The Truth about Canadian Health Care - personal account - USA Today

[JohnWxy]

The author who lives in Canada relates how on a stay in the U.S. she bought private health insurance and her experience with rationed care American Style ... a novel experience for her coming from Canada.


http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/08/column-the-truth-about-canadian-health-care.html

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Consider the bogeyman of the meddlesome government bureaucrat, who in some TV ads stands — quite literally — between patients and their doctors, smiling and waving his finger — nuh uh uh — as he nixes this or that procedure. Yet, the only time in my life that I have ever had to plead my case for health treatment to a bureaucrat was when I lived in New York City.

I had purchased out-of-country medical coverage from a private insurance company in Toronto, where I normally live, for the time I would be spending in the USA.

Health care their way

As luck would have it, I had an attack of appendicitis while I was alone on the fourth-floor of an apartment building. The issue I had to clear on the phone with the insurance company was whether I was allowed to call an ambulance, given that I was in too much pain to walk. That conversation, in turn, evolved into a debate about whether I was experiencing a pre-existing condition, which was difficult for me to articulate or even ponder. (Projectile vomiting will do that.)

Eventually, it was deemed permissible. Hurrah. Whereupon the only lasting harm done was my ongoing fear that I might ever get sick again on a private insurance company's dime. To me, it was a novelty and a horror to have to justify my experience of suffering to a stranger who seemed more concerned about the company's bottom line than my pain.

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[Oregone]

1. This "uniguely American" system is uniquely fucked up

Maybe one day Americans will pull their heads out of their asses and demand real reform. Maybe pigs will fly. For profit insurance isn't going away anytime soon, and certainly not on its own

[Creationismsucks]

2. I am also Canadian

and that sentence:

"Yet, the only time in my life that I have ever had to plead my case for health treatment to a bureaucrat was when I lived in New York City."

is equally true of me. The company was Mutual of Omaha, and they did cough up the dough (after a couple months) but up here it's true, no beaurocrat had ever intervened in my health care.


Our system isn't perfect, and I worry about its long-term viability, but it's been very good to me.

[JohnWxy]

3. Thank you so much for this input. The deluge of disinformation must be answered with facts. THose

who are in a position to expose GOP/Insurance Industry propaganda as lies should relish every opportunity to do so.


Thank you from one of the serfs trying to survive under America's Corporate Feudalism (the corporations are our lords.)

We can always count on the Corporate Lobbyist party to counsel us serfs against standing up to our Corporate Lords. Their propaganda has worked so well over the years you almost can't blame the Republicans for having such utter contempt for the "little guy"...that is, anybody who doesn't have enough money to buy their help subverting Democracy.