I am not aDR. but I am a trader : o ) I think I was not clear enough. My point is that the costs for a health care are "honest" (more honest anyway) in the US than in Canada. While those that talk about no out of pocket expenses give the impression that Santa is paying for the health care it is in fact paid by taxes. It appears to me that in Canada they basically take around 25% of someones income through taxes at many levels and apply it to health care. This is not free health care this is the government demanding that you take some of your money and buy something that you may or may not want to. So in Canada you pay for your health care indirectly and in the US you pay for it directly. Thats what I mean by a more honest system. It seems to me that its typical politics at play here. Those that use emotion tend to be in favor of having the government decide for us and those that use logic tend to favor letting the free market decide.
I'm certainly not proud of that and it is an extreme example. But everyone in Canada will get their MRI done when they need it. You sound happy with the system in the US but your idea about how the health care there system is efficient and well priced sounds naive. I certainly wish that you do not have the misfortune to experience the uncertainity that millions of uninsured people in the US experience every day. Boasting that you only had to wait for 20 minutes to get your MRI done when you know that there are people in your country who can't even go for a basic checkup sounds selfish to me.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123430531985570109.html?mod=testMod#articleTabs=comments Speaks for itself
If I sounded boastful I did not mean to be. I do think that the US has a great health care system despite the government and not because of it. You may call me selfish but (for me) the fact remains that there must be a limiting force against an unlimited demand for the resource. I believe the free market is better than the government at deciding. BTW, I am unsure where you get the idea that there are people in the US who can't get a basic checkup but I don't know anyone who can't get a basic checkup in the US. Also I don't know anyone who would not be admitted to an emergency room regardless of ability to pay.
ooh ooh we also have ambulance helicopters for when you splatter yourself on the highways. It'll fly you to hospital, no extra charge! http://www.ornge.ca/
Robert I am not trying to single you out but............ Anyone making under $40,000 in America, without insurance, is basically left with the choice of spending $1000 to see a DR, or buy food for three months. And yeah anyone will get treated in an ER, and then that ER will charge them three times the rate of an insured person and sue them into oblivion, with a judgment that will be on their file for life.
Yes, that maybe true but it comes with a hefty bill once they are discharged. Do you realize that many uninsured people will postpone going to the hospital until it maybe too late just because they wanted to avoid burdening themselves and their family with a huge debt they simply can't afford? Imagine yourself in their shoes and then take a fresh look at the US health care system. That's how we see it in Canada and that's what we are proud of about our health care.
I realized this post was from many pages ago, but it's an important issue. The pre-existing condition issue is a fake one, created by government regulation. As with all regulated industries, the insurance industry captured its regulator and the regulator allows almost anything to constitute a break in coverage, thus forcing one to look for new coverage and sets up the pre-existing condition issue. Regulation is meant to protect the public, but it almost always does the opposite. It protects insurance companies from competition and it encodes extra profits (economic rents) for them at the expense of the customer. First of all, insurance shouldn't be regulated by states, which forces people to change insurance when they move from state to state. Second, insurance shouldn't be tied to employment so that you have to change insurance when you change jobs (setting up the pre-existing condition problem again). Instead, insurance companies should be able to compete for customers across state lines and, as long as you pay your premiums, you should be able to keep your same insurance no matter where you move and what job you take. This will take care of the pre-existing condition issue. Also, without state mandates, insurers can offer different coverage packages rather than forcing everyone to pony up for Cadillac coverage or no coverage at all. The U.S. system is flawed. But it's flawed for the same reason socialized healthcare is flawed - government intervenes too much.
I lived in NYC and I've never ever heard of any doctor charging that much. I think you're confused. Take it up with insurance regulators. Here's how it works: A doctor performs a procedure for which he bills the insurance company $200. The insurance company pays him $111. To receive $111, he must bill $200. If he billed $111, he would receive less - say, $75. If an uninsured patient walks in and wants to pay out of pocket for exactly the same procedure, the Dr. CAN'T charge the guy $111 (the amount he receives from the insurance company). He MUST charge the guy paying cash $200 or it's considered insurance fraud - even though the insurance company never pays him $200 for that procedure. Nice, eh? I actually discovered this little bit of nastiness the hard way. So, it will actually cost you more to see a doctor if you want to pay out of pocket because the insurance regulators were good enough to take care of their friends in the insurance industry like that.
It's also worth keeping in mind that Medicare was created because the free market wasn't providing affordable insurance for the over-50 crowd (equiv. to over-60 now). I do not believe the "private" health care approach is tractable without a serious rethink of the system as a whole, as "affordable" at 60 mandates either "relatively expensive" at 24, or gov't subsidies at 60. There are a couple of other ways to tackle it, but I do not think they are even remotely politically viable without some extremely gifted political leadership.