U.S. President Donald Trump says Canadians would have “much better” health coverage if Canada became the 51st state.
He made the remarks during a briefing in North Carolina, where he toured areas struck by Hurricane Helene on Friday.
“I would love to see Canada be the 51st state,” he said. “The Canadian citizens, if that happened, would get a very big tax cut – a tremendous tax cut – because they are very highly taxed.”
“They’d have much better health coverage. I think the people of Canada would like it,” said the president.
No thank you.
My wife went to the ER after hurting her foot, it was an hour wait and the only cost was $40 for a set of crutches.
I like our system.
In the US you’d have a 4 to 6 hour wait, $3000 to hospital for using the ER, $2000 for the doctor, and if there were scans and such a $$$$$ for using them! Oh also they will take months to bill you but also send it to debt collectors if you don’t pay it for a month so then all of your personal data is sold and you get harassed to pay your debt!
Here’s a fun one my wife got:
She picked an in network doctor for her treatment so insurance would cover it. She got a large bill anyway because the office that the doctor worked in was out of network.
It’s literally impossible to get insurance coverage. You can pick the doctor or building (I’ve read anesthesiologists can be separate too.) But you are going to pay a bill that insurance won’t cover.
Agreed. My fiancee had some pregnancy complications that resulted in numerous visits to the ER, including one that then required ambulance transfer to a bigger hospital an hour away and a 2 week stay there. One of the weeks she had to share a room and I couldn’t stay overnight, but I was set up with a social worker who arranged a paid for hotel room for me a couple minutes away. Overall, I ended up paying $10 for parking at the big hospital (the social worker gave me a pass after I paid the first day), and maybe $20-30 on some really good Nanaimo bars from the lobby coffee shop. The family we shared the room with was in a similar situation, but since they lived further away they were flown in by air ambulance from their hospital, also at no cost.
It was a sprain just before Christmas so they gave us crutches she needed for a week, she’s at probably 80% better now.
We can go on evening walks again, so it seems to be healing well.
Ah good to hear she’s on the mend. Well just to note for any future injuries, boots are way better. I used crutches for a day before adding the boot so I could go to work and stuff. They didn’t even give me the option initially and I’m not sure why. It was far more comfortable having it on and I never wanted to take it off!
A lot of Canadians have to wait exorbitant amounts of time to see a doctor, it’s not always fast and effective service.
Oh you got cancer? That specialist can see you in 6 months when you’re already dead.
Don’t get me wrong free healthcare is great in that it’s free, but that doesn’t always guarantee it’s good or fast.
That’s not accurate, that is repeating the line private places want you to say about provincial or national care.
I had cancer. When test came back positive, they got me in the next week for surgery, then to the center to do the paperwork and scans and predental work. They then needed another week or two to have 3d scans used to define the radition paths for the machine, and set up hospital visits and chemo. I was done treatment in 2 months.
The six month wait seems like BS unless you have a source.
It was 4 months wait for myself but I have seen similar threads for people that had to wait 6.
Dude Americans pay more out of pocket for healthcare than any other country and get worse results.
Like, I have no idea what state you reside in but I have had months long wait times to see docs in the USA. Your made up example can be applied to the USA just the same except we’re just paying more money for the privilege.
Our system is absolutely fucked.
Tired of this lie, tbh.
The waits are probably, on average, a little longer, sure. The “someone is waiting an absurd amount of time with an obvious visible problem and they’ve died while waiting” is pure privatization propaganda fueled by people going to the hospital for things like prescription refills and being shocked when they’re pushed to the bottom of the list over and over again while people come in with genuine, time sensitive problems.
I have a friend like this, goes to hospital and upset wait time for pulled muscle or rib bruising is ridiculous hours. I say make a doc or clinic appointment, but no, doesn’t want to wait a week for doc or half a day at walk in clinic… 2 weeks later still complaining. Well you could have been seen already. Lol
I had to wait 4 months to see a doctor for my uLMS, and I personally know of several others now with worse conditions that also had to wait months. If you search around online you will also find many more similar occurrences. Same for ER visits taking literally all day long.
In general I don’t think it is a lie, this IS happening.
How much it goes on, or how often it might be a made up occurrence, and how often that needs to happen for you to consider it a “lie”, might be a separate matter.
6 months? You think 6 months to see an oncologist is rare in the US?
Are you including the number of people who don’t seek any care until they end up in the ER with acute symptoms because they couldn’t go in to get regular screening or preventive care?
And before you say that should be covered by the ACA you are still ignoring that hospitals are open 9-5 and the people who can’t make it to the hospital are working the job they need for health insurance during those same hours, provided they have transportation and can take off more than an hour to wait for the primary care to visit them.
Not to mention, if the cancer hasn’t progressed to stage 3 or 4 by that point, the health insurance won’t likely be paying for the most effective treatment, they’ll be paying for the treatment “they have on record for effective treatment”.
And who’s to say you can even get into an oncologist familiar with your cancer? Then may feel more comfortable referring you to a John Hopkins, or Mayo Clinic, or one in California. So now you have to pay for transportation and living expenses in another state while you get treatment and don’t work. Some insurances might cover this. Most won’t. Some companies will foot the bill. Most will laugh at you.
6 months? It’s a 5 month wait to get a new primary care provider here. Fuck your 6 month complaint.
Would you rather reach in and pick an item from
Sack 1, which contains [rusty nails, angry scorpions, razor blades, one fun sized candy bar]
Sack 2, which contains [various candy bars, one rusty nail]
The US is sack 1 in this metaphor. People should improve the canadian system, but there’s no reasonable take that they’re at all similar
Horseshit.
Triage works well here once it kicks in. It can take a long time to see a specialist, but if you have a good GP who is concerned about life-threatening disease, the system goes into very high speed.
Chronic disease is another issue, but that is more a problem with philosophy than implementation.
A lot of Canadians have to wait exorbitant amounts of time to see a doctor
As always, you hear more about the failures than the successes where everything works the way it is expected to.
Nobody would think of writing a headline saying “everything worked normally today”.
