As a Canadian I marvel at all of these terms that are so common to Americans, but are virtually unknown to us.

Here's a partial list off the top of my head:

1. "Out of network"
There are no "networks" in Canada. Doctors and hospitals are not affiliated with private insurance companies. Doctors are private business entities and hospitals are usually run by non-profit boards or regional health associations.

2. "COBRA"
Health coverage is NOT tied to your place of employment in any way. So any COBRA-like scheme is unnecessary.

3. "Co-Pay"
The government pays 100% of basic care, 100% of the time. Drugs are not covered, but are subsidized by government to a point. And because of mass buys, discounts are obtained from the drug companies. That's why our prices are so much lower. Most employers offer a drug plan that pays for 100% of drug cost coverage.

4. "monthly premium\deductible"
Wazzat? We don't consider our health to be the same as our possessions.

5. "waiting for approval"
Doctors are the sole decision makers for health care. NOBODY influences or delays their decisions, warns them of costs or prevents them from giving treatment for any reason.

6. "Government interference"
The provincial government in each province PAYS for whatever services doctors provide. No questions asked. Unless the procedure is experimental, not medically necessary or unwarranted, doctors cannot deny basic care - by law.

7. "Health insurance lobby"
There are NO insurance companies for basic care, only companies for providing insurance for travelers. No money to be made here.

8. "bureaucracy"
When we visit a hospital or doctor's office, we walk in, get treated, walk out. No "applications", "registrations" or any other kind of paperwork is required. We NEVER have to talk to a single "government official" or wait for a "judgment".

9. "PRE-EXISTING CONDITION"
This is such a foreign concept to us. A Canadian's usual reaction to the explanation of this term is astonishment.


I'm glad to see that a sane health care system is within reach in America. Fight for it. It's WORTH it.

 

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What I think about this is, where do I sign up, because this is precisely what I want. I do have to agree that it does sound too good to be true, but we have to do something. We're going broke on the path we're on. Perhaps we go broke sooner on some other path, I can't say for sure, but one thing I can say for sure is that the system we have is totally fucked up, please excuse my french.

As far as what system to implement I think we could throw a dart at a map of the developed countries of the world and not fail to find an improvement. I personally would prefer to try and identify the "best" system and try to emulate it in it's entirety as opposed to trying to come up with something unique that will most likely end up as a gigantic cluster fuck. Again, excuse my french but this topic is one I feel strongly about.

I think doctors make way too much money for the actual benefit that they provide. Doctor's have an incentive to queue people up in their little exam rooms and spend as little time as possible with each patient so that they can collect their $300+ office visit fee. If they can reduce the average time they spend with each patient from 10 minutes to 5 minutes they've doubled their income.

I think the insurance industry as a whole is a parasite that only drives up costs while providing no true benefit to the ultimate consumer and needs to be totally eliminated.

I think the US consumer ends up paying the research and development costs of new drugs for the entire world's benefit. Every other country negotiates with the drug companies to result in a drug price that covers per unit production costs and a reasonable profit. It's only the US consumer that pays whatever the patent holder demands and thereby ends up funding the world's drug research. This practice has got to stop. The US needs to negotiate its own bulk drug prices and force the world to pay their share of the huge research and development costs associated with developing new drugs.

Like I said throw a fucking dart, you can't do worse than the system we currently have. We can argue about what changes may be incrementally better than others but in the end I don't believe it's possible to do worse than what we already have.

I have to agree that doctors do make way too much money and using the excuse that the machines they use to diagnos patients and the fact that they are saving lives is not fair. Makes me wonder why soldiers do not make as much.

But, do you think this is what Obama is proposing or pretty close to? And do you think Daiwa's comments above are valid? I ask because I read many replies on that article on DU that seemed to indicate that Canandians don't come to the US seeking medical attention they can't get in Canada's Health Care System as many reports claim here.

I have to disagree with you here. A doctor staring off makes about 100 an hour for a 12 hour shift. Sounds like a lot right? By the time the doctor pays his student loans, his malpractice insurance, income taxes and dues he takes home about 7.50 an hour for the first 7 to 10 years. Wow that does not sound like a lot of money. it sounds like he gets the shaft while others are making huge amounts of money from the start. The doctor spends 8 years in college, then interns for a year in hopes of getting on with a hospital. he is almost 30 years old before he starts his career and no real money to show for it until he is almost 40 and he will retire before he is in his 60's because old doctors are not useful in the hospital systems unless he becomes an administrator meaning he stops doing actual medicine. Private practice is even worse, it could take 20 years to build a practice that makes real money.