Canadian Universal Health Insurance: the Frequent Misuderstandins
During the many years I’ve been an independent life insurance broker , I’ve had more than enough of chances to answer questions about the ups and downs of both the US and Canadian health care system. Certainly both of them have many faults, but the whoopers I sometimes encounter regarding the Canadian health care system, well, that’s a bit too much. Let’s mention some of them.
“The Canadian system is much more expensive than the US system.”
First of all let’s have a look at this cost-related whooper. Compare the numbers yourself: US spends 15 percent of GDP, leaving at least 15 percent of its population without any coverage, while Canada spends 10% of its GDP, covering 100 percent of Canadians. An example from 2005 illustrate that the Americans spent US$6,401 per head, which is almost two times more than the Canadian expenditures.
“It is not up to the doctors, but up to the administration to make a decision who will get treated.”
Why should the government be responsible for such decisions? It’s only up to the physicians to determine who gets treated and when and how. On the other hand, the situation is quite different in the States, where in fact it is up to your insurance administrators to determine what treatment you are allowed to get, never mind what you physician thinks.
“The Canadian insurance sucks since it only covers the basic and the rest comes out of your pocket anyway.”
Every provincial government has its own rules concerning what is and what is not included by the public health insurance. But mostly it’s all the doctor’s fees, tests and everything that happens in the hospital is included. It mostly doesn’t cover the medical equipment, dental and vision care and other extras. Because it’s not too tricky to estimate the cost of these extras, since all those big troublesome items are already covered by the national health insurance, number of insurance companies offers some additional low premium insurance that takes care of all these extras. For example the FlexCare Program from Manulife. All in all, to get the same level of service in the USA as in Canada, the Americans have to pay so much more. The system is simply running better in Canada.
“The biggest problem with the Canadian system are the long waits. Actually, thousands from Canada choose to get treated in the US so that they don’t have to wait.”
The infamous wait concerns mostly a specialist treatment (up to 4 weeks because of the staff shortages – the States have a similar situation). Of course the times required for selective surgery could be even longer. But if you need an cogent treatment, you get it fast. And the best part is that no one is interested in your financial situation: whether rich or poor, you are treated the same. In those cases when the waiting list might be too long and it is not likely to access the treatment in an acute situation, the patient is sent to the US, but you don’t pay a cent: the insurance covers it all. If you spoke to somebody from Canada who rushed to the the States for their treatment and had to cover it themselves, they most likely didn’t need the treatment as fast as they wanted it.
“The doctors are employed by the Canadian government. And the government selects the physicians for you!”
Not true. The provincial government doesn’t act as an employer, since the physicians in Canada own their private practises just like their colleagues in the States, but constitutes the only insurer that the physicians have to deal with, therefore the paperwork is kept to the necessary minimum. And of course you can select the physician yourself.
Tags: canda, health care, misconceptions, myths, obama, reform, usa
