I live in Ontario and pay no insurance premium (other than that of my income tax and my employer has a benefit program the helps with drugs, dental, etc.). It depends on your personal status if you are in favor of the Canadian system or the US system.
If you are a young single healthy person making a large salary, you would prefer the American system. However if you are a middle aged with a family with multiple kids and are starting to feel the aging process, your view changes rather quickly. What’s interesting about this scenario is that most young single healthy people become middle aged family people with kids.
About 4 weeks ago my 4 year old son woke up at midnight with a very swollen neck, high fever, stuffy nose, the works. We rushed to the hospital where a very pleasant nurse attended to him immediately, taking his vitals, administering Tylenol for his fever, blood pressure, etc. We waited another 30 min. and he was attended to by a doctor who told us he had strep throat and the infection had spread to his gland in his neck. She administered antibiotics and gave us a prescription. We were back home by 2:30 am. The total cost and was an $8.00 dispensing fee at Wal-Mart the next day for filling the prescription. With in a week he was cured. BTW my wife and I never even had to sign anything yet alone fill out paper work.
Last spring my wife waited 12 weeks for a non life threatening, mildly annoying gal bladder surgery. Sure it would have been nice if the 12 weeks was 6 or 4. But it’s a far cry from the 18 months posted here.
I do know that Ontario’s MRI machines are running 24 hours a day due to the demand and depending on your situation you could wait up to 6 months, again sig less than the 18 months reported here.
Yes, my taxes are higher but knowing that I will never get a phone call saying that anyone in my family will be denied healthcare based on something as trivial as money, is a great comfort (when peoples lives are at stake, money should never be an issue)!
Doctors in the US may make more than in Canada, (I have not data to confirm this) but that doesn’t mean that they are standing in the soup lines here either. Doctors in Canada do quit well (I don’t have any stats) but I assure you none of them are going hungry.
