[joshlemer]

Canadian here, and I think that especially on philosophical grounds, the Canadian system is terrible.

The state has a monopoly on the purchasing of healthcare services, it is illegal in most provinces to buy any healthcare for your family. The official marketing is that services are given out in priority order. In practice, it's rationed according to a lottery, your connections, whether you can afford to live near medical center, your ability to advocate for yourself, ability to show up an hour before a facility opens and wait in line for 5 hours, push through constant gaslighting by doctors whose goal is to dissuade you from receiving care (they'd rather you just give up and go home, here take this antibiotic and get out of my face), willingness to embellish symptoms to get higher priority placement, etc.

When the system utterly fails you, you have zero recourse. You just accept that you won't get to see a specialist for 6 months (if you're lucky, often a year). There is no escape hatch. Only if you're lucky enough to afford paying out of pocket and be able to get out of the country to get medical attention.

Millions of Canadians have no access to a family doctor (25-60% of British Columbians, for example). With increasing frequency, Emergency Rooms themselves are closing their doors (can't operate a whole 24/7 rotation).

On a philosophical level, I think it plainly evil that, even after I've paid such high taxes to fund everyone else's treatment, and then after the government refuses to provide me with adequate healthcare, after already paying for services not received, they then make it illegal to use whatever money I have left to provide basic healthcare to myself and my family.

[takinola]

> The state has a monopoly on the purchasing of healthcare services, it is illegal in most provinces to buy any healthcare for your family.

Why is it illegal to purchase healthcare privately? When I lived in the UK, I skipped the NHS and used my private insurance all the time to avoid all the issues you listed. Why not make it available to those that can afford the option?

[joshlemer]

Well, obviously I strongly disagree with this justification, but it's thought that if you allow for private healthcare options, that will suck resources out of the public system. If I use my own money to pay for the attention of a doctor, that's me taking that doctor away from the public system, making everyone else worse off.

[mensetmanusman]

Just cross the border for medicine like millions of Canadians do.

[joshlemer]

Not sure if you're trying to downplay the problems or just offering a tip, but "You can flee the country and pay out of pocket somewhere with a functioning healthcare system" isn't much of a defense. Millions of Canadians aren't able to afford flight, hotel, time off work, arrange care for their dependents etc to go down to the states for weeks to resolve health issues. Not to mention, not all Canadians are even allowed to go to the states (people with criminal records, for instance). Also, hopping on a flight isn't an option for people with ongoing needs.

[mensetmanusman]

Yes those are real issues, and I didn’t necessarily mean to go to the United States, lots of people in the US also flee the border for certain medicine.

It’s, of course, a both/and situation. Try to improve things at home while searching for options if needed.

I do believe there is a bit of absurdity going on where parts of the Canadian system are trying to save money though by offering suicide.

[rootusrootus]

Thanks for that perspective. That does seem like some serious downsides.

[gopher_space]

> On a philosophical level, I think it plainly evil that, even after I've paid such high taxes to fund everyone else's treatment, and then after the government refuses to provide me with adequate healthcare, after already paying for services not received, they then make it illegal to use whatever money I have left to provide basic healthcare to myself and my family.

The evil part seems to be where they bilk you out of your tax dollars a few steps up the chain.

[ksenzee]

Downvoters may think this is an argument against universal healthcare, not realizing that it’s really an argument against a particular style of universal healthcare. Some countries, such as France and Switzerland, have a private sector that parallels the public sector, providing that escape hatch that Canadians are missing (unless, as you say, they cross the border to Bellingham or Buffalo, and can pay the US’s astronomical out-of-pocket expenses).

[switchbak]

Most Canadians of sufficient age know that our healthcare system used to be the envy of the world. Sadly that has not been the case for 30+ years, and every government of the last few decades has compounded that problem. Some of it isn't even about funding per-se, but greed, bureaucracy and institutional power grabs.

We don't really have "universal healthcare" at all anymore, I don't know what you'd call such a dysfunctional system.

[joshlemer]

We have a universal guaranteed access to wait lists system now.

[SllX]

Don't worry, there's arguments against every system of health care, including the American health care and insurance industry. Doesn't mean there aren't productive reforms that can be done.