Care Health Systems
Whats the diffrence between the canadian and american health care system?
I am canadian and i was wondering what the difference between the canadian american and european health care systems are?
when you awnser the the question please put what country your from thank you.
I’m an American.
The American system is a for-profit healthcare system. This means that the foremost concern really isn’t the quality of care, it’s about the profitability of the system overall. In Europe, the cost of a procedure does not matter, as it is purely the doctor’s decision as to what procedures are necessary.
In the United States, here’s the process for being treated:
If you have health insurance in the United States, you pay monthly premiums. These premiums are paid because the Insurance companies are betting that you won’t get sick, whereas you are betting that you will. Let’s say you go 10 years without getting sick: The insurance companies are hoping that–in aggregate–the money you’ve paid in over those 10 years is less than what the cost of a procedure would actually be. This way, you’re paying for the convenience/comfort of knowing that an expensive procedure will be covered.
In reality, the insurance companies are allowed to apply a broad range of restrictions to the care they will offer. For instance, if you don’t have insurance, but you want to get insurance, there is a term called “preexisting condition”. If I have diabetes, and I for some reason don’t have insurance, but I want to go out on my own and get health insurance, I can probably get it, however any injuries/issues relating to diabetes would be labeled a ‘preexisting condition’. This means that they won’t cover any of the cost, and you’ll be forced to do so. I know people that have a feeling something is wrong with them, but they wait to go to the doctor to receive a diagnosis until after they’ve purchased health insurance. If they didn’t do that, the insurance company will get a hold of the medical records and find out that prior to receiving insurance you had a ‘preexisting condition’. And then they won’t pay it.
Even without preexisting conditions, the other big disqualifier is called “experimental procedures”. An insurance company will often refuse to cover a certain procedure that it deems ‘experimental’. This could be anything from a dental/tooth implant to a bone marrow transplant. It has nothing to do with what is designated as ‘experimental’ by any medical society. This term only applies to the insurance companies, and they are allowed, by law, to decide what they will and will not pay for.
Not having insurance at all is even worse. Yes, by law people without insurance /should/ be treated. In actuality, however, there is no incentive in the system to give these people good treatment. If a hospital provides ‘good’ care for those without health insurance, all of the cost of these procedures comes out of their own pocket. In actuality what happens most often is that a bare modicum of treatment is given, enough to get the patient out the door.
Having health insurance in no way protects you from the exorbitant costs of healthcare, either. Take another example. A coworker of mine lost his mother to cancer when he was 12 years old. The health insurance provider stopped paying for her treatment once it reached the $500k ‘maximum’ that they are obligated to provide. So when the doctor’s would say, “There’s a new drug that will relieve her pain”, how could they say no? So this new, very expensive drug was being paid for out of pocket. The remaining months of her life led the family into huge debt.
It’s 10 years later, and my coworker’s father is still hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, struggling to pay off the money owed for the treatment and care of his sick wife.
Does this system seem in any way like a ‘good’ system to you? It’s not. The only way people get encouraged to support it is via scare tactics. It’s not that our system is great. People aren’t afraid of losing a great system. People are just afraid that it will become even WORSE. Politicians, notably Republican ones, prey upon this fear so that the wealthy health insurance lobbyists will continue to bribe them with hefty campaign contributions.
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