Soaring costs force Canada to reassess health model

Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada's provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system.

British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit -- an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee.

In some ways the Canadian debate is the mirror image of discussions going on in the United States.

Healthcare in Canada is delivered through a publicly funded system, which covers all "medically necessary" hospital and physician care and curbs the role of private medicine.

I recently went to the local hospital to pick up my prescription of tamoxifen prior to going to ID for a month and since I have severe osteoporosis I figured I should get an x-ray of my left wrist to ensure I had not broken it since I knew I would not be able to afford the cost of the x-rays in ID. I sat and waited at the ER for over 4 hours and there were only 2 other patients in the time I was there. When I was finally called in I was given a lecture of how I should go to my family doctor and not waste the time of the ER staff since the family doctor is paid $22.50 per visit while the ER doctor is paid $350 per hour. They grilled me for over an hour and I was shocked thinking I had awoken in a communist country and was public enemy number one. I’m not too popular at that hospital to begin with because I launched an investigation into over $2208 U.S. worth of insulin which they never returned to me in June of 09. In Feb of this year a nurse in the ER contacted me to advise me there was insulin in a bag in the fridge in the E.R. but it was a type which I was no longer using. When I asked about the other insulin she went back and looked and came back to tell me it was NOT in the bag. It is downright scary when doctors make a decision to break the law and then treat the patient like a criminal to cover up their own actions! B.C. plans to operate tourism based medical care and God help anyone who takes them up on such a plan after all the experiences I have had with Inferior Health here in B.C. I am currently waiting for a new shoulder and have been doing so since October of last year. I don’t know when or where that surgery will take place I only know that every day I go without the surgery I lose more hope of regaining full function of my dominant arm. Healthcare in B.C. is a joke just like it’s government is, afterall the Health Minister previously was Minister of the Forestry and it is his bright idea to begin offering medical tourism. 4 days in hospital would cost an American $30,000 and an ambulance trip of less than a mile would cost $580 because that is what they billed me eventhough I am a Canadian citizen! Many of the doctors at this Regional Hospital are quite inferior as well and are disgruntled with their paycut from $250,00/yr down to $165,00/yr because their on call time has been cut from being at the hospital within 20 minutes to a two hour maximum. Our medical system is broken and so will that of the U.S. if something drastic doesn’t happen to change it!

Never had any weird dreams and have been on it for almost a year now, will have four more years to go after September but hope to spend those years in ID. Believe me it’s a long story on both sides of the border and I was in tears as I waved to my hubby who was diagnosed with cancer exactly one year to the day after I was. He is receiving treatment in ID, while the state refused me treatment, they would NOT accept the receipt for a green card and processing for said green card would take 3 years at the NE processing center. I had no choice but to return to Canada. It’s been a long, difficult year for both of us, especially with so much interference from my mother. I would have stayed in ID if not for the needed new shoulder which was caused by a fall here in Canada in October on a city sidewalk which more resembled a gravel road.

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