When I graduated from school and was thus bumped off my mother’s health insurance, we went and bought me a year’s worth of prescription/dental/eye care. Because this is Canada, it cost about $500. Not a month, like some Americans on COBRA, $500 for the entire year.
As someone with prescriptions costing around $200 a month, that was awesome.
But remember that Americans on COBRA are continuing their prior coverage. It’s not just to augment what Canadian health care already provides; it’s the premium for all of their medical care per their previous coverage.
I’m not sure that’s entirely reassuring to the average American paying more than the average Canadian in taxes for healthcare, yet still having to pay $500 a month on top to pay for…erm…their healthcare… :smack:
That must be new. Did the government get all socialist on health care and change the rules?
In the mid-90’s we had a consultant come up from the USA. He mentioned he had switched employers, his new employer’s health care would not cover his wife’s pre-existing condition, but under the rules then, he could keep paying her coverage through the insurance company at her old job and they would graciously continue to pay for her treatments. That was $300 (extra) a month out of his pocket, back when that was a real big chunk of take-home pay.
So you’re saying the government has changed the rules because the system was not fair. That sounds like you’re halfway on the path to real medicine. How many years ago was that change?
Also, does that mean then that if you fail to find work before your benefits run out after a layoff (end of the month?) then you turn into a lump of pre-existing conditions? So the high-rollers who can switch easily get coverage, the factory grunt who is thrown on the street with 1,000 others and needs to find a job in a town with no employers - no coverage? (Or I suppose when he has the option of paying the insurance himself, hundreds of dollars a month now that he has no income?)
Gee, I wonder why Canada has the system it does?
Uh, this is a discussion on why someone would have private coverage in a UHC country. There are other threads for shitting on Canadian or US health care in general.
Sigh. You didn’t see COBRA mentioned just a couple of posts up?