I promise the last on US vs Canadian Health experience

Thanks "G"
"G" has done an amazing amount of comparisons of
different things between Canada and the US.
I love his comment about the 25 year old MBA running
the show.  Over 100 comments came complaining about
their HMO which dictates what doctor you go to and
which has to give approval for your treatment (I know,
some don't but the majority do).
david ingram
===============
Dear David,
List me as anonymous, maybe as "G"! (-;
Having had personal and second-hand family experience
in both the US and Canada, the verdict is ... it
depends!
Where you are, what your coverage is (public and
private)
and who you know count in both countries.
If public health insurance were so bad, one of the two
major
US parties would have adopted a program to abolish
their
Medicare for seniors and invalids, Medicaid for the
poor
and the VA for military veterans (okay, that's being
cut
at the worst time, but let's not go there for now ...)
Depending on your coverage in Canada, you may be
sent by the Manitoba provincial health insurance to
Minneapolis or Chicago not for some deficiency in
the "Canadian" system but because Winnipeg is a
small city of 600,000.  (For perspective, Chicago's
northwest suburb of Arlington Heights counts the
same population.)  You will likely end up at some
Northwestern University hospital facility unavailable
to most Chicago Landers in a PPO or HMO plan.  If
you are wondering what a HMO is, that's a corporate
version of the British National Health service where
the doctors are salaried staff and your "coverage" is
only valid at their own or affiliated facilities.  Go
to
any other and you bear 100%.
Strikes?  I've been delayed in treatment at both Royal
Victoria Hospital in Montreal and a San Francisco
facility (we were there briefly, drove to Sausalito).
If I had to design a good North American system,
it would be one with basic public coverage like
in Canada with value-added private options like
the US.  We had that system once, like Ontario
when "balance billing" existed for services that
were beyond OHIP or for doctors who felt they
were better than the going OHIP rate.  Repealing
some parts of the 1984 Health Act (an addendum)
might be a start.
And regarding the writer on Canadian doctors who
moved south ... that may be true up to ten years ago
but now, with 80% of Americans with coverage being
in a HMO, they would be signing up as a salaried peon
in a medical service company managed by a 26 year old
MBA with not much more than summer job experience.
G
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