[kerkeslager]

It's a sign of what it's like to be an American that the following stood out to me:

The timing of his illness is rather unfortunate, as it caught him in New York, rather than Toronto, which probably cost him a lot of money.

[marcinzm]

If I'm an American visiting Canada then I would also be charged for any medical services I get in Canada as I do not pay taxes there nor have insurance in Canada.

edit: And the fees aren't trivial. https://www.qch.on.ca/uploads/Finance/Fees%20for%20Cdns%20wi...

[kerkeslager]

Why are you assuming the author was uninsured in NY? Lots of Candadians buy travel health insurance when visiting the US.

Even with your unfair comparison: if you have health insurance in the US, it's quite easy to pay higher fees than you would uninsured in Canada. For example, compare Fidelis Care Silver[1] ambulance charge ($150 after deductible) with Canadian ambulance charge ($240 CAD -> $180.75 USD). The completely uninsured Canadian pays only $30 more than the insured American, and that's if the American has already paid their $1700 deductible, and has paid their premiums (which are more than the taxes Canadians pay toward their healthcare). And that's literally just grabbing the first US plan I looked at: I'm sure that there are worse insurance plans out there which people are forced to take.

[1] https://www.fideliscare.org/Portals/0/Members/ComparisonChar...

[aantix]

Pay for it with taxes, pay for it with premiums and bills. You’re paying for it.

No one works for free, the medicine costs money. The money comes from somewhere.

[didbsivdf]

Yes, but consider that the US taxpayer pays per capita more or less what the Canadian taxpayer does on health care, while covering only Medicaid and Medicare.

The Canadian, on the other hand, doesn’t have insurance premiums or deductibles.

(For the record, I hate the CND health care system. It’s just that, knowing both systems, the US’ is worse :)

[msla]

> No one works for free, the medicine costs money. The money comes from somewhere.

Why do some people think this is a shock?

Nobody thinks medicine is ever going to be free. That's a strawman position. You might as well argue in favor of universal toll roads by saying that roads are never going to be free, so suck it up and accept that you're going to pay $50 one-way every time you commute, and $200 one-way every time you get groceries: The people who protest that aren't saying roads are ever going to be free, they're just saying that better payment models exist.

[kerkeslager]

> Pay for it with taxes, pay for it with premiums and bills. You’re paying for it.

Pay for what? CEO's billion-dollar salaries and luxury jets? I'm pretty sure Canadians aren't paying for that.

[Ididntdothis]

The doctors’ and hospital administrators’ sports cars aren’t cheap either.

[aantix]

Neither are their 500K student loans nor their delayed work opportunities until 35.

[didbsivdf]

Hating on a Dr. for having a nice car is BS, but what you mention are failures of America.

Only America trains their Dr. until they’re 35, while having them do nothing towards their medical degree in their undergrad.

Only America saddles then with $500k in debt.

Remove both barriers, and presumably you’d have market forces push more ppl to the profession reducing wages.

[aantix]

"Remove both barriers"

How do you train a neurosurgeon? That level of specialization comes from maybe a few hundred in the U.S. With that level of scarcity (and demand), their time is going to be priced accordingly.

[didbsivdf]

In school.

But s/he needn’t have a B.Arts in management to apply to med school first.

I don’t know what you mean by “Maybe a few hundred”. Do you mean schools or neurosurgeons?

If 1., there are only 150 med school for all Dr. in the US, contributing to a very low number of Dr. Per capita.

If 2. They study medicine. Do residency. And train on the job for the rest of their lives... just like today [0]

[0] actually one of the reasons for medical errors, a top three killer in the US, is that most Dr. don’t update their knowledge one thy finish their residency. :S

[Sean1708]

And when you make healthcare a for-profit business, everyone pays more.

[C1sc0cat]

Just seems to cost a lot more in total in the USA than it does elsewhere.