HEALTH CARE - User fees

[SirJosephPorter]

Yes, I agree, as I am a senior, and upon retirement we lost
all of our dental coverage, and now I am ignoring the care
of my teeth, because of high cost, they are not in bad condition but need attention, and I don't go, so I would
imagine many seniors and others in need would do the same
if they had to pay user fees up front, many do not have
the money, so, will not go, until it's too late and
conditions have become serious.

You make a good point, talloola. We don’t have universal dental coverage; it is by private insurance only. How many of those who don’t have insurance get regular six monthly dental check ups? We in my family do, but I seriously doubt that many who don’t have dental coverage get regular check ups.

If you have to pay, it cuts down on preventive care; it doesn’t need rocket scientist to figure that out.

 

[ironsides]

No it won't, American costs are much higher than Canadian costs. Our insurance will only pay for how much it costs in Canada, most of the cost still has to be borne by the patient..

Part of our problem is that there is better than a 95% chance that anything above the amount allowed by your insurance company will be dropped. They won't go after you when you go home.

Plus, I am not sure that our insurance will pay at all for elective treatment abrad, it probably won't. It will pay only for emergency treatment.

They are going to be very selective about elective surgery, if you need it, you will get it. You want botox injections you will pay for them, or have a secondary insurance that will pay for them.

We have USA and Canada, we don't have two USAs, and we never will, unless conservatives have their way here in Canada.

You want to be a patriot, join the army. Face the reality, we can call each other what ever we want, but we are the same, born of the same stock. Some can deny it all they want but it is true.

 

[ironsides]

No it won't, American costs are much higher than Canadian costs. Our insurance will only pay for how much it costs in Canada, most of the cost still has to be borne by the patient..

Part of our problem is that there is better than a 95% chance that anything above the amount allowed by your insurance company will be dropped. They won't go after you when you go home.

Plus, I am not sure that our insurance will pay at all for elective treatment abrad, it probably won't. It will pay only for emergency treatment.

They are going to be very selective about elective surgery, if you need it, you will get it. You want botox injections you will pay for them, or have a secondary insurance that will pay for them. We do have now, and will have under the new plan 'dental.

We have USA and Canada, we don't have two USAs, and we never will, unless conservatives have their way here in Canada.

You want to be a patriot, join the army. Face the reality, we can call each other what ever we want, but we are the same, born of the same stock. Some can deny it all they want but it is true.

 

[JLM]

"No it won't, American costs are much higher than Canadian costs. Our insurance will only pay for how much it costs in Canada, most of the cost still has to be borne by the patient."

That statement is pure Bullsh*t, I know, we've been through it.

 

[ironsides]

That is surprising, two couple's I know (snowbirds) had to get some surgery done, and the hospital just accepted whatever the insurance would pay. They expected to find a bill waiting when they got home, but never heard anything more about it.

 

[AnnaG]

Indeed. What we need is American style health care here, then it will be paradise indeed in Canada, just as it is the paradise in USA. Let us see if we can top USA. They have about 40 million, that is 13% of the population without insurance, let us see if we can get 20% Canadians (or about 6 million) without insurance of any kind under the new US style health care system.

There are better models of multi tier healthcare systems than the Americans.
OMG, maybe no-one's informed you that there are other countries in the world besides the USA and Canada!!!8O8O8O8O

 

[AnnaG]

And you will never get through, at least not to me.

roflmao Understatement of the millenium. Not much of anything does get through.

 

[AnnaG]

Many countries do have a two tier system and I am not opposed to it in principle. It is a matter for discussion as to exactly how it should operate. And user fees in the private system won't hurt anybody. However, user fees as proposed by JLM are nonsense.

lol PhD in flipflopology?

 

[YukonJack]

What with tiny, the hardly readable font?

 

[AnnaG]

A great source of revenue. Indeed, the costs are low in Canada, much lower than USA precisely because it is government run. Privatize it in Canada, make it similar to USA and watch the costs here also skyrocket.

Indeed, that is one of the reasons for sky high costs of health care in USA, much higher than any other developed country. The reason is that other systems are run by the government, American system is run by the insurance companies (whose first priority is to make money, not to heal the sick).

If we privatize health care, two things will happen almost at once. We will have a huge number of Canadians without any insurance, and the health care costs will skyrocket.

Um, we have private healthcare to a degree now. Where have you been?

 

[AnnaG]

But the real question is, will there be user fees? (In Canada)

Nope. At least not in the foreseeable future. User fees are against the Canadian Health Care Act.

 

[AnnaG]

Sorry for the off-topic bit here but I can understand why people would pay more to travel to the States for a hip replacement (or something) and get it done immediately rather than stay and wait months, in pain and getting hooked on analgesics, for the procedure here.

 

[JLM]

Many countries do have a two tier system and I am not opposed to it in principle. It is a matter for discussion as to exactly how it should operate. And user fees in the private system won't hurt anybody. However, user fees as proposed by JLM are nonsense.

So if the users aren't billed you think the NON users should be! :lol::lol:

 

[VanIsle]

A great source of revenue. Indeed, the costs are low in Canada, much lower than USA precisely because it is government run. Privatize it in Canada, make it similar to USA and watch the costs here also skyrocket.

Indeed, that is one of the reasons for sky high costs of health care in USA, much higher than any other developed country. The reason is that other systems are run by the government, American system is run by the insurance companies (whose first priority is to make money, not to heal the sick).

If we privatize health care, two things will happen almost at once. We will have a huge number of Canadians without any insurance, and the health care costs will skyrocket.

I wasn't talking about privatizing. BC Medical wants to allow Americans to join our health care system, creating room for more operating rooms and more doctors because, out of the country people (Americans in this case) would pay 4 times the amount any BC person pays. It is what the BC gov't is proposing at this time and it sounds good to me. The example they are using is that we allow foreign students into our universities at 4 times the cost of BC students and many are very happy to come here because it costs them less than at "home" and because we have a high standard of education here. The feeling is that if it works for the schools, it can work for medical as well.

 

[JLM]

I wasn't talking about privatizing. BC Medical wants to allow Americans to join our health care system, creating room for more operating rooms and more doctors because, out of the country people (Americans in this case) would pay 4 times the amount any BC person pays. It is what the BC gov't is proposing at this time and it sounds good to me. The example they are using is that we allow foreign students into our universities at 4 times the cost of BC students and many are very happy to come here because it costs them less than at "home" and because we have a high standard of education here. The feeling is that if it works for the schools, it can work for medical as well.

I guess it would be good as long as we are prepared to pay four times the rate when we go down there for procedures.

 

[VanIsle]

Yes, I agree, as I am a senior, and upon retirement we lost
all of our dental coverage, and now I am ignoring the care
of my teeth, because of high cost, they are not in bad condition but need attention, and I don't go, so I would
imagine many seniors and others in need would do the same
if they had to pay user fees up front, many do not have
the money, so, will not go, until it's too late and
conditions have become serious.

A few weeks ago in the local paper Talloola, it was stated that a dentist from Ladysmith is going to open a dental clinic for free or very low cost to people who need dental work done but cannot afford the high fees in place right now. Several other dentists have jumped on board and I understand that should be opening up reasonably soon. I will watch for it just in case it doesn't hit your paper or in case you happen to miss it. I believe the clinic will be here but take in folks Island wide. I hope it happens as there certainly are a lot of people who require dental but simply cannot afford it. We are fortunate enough to be on two plans - mine and my husband's. I had dental work done in December and for work that cost over $3200.00, I paid only $140.00. I feel very very lucky. Since I don't plan to work any longer than a few more months, it was good to get that expense out of the way. My husband's plan will continue and while I won't get as much paid if I have a next time, I'll still have up to $1500.00 paid per year.

 

[talloola]

A few weeks ago in the local paper Talloola, it was stated that a dentist from Ladysmith is going to open a dental clinic for free or very low cost to people who need dental work done but cannot afford the high fees in place right now. Several other dentists have jumped on board and I understand that should be opening up reasonably soon. I will watch for it just in case it doesn't hit your paper or in case you happen to miss it. I believe the clinic will be here but take in folks Island wide. I hope it happens as there certainly are a lot of people who require dental but simply cannot afford it. We are fortunate enough to be on two plans - mine and my husband's. I had dental work done in December and for work that cost over $3200.00, I paid only $140.00. I feel very very lucky. Since I don't plan to work any longer than a few more months, it was good to get that expense out of the way. My husband's plan will continue and while I won't get as much paid if I have a next time, I'll still have up to $1500.00 paid per year.

Thanks for the info, we had a good dental plan when we were
part of the IWA, and 'he', not retired, but that stopped
with retirement, I now know that all of the loggers had
a better plan with IWA, and their dental and medical continued after retirement, not ours, we don't have any
medical coverage either, pay into b.c. medical each month.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

We have USA and Canada, we don't have two USAs, and we never will, unless conservatives have their way here in Canada.

You want to be a patriot, join the army. Face the reality, we can call each other what ever we want, but we are the same, born of the same stock. Some can deny it all they want but it is true.

Sure we are the same stock, there are a lot of similarities between us, we are friends and always will be. However, there are also plenty of differences between us and we have separate, unique identities.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

"No it won't, American costs are much higher than Canadian costs. Our insurance will only pay for how much it costs in Canada, most of the cost still has to be borne by the patient."

That statement is pure Bullsh*t, I know, we've been through it.

So what are you saying, if you have to get emergency treatment in USA, Canada pays the full cost of the treatment? I seriously doubt that. Travel agents strongly recommend that travelers to USA buy medical insurance.

If we are traveling to USA more than a weekend, we always buy medical insurance.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

So if the users aren't billed you think the NON users should be! :lol::lol:

In a way yes, everybody should be billed, just not at the point of delivery. We bill everybody in the form of income tax, that is how we finance health care.