One virtue of the Canadian system is that co-pays are forbidden. Some private clinics manage to get around this somewhat by special charges such as tray fees for minor operations that are done in the clinic rather than a hospital. For example for a recent cystoscopy I paid 20 dollars but if I had insisted it be done in the hospital it would have cost nothing. The clinic is not re-imbursed by the govt. for costs of the equipment which would also be available at a hospital, so they naturally bill the patient. Of course many other doctors would just perform the operation at the hospital. In a small city such as Brandon there is only one specialist so you don't have much choice. It is just easier to get it done in the clinic rather than spending a bundle to travel to Winnipeg or argue with the specialist.
Cheers, k hanly
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
--- On Fri, 2/27/09, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Modern medical "coverage"
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Friday, February 27, 2009, 8:20 AM
> Last month I got a complete physical in honor of my 50th
> birthday. As always (so far) nothing was wrong (although
> I'm still awaiting my inaugural visit to the
> proctologist). The doctor charged me 20 bucks for a co-pay,
> just like 10 years ago. And then they billed me 4 dollars,
> by email, via PayPal. That didn't seem so bad. But
> today I just got a separate bill from the lab -- something
> I've never seen before -- telling me that the total bill
> for the routine bloodwork was over 400 bucks, and my share
> of that is $156. So now it's up to $180 dollars for a
> routine checkup when nothing is wrong for a guy who's
> got what's considered good coverage? How can that even
> be called coverage? 20 years ago, it would have cost me
> half that with no coverage at all.
>
> I'm flabbergasted. I think the real problem with
> health care consciousness is that if you don't go to the
> doctor, you can't possibly imagine how fast the system
> is evaporating and how high the price is soaring. And once
> you experience the shock, you go even less! These guys say
> now that I'm 50 I should go every year. I laughed, that
> seemed like such an odd idea; I've had 2 physicals since
> I was 20 and both times I was asked why. But I realized I
> probably should, and if it only cost 20 bucks and took 15
> minutes, I'd be be stupid not to. But if the price of
> prudence is two hundred bucks -- and probably twice that
> once they stick a Fantastic Voyage cam up my ass -- just to
> find out nothing's wrong, I have a strong suspicion that
> with the best of intentions this is going to end up slipping
> my mind year after year. And the next time I go will be
> when I get a pain that scares me.
>
> And like I said, I've always thought -- and always been
> told -- that my coverage was the high end of standard, the
> kind of coverage people really miss when they lose their
> jobs. I think that's still probably true. So if
> I'm not covered, is anybody covered in this country?
>
> Michael
>
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