As an American I’m curious what it’s like if you need to go to the doctor and how much you pay from say a broken arm to general checkup. Also list what country please
Canadian here.
$0 for everything, generally
If you have blood pumping from a stump, or have something catastrophic and are in immediate peril, you are seen quickly and get first class treatment…in most cases… However, our Indigenous population and other vulnerable sectors do not always get treated well sadly, and in some remote places access to health care is limited
Now if it’s something “minor”, you will wait for an appointment, or in the ER…for a long time, like 6-18 hours. which I have done many times However, you will get seen, and you will get services… The biggest bill I ever had was like $15 for parking
Some examples from my own experience: My mother had multiple, debiliatating illnesses over 20+ years, $0 Dad had a heart attack 15 years ago, $0 I was born , c-section, $0 i had multiple children, $0 Vasectomy (no more children haha) $0 Massive car accident, many injuries, $0 See my doctor annually for checkup, $0
I came into this thread to speak about wait times too, but you said it much better than I could have. Thank you :)
You are very welcome.
We need to acknowledge the problems if we want to address them.
The system isn’t perfect, but it does (generally) have your back when you get sick
Healthcare is one of, if not THE most important, valuable and defining parts about being Canadian. Right alongside being polite and friendly, in my opinion.
…unfortunately, the shitheads know this too, hence the attacks on public healthcare. It will not work tho, as the reptile people hate each other and cannot concieve of even small sacrifices to help others, and they cannot understand liking others either.
Canadians like each other, have a great thing going, and know it.
Stay strong hosers
Wait times suck in the US, too. I snapped my collarbone when I fell off my bike. It was gnarly. I waited in the waiting room for three hours to get a bed in the hallway then I waited another another two hours to have my first x-ray. Between waiting for each nurse or PA, I was there for 9 hours. And during that time all they did was take some x-rays, told me my collar bone was really fucking broken and scubbed dirt out if my wounds. I was sent home considerably uncomfortable. I had to wait a week to see a doctor to assess my collar bone and another week have the surgery. It sucked
And here’s another fun example: I started having chronic nonstop migraines a few years ago. After a couple very long months of back and forth with my primary care, I finally got a referral to neurology, but I had to wait over a month for them to contact me, and then even after they finally contacted me I had to wait EIGHT MONTHS to finally have a video appointment.
Edit: fixed lots of careless typos.
I have walked out of an ER waiting room with a multiple fractured hand/wrist, after waiting 6 hrs.
I needed to eat, that day.
I bought a brace and splints at a Rite Aid, and just set it myself, while biting down on a wallet, and then taught myself to be left-handed.
Years later, got an xray, Doc was surprised to learn I’d set it myself, said I did a pretty good job.
My having taken a comprehensive combat first aid / trauma response training course at a local gun range, a decade ago, was more useful than the entire US healthcare system.
We had to rush my SO to the ER in the last year and the wait time was actually only about an hour. It’s probably specific to the area you are in but I was shocked too since I kept hearing about the long waits so I braced myself. All in all the whole visit took likr 6 hours since they kept having to run more tests and he had to wait for results. It didn’t end up being anything major and the overall experience was mostly positive.
Oh and of course the entire visit was $0.
Australian here.
Just took my wife to the ER twice this weekend. Stressy.
Blood tests, consults, medication, drip, snacks and drinks, the lot.
$0
Can you imagine, on top of all that stressy, you had a MASSIVE , life-altering bill?!
What the fuk kinda social agreement is that?
…Like what’s in it for the average yank now?
But do you know how much FREEDOMTM we have?!
The stupid thing is, the insurance companies in the USA don’t even have a fucking product. They’re just there to raise prices. That’s literally all they do
they get to brag about their invincible military. Neoliberalism also ruined their military, though, so they also have to pretend like they won against Iran.
Canadian here:
Some provincial governments are purposely underfunding healthcare in their provinces in order to make it worse. The purpose behind this is to try and push for more private healthcare. They figure if everyone thinks the current healthcare system sucks, it’s easier to sell them on private. I’m fucking tired of this shit. The world is just full of greedy selfish assholes.
This is what the US is doing with other successful public services, like our postal service, social safety services, along with our limited public insurance options. I feel like the goal of this tactic generally needs to be shouted out, taught, put on billboards for a decade, because it just keeps working for right-wing saboteurs in so many situations
Reagan was open about “starve the beast,” and many Republicans literally run on the idea.
These people are so inundated with constant propaganda that they believe they want this.
This isn’t happening behind the right’s back, they are cheering it on
Some provincial governments are purposely underfunding healthcare in their provinces in order to make it worse. The purpose behind this is to try and push for more private healthcare.
Some are trying similar things here in France. They’ve been doing that with many other public services too.
They have success because people don’t have a consistent, active defense. Heroes die, the laws of nature stay the same.
And they always seem to take this end stage where awful people get in-charge and destroy the conditions that enabled them.
It is because humans are inherently flawed in a fatal way, and are destined to wipe themselves.
I hope something better founded replaces us.
We’ve also got luxury health for our teeth only. Its not like we need them to eat properly and its not like we need to do that daily.
I’ve spent thousands of dollars of government money for digestive issues that I’m fairly confident link back to the fact that my teeth only make contact in 4 places, but the cabal of dentists and orthodontists keep teeth payable and I can’t afford $10k for braces that I (who am not a medical professional) think I need, but that orthodontists (who, in this country are licensed tooth renovation salespeople) think they could give me nicer looking teeth for.
I agree to an extent that cosmetic medicine doesn’t need to be covered, but there’s no option for me to get my teeth medically corrected so I can eat properly, or, and what may be my biggest gripe, that I have a medical practitioner that wants to get me out of the healthcare system rather than sell me a fucking smile.
MAGA Doug Ford and Danielle Smith.
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I’m Norwegian, where you have to pay about $30 to go to the doctor (which is set to $0 after spending $150 in a year).
I’m not sure about a broken arm, but I think it’s free.
I live in Denmark now - the only difference is that there is no cost with going to the doctor.
I think you’ve been in Denmark for to long hehe.
It’s $350/year these days.
Still very good though, and hospitals are usually free.After giving birth a few years ago, the only cost was ish $30 in parking for two days.
Yeah, I think you’re right! 7.5 years is quite a long time… But too long, considering the inflation in Norway? It’s been fun spending my Danish kroner in Norway - it’s like it all is 40% off.
I (the dad) had to pay my stay in hospital hotel after the birth, but it wasn’t outrageously expensive. The food at the restaurant was outrageously bad and expensive though.
Also I had to pay 500$ for vasectomy at a private health care provider, because the public ones don’t do it anymore. Our system gets a little better and a little worse at the same time.
Genuine question, what’s the point of charging the nominal fee? Wouldn’t it start to cost more in administration to charge and keep track of? Does it go to the particular office or to the system?
I used to live in the US and now I live in Denmark. I recently fell off my bike and got hurt. I went to the non-ER hospital and had some x-rays, an ultrasound at a specialists office, got a sling, and some nominal amount of ibuprofen/paracetamol/cut cleanup thrown my way. Then had a follow up with a specialist and got a little PT as well.
$0. It’s unreal as someone who has experienced injury in the US. I got amazing care in a pretty timely fashion and didn’t have to worry about going broke
UK.
There were complications when my wife gave birth. 2 weeks in hospital, some surgery, and nurses and midwives on call 24/7. The biggest cost was me stress buying snacks for my wife (until she told me to stop!). Even parking was reduced to £11/week, since she was in for multiple nights.
Another occasion. I had a benign lump in an annoying place. It took 14 months to get through to get it removed. It’s only when I went in I realised it was not a 5 minute snip. Around an hour for a plastic surgeon to properly remove and stitch it up.
The NHS has its problems. Mostly caused by previous governments trying to starve it (to let their mates sell us for profit healthcare). The system and staff are absolutely awesome.
If I’m asked to point out what makes me proud to be British, the NHS is the prize jewel in that particular crown.
Cost wise, we pay national insurance, a fixed percentage of income. (“Payment by ability, treatment by requirement.”) Prescriptions are £9.90 each, or £120/year. They also wave the fee for a lot of groups who might have problems with it. It’s massively more cost effective than the American system.
we pay national insurance, a fixed percentage of income
With no limits? One of the many problems with the us system is we don’t do this.
You don’t have to pay national insurance until your yearly income reaches a certain level but after that it’s a flat rate.
There are some limits to it, and ways around it for the rich (as per usual ☹️).
The cost still mostly scales with your income, rather than how much care you need.
I don’t understand why so many of my fellow citizens wouldn’t want this
I guess we sort of have some, in that if you’re on Medicaid or on one of the exchanges, you get subsidized coverage based on your income
But higher income people don’t pay more, plus I imagine that at some point you have enough income that you wouldn’t need health insurance…… and people wonder why our system is so expensive
UK here too and agree with the everything but the national insurance part is a common misconception. The amount you pay in national insurance has no direct tie to benefits or the nhs, and has not been connected for a long time.
All national taxes go into a big pot which the government allocates any way it wants in the budget. For example, the recent class 1 employers national insurance rate increase from 13.8% to 15% does not mean that increase in funding goes directly to the NHS.
The amount of years that you paid national insurance for in your life does effect the amount of pension you received. Once you’ve worked x number of years, you receive the full pension available. The amount you paid has no impact. In fact, you just have to have been paid a salary of the lower threshold, which means technically you don’t pay any national insurance, for that year to be marked as qualifying. Lots of owner managed business pay themselves salary of the lower threshold (£6.5k), then pay the rest in dividends - results in them meeting the pension eligibility for that year, pays no national insurance, pays no income tax, and then pays the lower income tax rate for dividends.
Fun fact, once you hit the legal retirement age, you stop paying national insurance even if you carry on working. This makes it a regressive tax!
Successive governments have not made this clear because it is politically easier to raise national insurance rates (“helping the NHS”) than income taxes, even though income tax is a more progressive tax and it all goes to the same pot.
When I was born I had a cleft palate, which then lead to ear issues and braces. When I started work (23 years ago) I had a leg pain issue that was never diagnosed, but went away….to generalise, I’ve never had an issue getting an appointment, I or my parents have never had to pay anything (Prescriptions aside), with my leg I think we had to wait up to 3 months for certain appointments, like the op, ~90~% stuff was quicker.
I rang my new doctors after 8am on Monday, triage call Wednesday, doctors appointment Friday noon. I’d only joined a couple of days before. It’s underfunded and understaffed, but the NHS is a diamond. Absolutely baffles me that people think a for profit service could be better.
Hope you don’t mind me jumping on your comment.
No problem at all!
I know several people who wouldn’t still be around without the NHS. A diamond is understating it!
In Australia.
I went to the doctor complaining of weird headaches and vertigo, so she sent me for X-ray and MRI. They discovered holes in my bones that proved I have blood cancer (myeloma). Further blood tests proved that I was not long for this world and organs were failing, got pushed to the top of the list and sent to hospital the same day that the blood tests came back. At this point, treatment hadn’t cost me anything.
In hospital for four weeks with IV medications and chemotherapy, sent home with chemotherapy and a whole bunch of other tablets. Spent a year not responding to chemotherapy, told to get my affairs in order. At this point, treatment hadn’t cost me anything.
A specialist recommended a stem cell (“ bone marrow”) transplant, and then because it worked so well, another one six weeks later. In hospital for two weeks each time, with IV medications and chemotherapy. At this point, treatment hadn’t cost me anything.
I then spent 18 months taking chemotherapy tablets daily; these cost the government $28,000 a month; I paid $6.50 a month. Another twelve months on weekly immunoglobulins, which cost me nothing.
Six years after diagnosis, I’m now in remission (although “myeloma always comes back”). I’ve been two years with “no evidence of disease”.
I’m grateful and lucky that I live in Australia and have the public health care system. I would not have been able to pay for any of this in a country with healthcare-for-profit.
I’m so pleased that you’re in remission!
Ive been in the public mental health system since I was a teenager (Australia too). Have not paid a cent for it. I am 40 now.
Fuck yeah remission! I got scared when I read “myeloma”… I hope it stays gone for good (or until you’re nearing 100 and DGAF anymore.
I’m sorry you had to go through that, but I’m very happy you’re here to post your experience.
thank you, you’re very kind. Treatments for all types of cancers are improving all the time.
UK.
Visit to doctor: free
Ambulance trip to hospital: free
Broken arm: free
Pregnancy care, maternity, birth, etc: free
Cancer treatment, including multiple rounds of Chemotherapy, surgery, post-op care, etc etc: freePrescription: about £10, but I get an annual fixed price unlimited pass which pays for itself in a month or three all the stuff I’m on.
Parking at the hospital: not free.Dentist: not free.
The dentist is still heavily discounted though
Very much so, yes.
They broke your arm for free. Next time it’ll be a leg. /s
And, how long is the wait for any of the free services for a typical UK resident?
If you’re going where I think you’re going with this I’d like to point out that wait times in the US aren’t exactly zero.
Better to have a wait then to not go at all because you can’t afford it.
Depends. My annual checkup needed to be booked weeks in advance, whereas when I rang them about a mole that started bleeding, they wanted a picture and when they saw it, they referred me urgently to the dermatology department. I had an appointment that Saturday and they froze it off, but the dermatologist didn’t think it was skin cancer. Since I was there anyway and it was annoying, it was bye bye mole. The NHS can move fast when it needs to. My aunt waited quite a while for her hip replacement but when my other uncle fell and broke his they did it straight away.
If you turn up at A&E (emergency room) at the weekend after pub closing time you’ll be waiting hours and hours, but they deal with the most urgent stuff first.
It used to be better before the conservatives underfunded it for a decade and a half, and having an anti-immigrant policy and restricting placed on UK training hasn’t helped the recruitment crisis any, but it’s still good and I didn’t have to mortgage my house to pay for my relative’s cancer treatment.
Privatisation ruins everything for everyone except the CEOs and shareholders.
I used to live there and the NHS wait times were lower than any I had in the U.S. with insurance. Probably depends on the area, and I’ve heard it’s worse than it used to be because the conservatives keep expecting them to do more with less.
There’s also no wasted time. If your appointment was at 9:30, you’d be called in almost right at 9:30. If you’re called into a room, you’re not going to sit there waiting for a nurse to come take your blood pressure and ask what’s happening so they can relay it to the doctor. When you’re done with the doctor, you leave. You don’t have to go pay or wait for someone to check your finances or any of that.
And their health insurance is better because it has to at least offer something the NHS doesn’t.
Its great in Australia, i farkn love medicare (what we call it). My wife had a recent health scare and we had to run around seeing all these different people (getting scans done, follow up appointments, second opinions etc) and it was amazing walking out each time not needing to pay anything.
We have to pay for meds but its cheap as chips (my meds for my heart shit are like $20 each pick up).
I really feel for you yanks, its insane America of all countries doesnt have it.
I’ve been in mental health care for decades. I’ve paid nothing.
Canadian here… I had a boss who was American. He would often talk about how the American system was so much better then the Canadian system. This upset me but luckily I could go to the hospital and get my feelings checked for free.
The only people who actually think our system is better are total chodes who just inhale Fox News 24/7. Anyone with half a brain knows it’s utter shit and getting anything treated correctly is a major pain in the ass and potentially will bankrupt you. Fuck the American Healthcare System.
The American system is great… If you have money. As far as “public health care”, it is utter trash.
UK
I got hit by a driver a couple of years ago. Ambulance to A&E was free. Triage and being seen was free. CT was free. Sling for broken clavicle was free. I had 6 weeks off work due to lingering effects of concussion - getting signed off by the doctor was free.
I usually see the GP once or twice a year for minor things and those visits are always free.
My partner’s antidepressants are free. Therapy is free. Birth control is free.
In Scotland all prescriptions are free.
I can’t imagine having to consider finances in the event of any health issues.
In the USA automobile insurance would have covered the first $100k. Anything beyond that is either up to the insurance coverage paid for or a legal battle.
Free? That’s hardly free. I pay monthly NHS and barely get appointments. R.I.P, people with conditions that need to be diagnosed early.
Accidents? Yeah, you get help immediately. Other conditions? You better go private.
Whinge more.
Let me know when you have to decide between an ambulance ride or three rent.
Just went to the ER last week and I was there for 3 hours before I got seen. It wasn’t life threatening. Then, I was just sitting in the back for 8 hours. Nurse saw me twice. No doctor. I got checked, was given Tylenol and said I was “fine”.
I’m glad I didn’t crash out. Then I scheduled an appointment with my PRIVATE doctor and could get one in 9 weeks.
I pay $1100 a month for health insurance for me and my family.
I haven’t got the bill for ambulance yet or the hospital. But my last ambulance ride was $2800, which insurance was willing to pay 75% of it.
Yeah, Canadians bitch about waiting in ER thinking it’s different in the USA. Dumbasses have never lived outside of Canada.
I lived in America for 6 years, 07306 and 98125. Canada in the V9, V3, V8, V0, T2, K2, K3 postal codes.
Wait times were identical.
Care was identical.
The only difference was American healthcare has a credit card machine on the way out, and Canadian healthcare has no payment stuff – but may ask you to confirm your health number when you find it (came in without any paperwork) for the records.
I pay $0 extra for healthcare, beyond normal income tax (which consistently ranks 1% below American, something I’ve been tracking from before when I had to file in both countries).
I will say our conservatives are consistently trying to open the door to the two-tier setup, and hearing how well it’s done for the NHS I really want us to avoid that. They’d like to get us under the mercenary American system, and their corpo donors are really pushing for that. Especially because our gun laws prevent Luigis.
Canadian here: wait times can be long depending on seriousness but it honestly doesn’t register. You need emergency care, you go to the hospital, you get taken care of, you leave. No fees. It’s not perfect efficiency but it works.
Loved one recently diagnosed with cancer. Within a week she has a team of 5 medical professionals assigned to her to kill this thing. If she was in the USA, this would bankrupt the family.
Actually if she was in the USA. She would need to call around to find a doctor accepting new patients that take her insurance.
My friend has a tumor on her spine. It took 4 months to get an appointment with a doctor who took her insurance.
The doctor met with her to tell her that “she doesn’t feel qualified to assist. This case is is clearly too critical for her( the doctor)”.
And…
Now she’s calling around again.
While the tumor grows
Yeah, I had an ear issue and got referred to an ENT. The ENT required that I do a hearing test. I said my hearing is fine, I have pain in my ear. Well it’s a requirement to get an appointment. Ok, fine, sign me up for that. 30 days out I get this hearing test, then have the appointment 4 months later. So I just had to deal with pain for 4 months. I went to urgent care and ER while waiting because I was in pain daily and couldn’t keep waiting. They all said they couldn’t see anything and I would need to talk to an ENT. The ENT sees it and says the same shit as the urgent care and ER. So 4 months has gone by and all any doctor did was throw their hands up and say IDK bro. I see another ENT who gives me a steroid ear drop that doesn’t fucking work. We’re 6 months in and fucking nothing has happened. Eventually it gets kinda better just on its own after I straight gave up on trying to get it taken care of. I still have flare-ups here and there, but it’s mostly better. Uh hopefully it’s not fucking cancer or something. 🤷♂️
Yep if it ain’t in the checklist or easy to fix things I know how to bill for - I ain’t fixing it.
Imagine if most mechanics, or any other profession worked this way.
Well shit, you don’t need an oil change, an air filter change, and your spark plugs are good. Nothing I can do. This case is too complicated for me. Best of luck That’ll be $83739
My own experience from Brazil is pretty good overall.
I have free therapist it’s been a year. Free appointments with psychiatrist and neurologist. Free transport to specialized doctors in other cities when needed. Once I had to go throught a surgery, kept in the hospital for 2 days, and some weeks of daily visits to change bandages (it was a little complicated). I didn’t spent a cent on all this.
My mom also got free appointment to ophthalmologist, not just that but they also paid for her new glasses as well.
You’ll see some complains about quality of services and it’s true, some people say that appointments may take ages I also hear that often, but as personal experience I never faced it. Maybe because I live in a small town in a small region as well. So queues are short or non-existent.
I had a friend from Argentina and the health system there is pretty similar if not even better.
It’s a good country to live in, I don’t think I’d like to live somewhere else. Basically any health problem you can rely on universal health system and having this support independently of anything (if you work or not, if you have money or not) feels good.
EU here, I was pregnant and gave birth both in Germany and in France.
In Germany, the overall cost was 0€. It included monthly follow ups with a gynecologist, many blood exams and echos, the birth, MUCU for baby for three days, hospital stay for both of us for four days, at home visits for ten days, monthly visits with the gp for a while. Health insurance is through your work, so you pay for it via taxes but significantly less than in the US (I think my partner and I were paying just under 200€/month? It’s a percentage of income) I had 3.5 months of maternity leave at full pay, then I could stay home longer with 60% pay for up to a year cumulative with my husband.
In France, the overall cost was a bit higher (~50€) because not all blood exams are completely free, so over the first 6 months of pregnancy I payed less than 10€/month for some blood tests. Gp and gynecologist visits are free, so are the ecos and the hospital stay. I decided to pay a little extra (50€/day) to have a private room after the birth where my husband could stay overnight. It should still be conferred by my extended health insurance (not mandatory). I was also in sick leave for the white pregnancy, and for the first 3 months I had full salary, then it dropped to 1/3, the got back to 100% when I went in maternity leave (~4.5 months). I decided to stay home a bit longer, without pay. My husband can also choose to stay home without pay, and has one month of paternity leave.
I also lived in the US. Incomparable. On top of not having to pay, when there is a charge it is always stated clearly upfront, while in the US knowing what you’ll have to pay is a wild guessing game. Overall: I moved back to Europe for a reason.
