It's one of the first things people in the States ask us about living in Canada.
"Why do you live in Canada? Where are you working? Do you get government health care?"
To answer the question, yes we do. If you live in Canada for more than 3 months, you are eligible for a Canadian health card and government health care (but you don't have to have it). And yes, it is much less expensive than what we had in the States. That's nice.
But there's more to health care than just cost. Fortunately, we have only used our health cards a few times and those times were not serious. We have, however, learned of various problems of the Canadian health care system through friends' stories.
A good friend of ours was experiencing great amounts of pain and numbness on one side of her face. She needed to get an appointment for an MRI. In order for the health care costs to stay low, there are very few MRI scanners in the area; so despite the fact that MRI appointments are scheduled for all 24 hours of a day, she had to wait 3 months in order to have the initial appointment. Three months of extreme discomfort. And this doesn't include the amount of time she had to wait to see a specialist.
The B.C. Health System recently asked the B.C. government for more money for health care. They were told that money is tight everywhere right now and so they're going to have to make due with what they have. How have they decided to cut the $360 million? To name one thing, all of the elective surgeries are being put on a slowdown. What are those elective surgeries? Hip replacements and cataracts, to name a few. Remember that the 3 month wait for an MRI was before this big cut!
Now I really do not mean this blog entry to be a political statement. I don't know what is best for the country and for the people. I'm still trying to figure it out. But I do know that the health care system we currently have is very different from what's up here in Canada, yet the U.S. government is discussing providing government health care like Canada does. Are people going to be willing to wait for months to have diagnostic tests? Are people going to accept huge sums of money being deleted from the health care budget - directly affecting what happens to them when they go to the hospital - when times are tough?
Just trying to provide an American-living-in-Canada perspective on American political issues. Please feel free to leave your perspective.
4 comments:
The U.S. has the best health care system in the world, provided you're not one of the 50 million that lacks health insurance. We spend 17% of our GDP on health care while Canada spends 9.7%.
Do you think it will continue to be that good if it goes public?
Thanks for this insight Charlotte. It's neat hearing your experience with nationalized health care in Canada. Out of curiousity, does Canada consider abortion as basic reproductive health care? Obama considers abortion basic reproductive care and it's (his words) "at the heart of his plan to provide 'basic' reproductive health care to all Americans," (spoken by him in a speech given to Planted Parenthood). This scares me, but God's in control. I hope and pray Obama's plans for this Health Care Reform fail. It makes me really nervous about the direction our country's going. Okay, enough politics- I have to remember at times not to get too caught up in it, but it's HARD not to do! :)
Yes, Canada does include abortion in the same category as other health care needs, so the governmental health care insurance does pay for abortions. In some provinces abortion clinics are funded by the provincial government, but this is not the case in all provinces.
In my research for answering your question, Spring, I also discovered that abortion is considered a low priority for voters when it's election time. There is only one Canadian political party that is officially pro-life, and that party has never had one of its members elected into Parliament. Also, I don't think we've ever seen any signage anywhere for or against abortions.
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