4 ms·

What I want to know is, how much does it cost to provide that service to you? Not how much do you pay, but how much does it cost? If it's greater than $100 a

by stvswn 11y ago

What I want to know is, how much does it cost to provide that service to you? Not how much do you pay, but how much does it cost? If it's greater than $100 a month (how could it be less?), then someone is paying. What portion of Canada's budget is spent on the health system? Are you paying for your healthcare indirectly via taxes (in which case you're just unaware of the true cost) or is someone else paying (in which case you just won the redistribution game, congrats). It still costs something to provide medical care. It's not like Canada doesn't need to pay their doctors. The cost in the U.S., contrary to public opinion, is not driven by insurance company greed. So, assuming the cost is about the same in Canada, how did you succeed in shifting the cost elsewhere in a manner that you're satisfied with? And, if we were to replicate such a plan in the U.S., do you think we'd see similar results?

graeme 11y ago
For cost, it varies by province, because health care is a provincial responsability. Overall though, Canada's entire public medical system costs less per capita than America's public system (medicare + medicaid + whatever else they're including). http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/23/chart_us_government_spends_more_on_health_care_than_the_canadian_government.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/23/chart_us_gove... I checked the stats for my province, Quebec. In 2013, costs were a bit under $4000 per capita for the public sector. So that's about $333 per month. Per province breakdown stats: https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/4.0_TotalHealthExpenditureProvTerrEN.pdf https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/4.0_TotalHealthExpendit... As for replicating it....I'd wager that it couldn't be done nationally. It could possibly be done in a small state. It probably could have been done back in the 1950s, but there's been so much drift in the two systems since then that it would be difficult to imagine implementing it. Because there'd be pretty wholesale change: no private health insurers. Also the fact that medicare + medicaid cost more than Canada spends already doesn't bode well. But that could just be status quo pessimism.

by stvswn 11y ago

graeme 11y ago

For cost, it varies by province, because health care is a provincial responsability. Overall though, Canada's entire public medical system costs less per capita than America's public system (medicare + medicaid + whatever else they're including). http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/23/chart_us_government_spends_more_on_health_care_than_the_canadian_government.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/01/23/chart_us_gove... I checked the stats for my province, Quebec. In 2013, costs were a bit under $4000 per capita for the public sector. So that's about $333 per month. Per province breakdown stats: https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/4.0_TotalHealthExpenditureProvTerrEN.pdf https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/4.0_TotalHealthExpendit... As for replicating it....I'd wager that it couldn't be done nationally. It could possibly be done in a small state. It probably could have been done back in the 1950s, but there's been so much drift in the two systems since then that it would be difficult to imagine implementing it. Because there'd be pretty wholesale change: no private health insurers. Also the fact that medicare + medicaid cost more than Canada spends already doesn't bode well. But that could just be status quo pessimism.