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Which healthcare would you choose? (discuss.online)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 1 point 10 months ago* (3 children)

Might depend where you live. Here in Quebec, I know someone who could either get his cancer cured in 2+ years here (which would have been too late, but technically free or almost free), or instantly in the US but for 200k, so he raised money and got it cured in the US.

Could be that this isn’t the same in other parts of Canada, but at least in Quebec, this kind of story is very common. At a smaller scale, one would pay to go to the private sector here instead.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    It absolutely depends on where you are…I allowed for that in my reply. I’m talking about the national average…including all people…not just rich ones.

    I’m skeptical that in Quebec that you die of “cancer” before receiving treatment (without evidence)…because I’m familiar with the care here in Ontario, and that’s generally not the case. My guess is you’re talking about a specific type of more rare cancer treatment that’s not covered by your province.

    But, I mean, yes…if you can afford to pay to skip the line…obviously you’re going to have better outcomes in the US system. I said that. But you have to count all the people that can’t afford it or forego care entirely…and in your anecdote you’re not doing that.

    I’ll repeat that most people can not afford to skip the line.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    Of course I agree a long wait time for treatment is better than no treatment at all. But the common concern here I hear from most people around me is that it’s generally much slower (at least in Quebec) than in other countries with such healthcare (eg. Scandinavian countries). How much of that is just a case of “the grass is greener on the other side”, I do not know.

    I’ve been fortunate enough to not require healthcare so far, though I’m not sure how it will go when I need it. The population is getting older, and older people generally need more healthcare. That’s less health workers for more sick people and less workers paying for more healthcare.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago*

    Oh…the Canadian system is absolutely not funded as well as the Nordic countries, for example…and it’s getting worse as transfer payments continue to be cut, and as provinces don’t spend those payments on health.

    The issue isn’t the aging population so much as what I said above: governments keep using healthcare to balance budgets because it’s such a big line item and it’s low hanging fruit they can use to show fiscal “success”. It would be easy to just fund our system…and that, in turn, would make our lives cheaper.

    But fiscally “conservative” governments like to perpetuate the myth that our system has poor outcomes and paying out of pocket is preferable…so rich people can benefit from their wealth - health wise. It’s sad to watch it erode.

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