I thought you had free health care in the great white north?
Or is there a deductible?
Family doctor visits, doctor-ordered tests and hospital costs are covered. Hospital-supplied therapies (physio, chemo, etc.) are covered too, I
think. There are no exceptions for "pre-existing conditions" either. Prescription drugs, aids such as crutches & wheelchairs, massage therapy and dental care are not covered. We have private coverage through work to cover such things, but there are limits and we pay part of the premiums. So, contrary to what you might think in the US, not everything is free up here.
That's one of the problems with our system. You could be very ill, requiring hospitalization and you won't pay a dime for it, no matter how much it costs. But, once you're released, you're on your own. You might require expensive follow-on care, such as prescription drugs, but if you don't have private coverage and can't afford to pay for them, you're SOL. Your family doctor-precribed drugs aren't covered either. So, people who can't afford their prescriptions can end up in hospital, because they didn't have the drugs, or they might take reduced dosages to make them last longer. In the end, it could be costing the public system more than if it covered drugs in the first place.
Another problem is waiting lists for consulting specialists and for certain testing. You can wait for-evvvaaaa to get an MRI through the public system.
It comes down top budgets, so such testing gets "rationed". Where you end up on the waiting list is determined by the severity of your condition. My wife needed an MRI last year and she would have to wait about 18 months!
Of course, there are private clinics that offer such services, but due to the rules of public health care, you can't get private coverage for a procedure that is covered through the public system - no matter how long it takes to access it! Therefore, we had to pay out of pocket to get her MRI (I think it was about $1000). That was one of the expenses we were able to claim on our income tax. It's something we could easily afford, but there are a lot of people out there who can't, which I don't think is fair.
A lot of people are advocating a national public drug plan, to ensure everyone who needs prescription drugs will get them. The logic is that it will lower overall costs because there will be fewer hospital admissions. Of course, setting it up will be enormously expensive, which is why government is leery about it. They only think in terms of election cycles and the benefits of such a plan might take longer to reveal themselves.
Because of the public coverage, private coverage premiums would be much lower than yours. I don't advocate our system as a model for any country that wants to implement or improve publically-funded health care, but I also wouldn't want a US-style system either. There are several European countries that have mixed systems that work really well. I don't know why we can't emulate something like that.
