RE: 04 My Experience in the Canadian Health Care System
I'm so happy they sorted that out for you. And thank you so much for sharing this experience with us.
While I'd never wish for an illness and a ten day hospital stay, I'm jealous of your medical care. If my wife and I got sick with what you just had, it would completely ruin us financially. We're both self-employed at the moment, which means uninsured. Actually it means we're fined over $1000 a year for the fact that we can't afford health insurance.
When I was working for a corporation, we paid close to $30,000 for care we never used, because the deductibles were too high, and any visit to a doctor's office would run at least $400.
Recently we had to pay an ambulance to move my grandfather from one nursing home to another. The cost? $5000.
We hear a lot of propaganda about how backwards and incapable the Canadian health care system is, but clearly it's all from a bloated insurance industry that doesn't want to see their cash-cow taken away.
I've always found it astounding how much our neighbours to the south pay for medical insurance and then pay on top of that out of pocket. It is no wonder that insurance industry fights hard against a single payer system and spreads propaganda about the Canadian system. It is far from perfect but the costs are way less than to the south.
That $30k for insurance would be a person's annual wage up here.. low income but still a wage. As a self-employed person, what would insurance run you a year?
It's extremely complex, as the companies have endless plans to sell. Then there's the state-welfare type plans, which vary state by state. When my niece was working for a farm and making next to nothing, she qualified for our state's most generous plan. She was paying around $200/month but could actually get checkups and medication with low co-pays. Then she got a job at Starbucks and was required to get their health plan, which costs her more and has high deductibles, so she goes to the doctor far less.
That $30k was the total I spent over eight years, so about $3750/year, with my employer paying a lot more than that. When I left that job I was sent an offer to stay on the health plan for $1600/month if I wanted to pay it myself.
That was the private plan with the $400 deductible, and it only covered 80% of expenses after that. A ten day hospital stay is around $20,000, and the cost of, say, kidney stone removal could easily add another $30,000.
Without insurance, I'd be out $50,000 easily for what you just had. With my old insurer's plan I'd still owe $10,400.
The worst thing about "Obamacare" was that it required employers to offer insurance to all full-time employees. Sounds fair, right? Well, as soon as it went through, my company got rid of all full time positions except for managers. And if we scheduled a part-timer to work over 20 hours a week, we'd be fired.
I was worried about what the costs would be had OHIP not covered them and could easily have envisioned $50k or more. While I was in hospital there was also the 3 or 4 catscans i had and the transfer to the other hospital for a procedure and back again that could have been billed separately.
Since I left hospital there has been appointments with a lung specialist and a urologist, 3 xrays, 2 more catscans (another scheduled this week) and fluid drained off my lung.
The cost you quoted for the removal of a kidney stone was of interest. One thing that was discovered in the course of all this is that I have a kidney stone partially embedded in my kidney that has been there for some time without me knowing about it.
It has rendered the kidney pretty much without function and later this fall the kidney will be removed. So, that will be more time in hospital.
Seems that Obamacare needed to address some of the loopholes that had an unintended effect. From up here, it all seemed pretty complicated to understand but I got the sense that it was being seen as a first step towards a universal system which would sure get the insurance industry riled up pretty good.
Sorry to hear about all those complications. It sounds like you're having a rough year! But I'm so glad you have access to the care you need.
It's hard not to despair of ever seeing a single-payer system here in the US. The current system generates so much money for corrupt interests, all of which have too much lobbying power. So it's hard to see them letting that go. Billing and Insurance Related expenses are half a trillion dollars a year. That's political-assassination type money.
It has been a rough 2-3 months with more coming BUT the good news is, it is something I should heal from and carry on. Considering that I had seven years of zero medical needs, I'm pretty grateful it's not worse.
I tend to be aware of what I eat and try to stay away from foods that are processed, contain a lot of sugar and even flour. I think a lot of our health is driven by what we consume. I know I should exercise more, but, I really hate that. Although I am working on doing more walking around and doing things to increase my steps daily.
I have noticed more discussion by my American acquaintances about a single payer system. It seems as though the efforts to repeal Obamacare is generating that discussion. With your current government, I suspect you are correct, there is no hope of moving to a single-payer system. It may become a future issue though.
There are efforts by mainly conservative types to bring more private, profit driven health care into Canada. I suspect a lot of that is the US insurance industry looking for new markets. I will support governments that stand against that effort. I believe there are improvements that can be made to the system but not by privatizing and giving the insurance industry a foothold.
Stay healthy and keep fighting, for sure!
Private health care is like an infection and once it gets in it can spread out of control.
interesting and most timely analogy :) lol