[quasi]

Originally Posted by MG1

Speaking from experience, wife having had cancer, living here is pretty much the best thing. The amount of specialists and the care one gets here in BC is amazing. The support one gets and the places you can turn to for help and information. Second to none. Spent oodles of time taking the wife to all these places and speaking with others there who've lived in other places, we're in really good shape. Other areas in the health care system, not so much, but we're lucky to be here. Hopefully, it hasn't changed over the years.................

This is what I say to my American friends who ask me about our healthcare. I tell them if you have a life threatening emergency, heart attack or cancer the care is actually top tier good and yes mostly free sans medication if you don't have coverage.

Everything else though is pretty fucked, the knee example I gave above. In the US if you have insurance and tear your ACL you will have it scanned, see a surgeon and be in for surgery in less than two weeks. In Canada, you'll be lucky if you can get a doctor to send you for an MRI, once you finally do you'll be waiting 6-8 months for said MRI, they'll confirm tear and then get you an appointment to see a specialist. 9-12 months later you'll see said specialist, they'll confirm you need surgery and book a surgery 12 months later. It took me a year to convince my doctor to send me for an MRI, total time between shredding my ACL and meniscus until it was finally repaired 3.5 years.

Our system is good for some things and complete shit for other things.