I can’t remember where I saw it, but on a comparitive chart between the UK and US, the total (including sales tax, etc.) amount of tax paid by individuals in the US and the UK is very similar, despite the UK’s health service. Something like 30% of gross income. You guys spend a lot more on your military, though, which is probably what evens it up. (Disclaimer: pure speculation.)
My experiences mirror most of the other Canadians here. I haven’t had a family doctor (GP) since I was 18, but in a way I haven’t looked to hard until recently. There are resources in Alberta online for finding a doctor – and I have found one via a website, although it is a 6 week wait to get in for the first initial appointment.
I’ve never waited more than a week for anything. In the city many clinics have labs attached or close by. I was reading some thread on another site somewhere and someone who was american stated that they thought that for a pap smear you’d have to wait a month. I explained that what he heard was wrong - but this american seemed to think that in Canada we have waiting lists for everything - and when we finally got to see a doctor the service was totally cut rate, and that all our prescription drugs were tainted or something and no amount of truth would convince him otherwise. There are some Canadians who seem to think the same thing, but I wonder if they are basing that belief on experience or rumours.
I’ve had a bit of a bad health year, so my opinion is based on this past year and the procedures and appointments I’ve had. Services that are performed by a GP or by walking into a clinic - it is a 20 minute wait in the office. For a mamogram, I waited a couple days. For an ultrasound, one week. For an appointment with an ENT I waited 2 weeks. For a CAT scan I waited a total of 12 days. In the emergency room I waited 6 hours for a minor emergency related to a fall (but this was during last years flu season and there were a lot of very sick people there).
With Alberta Health Care costing me about 65 per month, and additional coverage for dental and 80% of prescription costs at about another 60 per month, I am completely covered and unless I get something like plastic surgery that is not covered, I don’t have to pay for anything over my 20% of prescription costs, which are much lower than in the US.
We spend far more naturally because we spend about 15-16% of GDP on healthcare compared to 7-11% spent by Australia, Japan, Germany, Canada, etc.
http://www.2ontario.com/software/ois/health.asp
Country Healthcare Spending as % of GDP - 2001
Canada 9.7
U.S.A. 13.9
U.K. 7.6
Japan 7.6
Italy 8.6
France 9.5
Germany 10.7
G-7 9.7
http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/000095.html
per capita spending on health
US 4499
UK 1747
Canada 2058
Japan 2908
Germany 2422
France 2057
Australia 1698
Italy 1498
The real question isn’t whether you pay more taxes and less per visit. The important issue is whether the average citizen lives in terror of being hit with medical expenses.And that is why the socialist systems are far,far superior to America.
It may be that the foreign citizen who pays 35% income tax and gets free medical care is actually paying more than an American who pays 15% tax and expensive medical care.
But Americans seem to live in terror–absolute, bone-chilling,blood-curdling fear–that a unexpected need for medical care will destroy their lives forever (financially). Socialist systems may be inefficient, but the average citizen doesn’t live with fear that he might need to pay 40,000 dollars for a week in a hospital.
I do have a family doctor but it takes about 3 months to get an appointment with her. If I have anything I want to talk about that doesn’t wait that long, I go to a CLSC (clinic). I never pay for any thing at all except prescriptions.
ER visits generally don’t take long - when my boyfriend was having an asthma attack, he was seen immediately.
My father is currently going through a major health scare, he’s getting procedures done several times per week, all scheduled very recently.
Casualty is often an ordeal because it is free. This encourages irresponsible people to go there for hangover cures/ minor cuts and bruises /cough medicine and other trivial ailments.
The triage nurse filters out the timewasters and allocates priority. Nobody is turned away but the less urgent cases are left until last.
My mother had a heart problem and was admitted immediately.
I had kidney stones and was seen within 5 mins by the triage nurse, admitted, and seen by a doctor and given painkillers within 15 mins.
My son had a sprained wrist and had to wait 4 hours. My experiences have been pretty good and of course there is no need to worry about how you are going to pay.
Canadian here - I’ve just had a spate of health problems and I haven’t had any problems, whatsoever getting access to health care. Ultrasounds, mammograms, blood tests, MRI, full spinal x-ray etc all within a week of being refered. I have a family Dr. and can generally get in to see her same day if need be - or one of her office mates if she’s taking a day off.
Looking at my paycheque stub, I pay $22 a month for health care and $2.26 for extended health care which includes 100% Rx coverage and 80% dental coverage, as well as a portion of things like therapeutic massage, accupuncture, eye-exams, etc.
I honestly can’t see how I pay more for health care than someone in the US who has a $600 - $800/month bill which is what I’m assuming I would pay with all my chronic medical conditions and ongoing health concerns. Thats practically more than I pay in total income tax for a month, and of course income tax includes a lot more services than just health.
Anyhow - I think if you have big $$ and a really serious condition, you’ll probably do better in the US, but you’ll pay through the nose for it. If you have no $$ and a really serious condition, you’ll do better in Canada and you’ll pay nothing for it.
Sadly true. My $4,500 out of pocket would have been $100,000 or so for 3 years of surgery, rehab, hospital stays, doctor visits, medication, etc. if Illinois state law didn’t require group health plans to cover preexisting conditions in most cases.
Thats not the case though. We pay more per capita and as a % of GDP than any other developed nation on earth, and we also have to live with the fear of medical bills coming out of nowhere or a chronic disease developing.
It does. Mr P is only waiting 6 weeks because he wants to see a certain psychiatrist. Paediatric psychiatrists that are any good are like hens teeth and all of them have long waiting lists. I want one who actually does therapy as opposed to doing just meds because I’m covered for the med stuff with our paed.
Thanks for the numbers again, Wesley Clark, and extra thanks for putting them in a format that my math-deprived brain can understand!
So I guess my next question is, why is it so impossible for Americans to accept socialized medicine? If it’s not only less terrifying, but cheaper, what’s stopping it? Is it the misconception mentioned in the OP, that our system provides more advanced care? It seems like that would be pretty easy to debunk. All the little gripes I’ve heard (waiting two weeks for an apt, four hours in the ER) are just as bad if not worse here. (Takes me three *months * to get in for a pap with the OB/Gyn I’ve seen since I was 15 years old! All the other spaces are left open for women in labor. Any shrink worth her salt has a four week waiting list. I just know to schedule my appointments ahead of time.)
Is it just because so many Americans equate “socialist” with “scary red Commie”?
Do we have an unrepresentative sample of socialist medicine consumers?
Why? 
Well Why - I recall posters on this very board express that:
- They don’t have health insurance, not because they can’t afford it, but because they’re going to play the odds that they don’t get seriously ill
and
- They can think of no reason, whatsoever, that paying marginally higher taxes for socialized medicine benefits them in anyway, and therefore are against it.
Basically, the sentiment that I’ve seen is “I’m not going to get sick, and I don’t give a crap if anyone else does either.” You know, looking out for #1 and all that.
At the risk of sounding like a dick I think ignorance of the healthcare system is a major reason why people in the US oppose socialized medicine. Most of them don’t understand how much we pay or that alot of the scare tactics they’ve been exposed to are either exaggerations or exist under our current system anyway.
A good book on the subject is Health Care Meltdown
Here is the book’s list of the top 8 myths people have about socialized healthcare and why they are not totally true or not even true at all.
Out of curiosity, is this standard in the USA to need an OB/GYN for a pap? Every GP from my previous family doctor to the doctors at the clinic near my place will do a pap smear and test your breast for lumps if you ask.
It’s not at all a requirement – I’ve had both a GP and a nurse practitioner do them at various times, and of the three, the nurse practitioner was much more thorough about her exams. Lots of people prefer a specialist for various reasons, though.
However, due to some recent and somewhat complex gyno issues, I think I’m sticking to my OB/GYN even for routine exams for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, it’s pretty much standard. As I mentioned in my 1st reply, that was one difference between medicine in the U.S. and medicine in Australia. In the U.S., I would have gone to a ob/gyn for all my female stuff: pap smears, breast exams, mammograms, prenatal care, and my ob would deliver my baby. My son would go to a pediatrician for all his kid stuff: regular check-ups, vaccines, illnesses. He would go to that doctor until he was 18. If my husband or I got sick, we’d go to a doc-in-the-box (walk-in clinic) or make an appointment with a “family doctor.”
Here in Australia, we all go to one doctor. The difference is that in addition to her general medicine education, she has trained to also treat children and do gynecological stuff. She’s more trained than a family doctor in the U.S. would be, but less trained than a pediatrician or ob/gyn in the U.S. would be. (This is according to my doctor in Australia…she spent some time explaining sort of how the system works here.) Because she has less training in ob/gyn stuff than my doctor in the U.S. had, she will not be able to provide prenatal care for me (because I’m high risk). She can do sort of standard stuff (pap smears), but she won’t be able to delivery my baby. In the U.S., almost any regular ob/gyn would have been able to do my high risk pregnancy.
The Republicans. “Socialized medicine” is one of their favorite bogeymen, right up there with “liberal media” and “marriage-destroying homosexuals.”
If you look at who is spreading the most misinformation and fear about socialized medicine in the US, you’ll find it’s the conservatives.
WhyNot- Where do you live (zip) and how old are you and your spouse? I ask because I just checked for a couple in their mid 20s and 1 child, and $365/month can get a lot more coverage than you have, around here anyway.
I think Canada has a fairly good system. I don’t see it as “broken” - which is how the media usually plays it. As an emergency doctor, I get fairly reimbursed for my work. GPs do get the thin end of the wedge, and are as good as specialists for 80% or more of common problems. I beleive a good GP knows a lot more medicine than most specialists.
Someone who came into my ER for a garden variety fracture would get their X-ray, cast, and discharge in 2 hours. If something needed to be pulled back into place, I could usually do it and it would add another hour. If they did need to see an orthopod (about 5% of what I see), it would take 2-3 days (non-urgent) or 2-6 hours for a more urgent problem.
Until 1999, Valium and benzodiapines were heavily prescribed in North America. Docotrs didn’t fully realize their potential for addiction, chronic sedation, and memory loss. They are far less used now, and shorter acting ones are more en vogue. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a Valium script, but inpatients often get SHORT courses of lorazepam (Ativan) or oxazepam (Serax). I believe many States benzodiazpines are Class II controlled meds (!!). Not here. I have no problem with small codeine doses being non-prescription, for that matter.
The problem at the moment is I’m pregnant, and I do have maternity coverage and (here it is, wait for it…) I’m too scared to switch policies right now on the off chance that something goes wrong with the baby. Everything I know requires a waiting period of at leat 9 months before maternity coverage goes into effect. And a noncomplicated pregnancy, labor and delivery would cost around $12,000. without insurance around here. ($3500 OB fees, 5500 mom’s hospital bills, 2500 baby’s bills)
Although, what the heck, let’s see what you’ve got. Maybe something we could switch to in June. Zip is 60202, he’s 34, I’m 30 at the end of the month.