A comparison of US and Canadian healthcare, Using babies! Options

[mipadi]

United States

• Wife with previa placenta, c-section, 9 days hospital - $50k+
• Son 3 weeks immature, 3 weeks in NICU - $140K+

Welcome to American health care. I do have insurance so with that it will be about $20K out of pocket for me. And most importantly my son is now 5 weeks old and thriving.

Canada

I'm a Canadian in Canada, father of two. I created an account specifically after reading the above comment. This isn't a horror story, or even a story of near-disaster, just what happened, but I couldn't help but notice a contrast.

In the last weeks of my wife's first pregnancy, she began experiencing some stomach pain. We went to the hospital, she was checked out with a bevy of tests, discharged, and sent home when she appeared to be doing better. Gas, we all thought. After more pain a few days later, and some discussion with the nurse over the phone, we agreed that this needed to be checked again. My wife was diagnosed with an unusual affliction that can affect pregnant women, and that it was best treated with the baby removed.

They tried to induce labour (to no effect), she was given an epidural, and eventually it was decided that this was best handled with a cesarean. The deed done, all was well. Mom and child #1 stayed in the hospital for a few days, receiving checkups and the assorted 200-point-inspections that newborns seem to need. I brought them home, life was good. A nurse came to our home within a couple of weeks to see if we needed anything. At some point my wife went in to a nursing clinic at the hospital to get help with breastfeeding.

Pregnancy #2 came along a couple of years later. As a consequence of history, there were a couple of extra appointments with the obstetrician, an extra ultrasound (I think)...and about three weeks before the due date, my wife started getting pains again. The ob's general take was "let's not mess around - let's just go with the cesarean...how 'bout this weekend?" Another surgery, another stay of a few days.

I paid for parking. I paid to get some photos of the ultrasound in a cutesy envelope, and I paid something like $10 or $15 so my wife would have a phone in the hospital room. I never saw a bill. I don't know how much all this cost. I'd never think this is all that remarkable except that I keep hearing that it is.

I don't really know what things are like in the U.S. I hear horror stories, of course, but I've learned not to trust what you're told about a foreign health care system. I don't know what it's like in the UK or France since I've never lived there.

As for what goes on in Canada...I don't suppose it comes as a surprise to most of the crowd on this particular board to be told that you are being lied to. Horribly, horribly lied to. As the debate rages on in your country, my wife and I are frequently exposed to the things you're being told about the system in my country. She laughs out loud, and my stomach turns.

This isn't a polemic. I don't know that you can really walk away with more than "I heard from some guy that it's not so bad." You folks should do what's best for you and your country, but you deserve good information and a good debate to make your choice.

[kryogenix]

Had to split up this post

1. capitalism created the poor.

False. We enter the world with no possessions, we leave with no possessions.

2. property rights existed only because they were intended for rich white people, the only people who once owned property.

And yet they continued to exist after that had changed.

3. the most productive members of society are laborers, not ceos.

Really now, so the person who commands the most money, the one who can hire or fire thousands of laborers, are less of an asset to the economy than one laborer?

after the slaves were emancipated, where did they go? they worked the fields. and now they were, in a sense, worse off. now that they had salaries, their employers were not obligated to provide food and shelter to them. they paid them only enough to keep them alive and mildly healthy, healthy enough to work. now that the slaves required a salary to survive, how voluntary would you consider their labor?

And the world was better of because of that. What are you complaining about here?

1. i know, you dolt. still, not half of anyone's wealth.

Proven false above.

2. argumentum ad hominem. p.s. i never dropped out. i graduated. i now attend university.

Congrats on being older than everyone in your class.

3. we also had taxes before the 16th amendment? what the hell are you talking about? f*ck, we even had income tax before the 16th amendment.

I specifically singled out the federal income tax. There was a functional society prior to the 16th amendment. In fact, the main reason for it was to raise money to fund the war in which the most Americans died. Since then, the income tax has continued to be largely used to fund the United States war machine.

i don't believe in your infantile shit morality.

Ah, the beauty of relativism.

not to mention, any reasonable dude would be like, "let people die or steal money from people who own golden helicopters...?" oh, i don't know, steal from the rich and give to the poor! if it's life and death, if it is the health of all of society... steal from the rich, for god's sake.

i don't believe in your infantile shit morality. you can't define stealing as wrong, except when rich people are the victims. equal protection under the law?

i would argue that the provision of certain necessities (i.e. food, shelter, etc.) is a form of protection. without these provisions, human beings cannot survive (or at least, not easily survive). insofar as we have the right to "life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness," don't you think that the governments that are designed to secure these rights should make efforts to see that they are actualized? and, don't you feel that only by fulfilling the lower tiers of maslow's hierarchy can we secure these rights?

No, the government's job (at least under the Constitution) is to make sure no one is infringing on your rights. The Constitution does not give the government the responsibility of babying our citizens.