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this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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Essentially nobody is complaining about the quality of care available here. The problem is that only the rich can really afford it. Most people will avoid going to the doctor if at all possible, just because they can't absorb the cost even if they're just told to take an Aspirin and sleep it off. Long-term care for anything serious is just impossible to recover from financially for most people - it literally bankrupts entire families. With how hard it is to move up a prosperity bracket, that's a devastating blow that is often felt for generations.
I think your view might be slightly skewed because you have free care available, and can go to the US or Mexico for better options if you can afford it. Here, if we can't afford it, we have nothing, or we assume tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
I guess my point is less about the quality of American care, and more about the quality of Canadian care. I hear so many Americans online hold up the Canadian system as a shining example of what healthcare should be, while I'd do pretty much anything to avoid having to deal with the system up here. It's really a "grass is always greener on the other side" thing both ways I think.
I'm not gonna try and tell you it's perfect. But as someone from Québec who needed an emergency surgery mid-lockdown, I was able to see multiple doctors, spend a night at the hospital, got examined in every way necessary and received said surgery, along with morphine for the following days... And basically didn't see a damn bill. I had to wait a long time in the ER at first. Until it got worse they just told me to be patient. But from the quick estimates I did, this would've cost me maybe 10-15k$ in the US. Best case scenario. Scenario in which I then have to deal with an insurance company that bitches and moans about having to fulfill its part of the deal. And then of course they'd increase my premiums.
Think of it as "worth the price". Canadian healthcare is definitely worth the price, given that the price is zero. American prices are so high that nothing could be worth that, so it's not even worth the price of an ambulance. Oh, yeah, they charge for the ambulance ride.
Almost everywhere in the world they charge for the ambulance ride. Except, some countries have state funded providers with super low subsidized prices or even free. And the private providers have to compete with that which keeps prices affordable. So using an ambulance is not a bankruptcy inducing event.
I will admit, I did not know that. I'm British, I'm used to it being free. But I looked it up and it seems there's a lot of other countries that also didn't know that. Even if it's charged in their country, it's such a minor amount that they barely even notice, and they don't need to pay if it's an emergency.
Meanwhile, Americans are charged over 100 times what Germans are charged, even in an emergency. And they get billed extra based on the distance travelled.
"The cost of an ambulance" is only an issue in America. It's not normal.
Are we grading the system or its current status? Right now, it's sick. After so much defunding and bullying from the all-hat crowd, we've got a professional deficit that's gonna take another decade to fix. So the distinction is important -- and will sway the coming vote.