Health Care Costs

[Old-Biscuit]

Hang on to your wallet.

Health Insurance Companies are seeking rate increases.....big ones!!
....new customers turned out to be sicker than expected.

Article

[Naio]

In the US, I was on a waiting list for an MRI for 12 months. Finally got it this summer -- for one knee. Insurance denied the second (worse) knee.

Based on the MRI, doc prescribed PT. Insurance denied it.

Waiting time in ER's or urgent care, IME, is usually about 4 hours if you are on a stretcher but not having a heart attack.

[mich800]

Donnoh wrote:
What I mostly dislike about the US health care system is the enormous cost of drugs compared to the rest of the world. I take a biologic injectable drug that I recently received a refill for a three month supply. The cost paid by the insurance company was $18,636.10, my cost was $10. I am so grateful that I work for a large company with great benefits, but these kind of charges are not sustainable.

My guess is that in Canada and Europe that this drug would be a third of the price and other countries probably less than that. I'm glad the drug is available and it works great, but it's been on the market for over 10 years and I'm sure they got their development costs back and then several billion dollars more so why the high price?

Ok, my rant is over.

For every successful drug or medication there are many more unsuccessful ones. So part of the profits from successful drugs pay for the costs of the bad ones.

[Donnoh]

What I mostly dislike about the US health care system is the enormous cost of drugs compared to the rest of the world. I take a biologic injectable drug that I recently received a refill for a three month supply. The cost paid by the insurance company was $18,636.10, my cost was $10. I am so grateful that I work for a large company with great benefits, but these kind of charges are not sustainable.

My guess is that in Canada and Europe that this drug would be a third of the price and other countries probably less than that. I'm glad the drug is available and it works great, but it's been on the market for over 10 years and I'm sure they got their development costs back and then several billion dollars more so why the high price?

Ok, my rant is over.

[John___Angela]

Dutch_12078 wrote:
I've noted many times over the years, that the large medical clinics covering a variety of specialties that have sprung up along NY's northern border always seem to have predominantly Canadian licensed cars in the usually near full parking lots. I wonder why...

Well, Canada is a free country and citizens can choose to get their health care wherever they want. If you are on a waiting list and have money to spend many will seek treatment or tests abroad. It's all tax deductible. :). Interesting thing though, we see the same thing in cities close to the border up here, eg, Americans getting procedures done up here. I have no idea of the dynamic of these situations though. Elective procedures, anxious to get it done (that would probably be a guy like me although I think I would choose Spain or Thailand as the scenery is cooler while I'm convalescing.

We have only had a few dealings with the American health care system. Our travellers insurance covered most and Health Canada picked up the rest. Service and treatment were excellent, but gotta say, they wanted to do a whole whack of tests literally in the tens of thousands of dollars of which we politely declined as we felt there was dollar signs hanging over our heads. Turned out to be something minor and who knows, maybe the tests were standard procedure. I'm not a doctor, who knows.
Again. JMHO

[John___Angela]

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Thanks for those response from our Canadian members.......

How is this healthcare PAID for. Taxes? At what rate.







My tax rate is roughly 10% to Federal and 10% to State.
My healthcare is free (don't pay a monthly premium) and I have small co-pay for prescriptions.

BUT that is because I don't use ACA (Obamacare). IF I did it would cost be between $240/month for Bronze Plan (basic....high deductibles) to $500/month for Gold Plan.

I am a US Veteran and have medical thru the VA (Veterans Administration).

Local clinic for Primary Doctor....routine medical/lab
VA Hospital for procedures/surgery/emergency.
The VA does have some issues........especially those VA facilities that are where the snowbirds come, many of which are US Veterans.

I personally have had nothing but top notch care via the VA. Even when we FTd for 7 yrs. Used VA Facilities across USA....all with good results and in a timely manner.

Only recently have had appointment scheduling issues/delays which were fine prior to VA scandal.

Healthcare will always be high cost..........whether single payer system, current system or old way (which is why new system ACA---Obamacare was implemented----high cost of old system.....new system would save monies).
All pie in the sky hype.

The Canadian Health Care system is funded by taxes. Generally speaking Canadians pay higher taxes than Americans but it is not quite as straight forward as that as it depends a lot on your income bracket. Googling your question will bring up a lot of answers to your question including some that would argue there is little difference between the two depending on the individuals circumstances. Hope that helps.

[Old-Biscuit]

Thanks for those response from our Canadian members.......

How is this healthcare PAID for. Taxes? At what rate.







My tax rate is roughly 10% to Federal and 10% to State.
My healthcare is free (don't pay a monthly premium) and I have small co-pay for prescriptions.

BUT that is because I don't use ACA (Obamacare). IF I did it would cost be between $240/month for Bronze Plan (basic....high deductibles) to $500/month for Gold Plan.

I am a US Veteran and have medical thru the VA (Veterans Administration).

Local clinic for Primary Doctor....routine medical/lab
VA Hospital for procedures/surgery/emergency.
The VA does have some issues........especially those VA facilities that are where the snowbirds come, many of which are US Veterans.

I personally have had nothing but top notch care via the VA. Even when we FTd for 7 yrs. Used VA Facilities across USA....all with good results and in a timely manner.

Only recently have had appointment scheduling issues/delays which were fine prior to VA scandal.

Healthcare will always be high cost..........whether single payer system, current system or old way (which is why new system ACA---Obamacare was implemented----high cost of old system.....new system would save monies).
All pie in the sky hype.

[Dutch_12078]

I've noted many times over the years, that the large medical clinics covering a variety of specialties that have sprung up along NY's northern border always seem to have predominantly Canadian licensed cars in the usually near full parking lots. I wonder why...

[rfsod48]

Tom Trostel wrote:
I have a relative who is an emergency room doctor. He earns $400 per hour. No wonder is costs so much.

If you consider the high patient volume, the complexity of many cases and the number of lives saved I think that is a fair compensation.

[John___Angela]

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Question for our Canadian members...........

How do you like YOUR Healthcare System?
Do you get good healthcare...services/timely appointments/good doctors-nurses/hospitals run efficiently etc?
How much does this healthcare cost..taxes/fees?
Do you have co-pays/deductibles?

Ours is obliviously NOT working

I can only speak for myself and the experiences of my extended family, eg parents, aunts, uncles, nieces cousins etc. For us we have had few complaints. Everything from Cancer to Heart to hips and knees, liver problems etc etc. Once it was determined that my Mom needed a new hip she was put on a 170 day waiting list to get it. However it actually ended up being just over three months. I have had a few other family members in similar situations. I waited almost three weeks for an MRI but it was a low priority so I was at the bottom of the list. Waits for low priority lists can be weeks long depending on priority (seriousness) however if hospitalized, MRI's or any other tests are done immediately. Its all triaged and I don't pretend to know the system.

I'm not sure I understand the term co-pay. No money changes hands. Doesn't matter if its a quadruple by pass or a stubbed tow. One produces their provincial health card and that's it. The provincial health card works anywhere in Canada although some provinces have different rules for hospitalization coverage outside of your province etc. (Pay first) Each Province has their own monthly fee. Anywhere from 50 per month for one person to 120 for a family depending on the Province. At least one province is free, but this changes depending on the provincial government.

The only thing I can think of that you mean by co-pay is if we go to the drugstore to buy a prescription. In this case many Canadians have whats known as supplemental insurance which covers things like teeth, eyeglasses, prescriptions etc. For example I just got a two month supply of Nexium and seems to me it was around 80 bucks but my portion was 11 dollars. Is that Co-pay? Our supplemental insurance costs us around 55 per month for the two of us. Once you are declared Pallative by a doctor all meds are free.

Re doctors appointments, I don't know, If I want to see my Family doctor I have to book a week or two out. If I just need to see a doctor I go to any walk in clinic, flash my health card and its usually 20 to 30 minutes as long as its not Monday morning or Friday Morning. I see my Family doctor once a year.

The system seems to work for the most part as Canadians live an average of three years longer than Americans and our life spans are getting longer. Americans live three years shorter and the lifespans are getting shorter. (depending on what you read)

By no means is the Canadian health care system perfect and it is our national sport to bash it and ourselves. No doubt we have our share of dumb dumb doctors and epic system failures. But many Canadians wouldn't have it any other way. It is interesting though that the most horrific stories we hear about the Canadian health care system seem to come from foreigners. Generally speaking I don't know much about the American or any other foreign health care system (with the exception of the Spanish system as we will be future snowbirds of that country once we are fully retired) so I don't comment.

All this of course JMHO.

[FULLTIMEWANABE]

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Question for our Canadian members...........

How do you like YOUR Healthcare System?
Do you get good healthcare...services/timely appointments/good doctors-nurses/hospitals run efficiently etc?
How much does this healthcare cost..taxes/fees?
Do you have co-pays/deductibles?

Ours is obliviously NOT working

You know what Old Biscuit you'll hear a very varying degree of responses depending on the individual to such a question. FWIW, for us we have generally found our health care system to be very good, in the fact that everyone can get taken care of emergency wise at minimum. For sure there are waiting lists and at certain times ER's in big cities can be backed up for several hours but they do deal with folks based on the severity we've found. There are also questions about approved drugs for certain cancer treatments being more expensive than one that would work to prolong a longer life in a kidney patient but wasn't approved so she had to pay privately for it or get a free sample from the drug company. Yes there are some oddities, but isn't that the same with many things in life.

We needed an MRI for hubby's shoulder, were given a 6 month wait, called and were told by those in the know that the squeaky wheel gets the most grease. Called 3 times for a cancellation and he was seen within a week. Ironically his first surgery done at 51 was a success, this shoulder several years later, was told because he is gone 50 they wouldn't do it by the GP. I called his previous surgeon direct and was seen and brought in to be done. Alas he unfortunately left it too late on the second one and there was 3 strings (don't know the correct names other than the rotator cuff) broken totally so surgeon said he couldn't do anything other than exercise to see if the muscles could help compensate further. In our experience if you don't accept no at the first hurdle, believe in what should be done realistically and pursue you can get good service.

Hubby has had physio done in the past under the health system for one operation here around 2004, yet we had other folks writing articles and moaning they had to pay an arm and a leg for physio. Why we experience different I don't know???

Having experienced both the UK and the Canadian system, I have to say, when we emigrated here over two decades ago, we initially wanted the USA, but it was because of the health care set up that was public info available to us with a young family we opted for Canada at the time instead. (Since then our neighbour here an ex American Nurse has told me that there is in fact health care available to everyone in the USA if you know how to go about it!)

Yes you will hear folks talk of waiting on stretchers for hours or more than a day in the UK lined up out the door in ER and so on, but personally both countries we've never had a problem and been overall happy with the system. When we first emigrated to Alberta after initially landing in Ontario, we had to pay $297 per family per quarter which we never had issues with, then several years ago they did away with that charge in line with other free provinces.

Different folks different strokes but for us, I have absolutely nothing derogatory to complain about our health care based on personal experiences. One thing that does bug us is charges for Ambulance though, especially for those on tight budgets with children or spouses that need life and death lifting and end up being threatened for unpaid huge billing. Our Marketplace TV programme, exposed huge issues in this regards with Saskatchewan even billing for moving a dying spouse from one care facility to another and billing plus interest that's crippling a poor grieving widow. Likewise a lady with a child that stops breathing every so often, has finally moved away from her family support network in that province to BC where ambulance charges are substantially less for affordability on her limited income to get her daughter ambulatory services when needed without the added stress.

Nothings perfect anywhere but overall having been exposed our whole lives to unconditional medical care in our home countries at the time, and being refused treatment in the USA because the medical facility didn't accept Richard Bransons Virgin insurance coverage we had paid for before going to the USA back in the late 80's we prefer our systems.

We believe life is precious and everyone no matter their status should have a right to medical assistance when genuinely needed.

[steveh27]

Here's a 2009 article from a Canadian doctor on their single payer vs our pre-Obamacare insurance. Obamacare insurance is more of the same giving $$$ to insurers.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/03/opinion/oe-rachlis3

[Old-Biscuit]

Question for our Canadian members...........

How do you like YOUR Healthcare System?
Do you get good healthcare...services/timely appointments/good doctors-nurses/hospitals run efficiently etc?
How much does this healthcare cost..taxes/fees?
Do you have co-pays/deductibles?

Ours is obliviously NOT working

[Skid_Row_Joe]

ChopperBill wrote:
My wife lost her insurance when affordable health care care to being. Now she has a policy that cost twice as much but thanks to you generous citizens you are picking up half the tab. THANK YOU!

That's exactly right - the less you earn after expenses, the less your health insurance premium is going to cost you monthly. At least that aspect of the playing field got levelled out with the Affordable Healthcare Act. However, depending on the annual deductible your wife chose in her plan, the out-of-pocket can still be $6K (individual) to $12K (family) a year. The lower her deductible - the higher the monthly premium. Also, PPO is going to cost more in premiums than HMO. Glad to hear all is OK!

[steveh27]

IMO health care is the providers: docs, nurses, hospitals, etc. Health insurance is another matter. Obamacare put the insurers in charge. They helped write the law allowing them to dump unprofitable plans & force all into higher deductibles, etc. The law even guarantees the insurers a profit. If they lose money the taxpayers bail them out.

I recently read where over 25% of insured are not going for medical care due to the high deductibles. So Obama's claims about more people being insured must be offset by this reality.

I wish we had gone to a single payer system & eliminated the insurers. It would lower providers costs a lot. The funding for it would have to designed. Every other western democracy has it and all of them have much lower costs with similar or better results.

[Dtank]

wa8yxm wrote:
Health care companies have always wanted higher rates and sought big increases since they were first founded.. The reason is not that the new members are sicker than thy expected, it is GREED. What's worse is in the past if you got sick many companies would drop you like a hot potato. Oh they were very happy to take your money for 20 or 30 years but one heart attack and you were no longer "Insurable" according to them.


Thankfully the Affordable health care act changed all of that and the reports are in already.. Billions in savings... .

But you are right, Greedy insurance executives still want rate increases.

You have at least one - "Amen"!..:W

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