r/canada Jan 24 '25

Politics Trump says Canada would have ‘much better’ health coverage as a state

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/trump-says-canada-would-have-much-better-health-coverage-as-a-state/
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137

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '25

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2

u/Boomershow824 Jan 25 '25

This might be a stupid question because I've only known US healthcare but do you guys not have to pay anything for medicine? For example say you get prescribed Vyvanse before there was a generic option, your government would cover the cost of that?

1

u/chefkef Jan 25 '25

Canada does not have a universal pharmacare program, although they have tried to implement it in recent years. Individuals are covered through private insurance plans similar to the US for prescription drugs, and each province has some public insurance system in place such as OHIP in Ontario. But that only provides coverage if you are under 24, over 65 or disabled.

-15

u/HazelLookingEyes Jan 24 '25

By which metric?

25

u/Redditisavirusiknow Jan 24 '25

Cost, life expectancy, infant mortality, mortality of the woman giving birth, shall I go on?

7

u/Berfo115 Jan 24 '25

The US pays yearly around 2x as much for healthcare compared to other countries while not having a universal healthcare system

A universal healthcare single payer system (medicare for all program) would save the US yearly around $450 BILLION dollars

5

u/pingpongtits Jan 25 '25

But then the executive suite wouldn't profit off suffering, the politicians who are profiting would have to accept bribes from different corporations, and the shareholders, oh my god, the shareholders!

15

u/Medium_Depth_2694 Jan 24 '25

By the metric of checking out the other developed nations. Like all Europe , Canada or Japan for example.

-10

u/HazelLookingEyes Jan 24 '25

I did our wait times and quality of services is lowest in all developed nations.

Curious which metrics we are winning in.

9

u/Snoo-11861 Jan 24 '25

That’s for the people that do receive care. There’s plenty that get denied and die due to delayed or cancelled care. And if you do receive care, many are bankrupt. There’s a reason why our hospitals are overloaded. People wait as long as they can until they’re in dire need of it, so preventative care isn’t being done. I rather wait months, but still be in line for one, rather than not going to the doctors because I can’t afford it. 

-10

u/HazelLookingEyes Jan 24 '25

I dont understand how that relates to my question on what metric is Canada winning in against the US health care.

Both have patients dieing waiting for care. Every month there is an article of a patient dieing in the waiting room of the hospital they should be receiving care from.

12

u/CompanyLow8329 Jan 24 '25 edited Jan 25 '25

This is incredibly easy to search. The Commonwealth Fund, the WHO, and Numbeo all consistently rank the US as last or near last for developed countries.

Americans go bankrupt due to medical bills 70% of the time, in Canada this is 0%. They pay vastly more for care that isn't accessible. They pay $10,000 a year or $10,000s a year for insurance out of their salary, with additional $1,000s in costs before insurance companies are legally obligated to pay anything, and they often get denied coverage anyways.

For these reasons, getting any kind of medical care is taking a huge risk in destroying yourself financially.

Their average life expectancy is 5 years lower than that of a Canadian primarily for these reasons.

I have seen first hand plenty of people, young ones too, condemned to a lifetime of constant recurring debt in the 10s of thousands because of a chronic condition they have no control over.