I answered it as someone with socialized healthcare (nationalised health care doesn’t apply in n Canada). I would qualify it, however, by saying that some of these services would be provided by other social assistance plans, not our medical system.
I voted on the healthcare through work based on what I used to get at my job before I retired. It was a fairly generous healthcare plan (as I find out having been on Medicare for 10 years) and my share of the premium was not high. This is the same company that is paying my pension now. I wish I still had that healthcare plan.
If I was only told I would have healthcare, I wouldn’t expect dental or vision because in my experience those would be specified “(medical, vision and dental coverage “ or something similar)
Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices (services and devices to help people with injuries, disabilities, or chronic conditions gain or recover mental and physical skills)
Pediatric services, including oral and vision care (but adult dental and vision coverage aren’t essential health benefits)
In my experience as an American, health insurance doesn’t cover vision, dental or long term care. However most jobs also offer separate vision and dental care. I assume long term care is not very common as a job perk in the US, but I can only speak from personal experience.
These days it is becoming vanishingly rare in at least non-executive employer-provided packages, primarily because it is staggeringly expensive. You can get it through private purchase, but you better be a.) nowhere near retirement (like at least under 50), b.) have no significant pre-existing health conditions and generally be in good health when you apply and c.) be willing and able to pay through the nose for it for the rest of your life. My job had it once upon a million years ago as an add-on for an extra premium (and you still couldn’t have any pre-existing conditions), but I think had phased it out entirely by the late 1980’s/early 1990’s.
If you can meet all those criteria, it is well worth it because long-time nursing care at even mediocre facilities is not cheap and home care can be monstrously expensive. However I find most people don’t start thinking about it until too late in their lives and by then they’re often assed out of ever acquiring it.
Longterm care and other insurances are offered at my hourly labor job as additional available benefits. I think of “health insurance” as just the main medical coverages (I find it wild that people in the poll did not include prescription drugs and mental health as things they would expect to be covered), though. Most people get separate dental and vision plans, but these are more discount/payment plans with certain included services and products per year and not true insurance. It’s also very possible to spend more on dental care than it would cost to have several major surgeries since medical insurance has out of pocket caps. I can have a major medical event cost a few grand under a HDHP, but spend 10 grand on some dental work.
I’ve always found it strange that dentists in the UK are a sort of standalone thing, separate from the main functions of the NHS; there are such things as NHS dentists, but they still charge at point-of-delivery for services and are often just an NHS-function within a private dental practice.
It makes no sense to me; the principles of medicine are the same above and below the neck (identify the movie quote); dentists diagnose, perform surgery, prescribe medicine etc, but they’re still stuck in a sort of barber-surgeon model where they operate out of pokey little shops in back streets.
In Canada dentists were never part of our universal health coverage. A limited program is being rolled out now, but unlike UHC it is means tested and is only available if you do not have a private coverage plan.
What I WANT is a decent billing system. You are NEVER done with the co-pay bullshit.
If the procedure was 6 months ago, and you send me more bills, I think I should be able to tell you where that bill should go.
I should probably develop a system/database to track their bullshit. They just wear you down until you through up you hands and pay it. I get double billed a lot. I have two on my desk right now for a procedure from 6 months ago. Shit, I donno.
WHAT is wrong with their accounts receivable departments? Do they not understand that the sooner they get the $ the better it is for them?
I don’t understand that at all. I once got a bill over a year after I had some blood work done. Called the hospital - they said my insurance covered it. Called the insurance- they said they denied coverage because the bill wasn’t submitted within 6 months , which was a contractual requirement. The contract also said that if the hospital wasn’t paid for that particular reason, they couldn’t bill me and the insurance company dealt with the hospital. Only time I ever got a bill that late. I don’t know why they can’t bill sooner - or why some don’t collect the co-pay while I’m there. At one group, when I see the doctor I pay the co-pay right there. When I get an x-ray at their facility across the street, I get billed for the co-pay later. Makes no sense.
Canadians and NHS recipients may want to avoid reading this…
I suspect delays like that have to do with the hospital/doctors office trying to get the insurance to pay for the procedure. It may take several submittals to get everything covered - for example each and every thing they did, and each and every bit of equipmemt and material, down to the cotton swab and paper you sat on in the exam room, probably have a billing code associated with it and the insurance may not pay for everything on the first billing go-around due to billing code errors. The doctor/hospital may have to submit several times to get it all covered, and whatever is left will be billed to you, and that takes time. This is why medical coding is an actual career - a good coder will know what each insurer will easily pay for or balk at. And there are dozens of insurers to keep track of.
That would make sense if it was a matter of having no idea of how much to bill me - if , for example, I was using out-of-network providers. But I always use in network providers and I always have to pay my co-pay. They know when I come in , they are going to collect a minimum of $25 from me. And most doctors/hospitals/radiology centers/labs either collect it right away or bill me within a couple of weeks - even when I’ve had surgery, I paid the co-pay at registration . I don’t get why some wait months to bill the co-pay.
I find that prescriptions under the NHS are a bit strange. If you are under the age of 60 and not on benefits (and probably some other conditions) then you pay £9.90 per item. It’s the same whether it’s a one week supply of antibiotics or a 2 month supply of anti-gout medication for example.
Yeah I don’t understand that, either. I’ve been waved past the check-in desk to the exam room without being asked for the copay, but then get a bill for the copay in the mail. WTF didn’t they ask me for it while I was there? My guess is they are dealing with a lot of insurers and didn’t check to see what my copay is supposed to be for some reason, or they were lazy, and just dealt with it later.
I had a hip replacement. It was different, I have good insurance but co-pay. What was different was that I paid all of that up front. In the hospital waiting room. It was great. “Here’s my CC”. Done.
Had some simple arm surgery (nerve issue). I’m still getting new bills for that six months later.
Sheesss. So I’m looking at these two bills for the exact same procedure, and the exact same amount of money. All the same procedure codes.
The statement dates are three days apart.
They sent one bill. And three freaking days later sent the exact same bill AGAIN.
Relax, will you please.
There is no way to believe that I would have received the first one and been able to return it in less than three days. The USPS does not work that way, and I’m not George Jetson.
This kind of crap makes me lose faith in the entire medical community. Your paying these people to manage your accounts? Why???
When Justice Hall gave his report, he wanted Medicare to be broad and to include pharmacy and dental.
When the proposal went to the Pearson Cabinet, there was a sharp division. One wing, led by Allan MacEachern, wanted to go whole hog. Another wing, led by Mitchell Sharpe, was alarmed by the cost of the 50-50 shared cost program and tried to stop it entirely.
The compromise was Medicare as we know it, based on hospitals and doctors, no pharma or dental.
And that’s where we’ve been ever since.
But as you mention, the new dental program is not Medicare. It’s means-tested and run through private insurers. I’m not sure of the status of the pharma plan that the NDP was working for as a condition of keeping the Liberals in power.