Thanks "G" "G" has done an amazing amount of comparisons of different things between Canada and the US. I love his comment about the 25 year old MBA running the show. Over 100 comments came complaining about their HMO which dictates what doctor you go to and which has to give approval for your treatment (I know, some don't but the majority do). david ingram =============== Dear David, List me as anonymous, maybe as "G"! (-; Having had personal and second-hand family experience in both the US and Canada, the verdict is ... it depends! Where you are, what your coverage is (public and private) and who you know count in both countries. If public health insurance were so bad, one of the two major US parties would have adopted a program to abolish their Medicare for seniors and invalids, Medicaid for the poor and the VA for military veterans (okay, that's being cut at the worst time, but let's not go there for now ...) Depending on your coverage in Canada, you may be sent by the Manitoba provincial health insurance to Minneapolis or Chicago not for some deficiency in the "Canadian" system but because Winnipeg is a small city of 600,000. (For perspective, Chicago's northwest suburb of Arlington Heights counts the same population.) You will likely end up at some Northwestern University hospital facility unavailable to most Chicago Landers in a PPO or HMO plan. If you are wondering what a HMO is, that's a corporate version of the British National Health service where the doctors are salaried staff and your "coverage" is only valid at their own or affiliated facilities. Go to any other and you bear 100%. Strikes? I've been delayed in treatment at both Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and a San Francisco facility (we were there briefly, drove to Sausalito). If I had to design a good North American system, it would be one with basic public coverage like in Canada with value-added private options like the US. We had that system once, like Ontario when "balance billing" existed for services that were beyond OHIP or for doctors who felt they were better than the going OHIP rate. Repealing some parts of the 1984 Health Act (an addendum) might be a start. And regarding the writer on Canadian doctors who moved south ... that may be true up to ten years ago but now, with 80% of Americans with coverage being in a HMO, they would be signing up as a salaried peon in a medical service company managed by a 26 year old MBA with not much more than summer job experience. G --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.788 / Virus Database: 533 - Release Date: 11/1/04 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.centa.com/CEN-TAPEDE/centapede/attachments/20041108/695f9ffb/attachment.htm
