently living in Vancouver. Since 1998 when I was diagnosed with type 2 I’ve made extensive use of the Canadian health care system. In 2004 I was diagnosed with hereditary hemochromatosis, which is what originally caused my diabetes by damaging my pancreas with iron overload. I’ve had six visits to hospital emergency, most seriously in 2010 for a cardiac arrest that I recovered from thanks to excellent hospital care and rehab services. While I was working (prior to my cardiac arrest) I paid around $60 a month for my health coverage, since 2010 it’s all been free including all medications, dental care, glasses and more recently hearing aids. Not only has my health care been affordable, it has also been of excellent quality. If that is what some Americans disdainfully refer to as “socialized medicine” then I’d choose that any day over American style capitalist pig medicine.
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This is clearly straying pretty far from the original topic and tempers are getting heated enough that I think it’s no longer a productive thread. I’m going to lock it down pending further discussion with the other admins.
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This topic will remain closed. Several, non-productive and antagonistic comments have been removed, along with a few comments that were incidental to those and therefore no longer made sense without context.
The Administrative Team chose to allow the conversation to continue despite its political nature because healthcare is an important topic for people living with diabetes. However, based upon the deterioration of this discussion which led to personal attacks/name calling, the Team will act more readily on subjects of a political nature which are disallowed under our Terms of Use and Guidelines.
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