How would you rate Costa Rica is as a retirement place?

That would fuck over all the poor people, the "two tiers" wouldn't last long. We had a hell of a fight to gain social health care, we can't fuck it up on purpose. People with money in Canada who think they need better care go to the USA.

I rather do that then end up paying b ig bucks everytime i need a doctor

You're right, Peaches...

ANY hospital in the US who is receiving federal aid.....must put aside a certain amount of beds for those who do not have insurance or are indigent.

And, that's a fact.

Waiting lists are the main problem in Canada right now. I have serious pancreatic problems and I can't see a specialist because "we're booked 6 months in advance. Sorry kid."

Why? It works in New Zealand... Just interested in why specifically you don't think it would work.

In my experience, a lot of the people who can't afford insurance simply choose to spend their money on other "wants" such as entertainment and eating out. I take care of my "needs" before "wants". Health is #1 for me, hell I moved 2000 miles away from home because of my health.

Everybody has different priorities.

Thats crazy man. Do you live close enough to the border for a trip down here?

yup.

What's worse is when there is a strike, the backlog gets even worse. people needing surgery have to wait 6 months now because of our latest strike in south-eastern NB. Lab techs, cleaning, administration, everyone except nurses and doctors were on strike.

it's just as bad with the mental health clinic too

my bad...

huh..my friend has the exact same problem, he keeps having Pancreatitis, he has an operation scheduled in 2 weeks....they took care of him pretty quickly...

No I'm not bitching because I was inconvienced. I'm bitching because an already severely taxed medical system is wasting resources on me. Clearly I didn't need to be in ER, I was discharged 2 days ago.

As for usless bitching, isn't all bitching fairly useless?

I'd say it would be an excellent retirment place. Many, many Canadians and Americans retire in Costa Rica.

Honestly, I wouldn't want a druglord's life be valued more than my life just because he's got more money than me, at the same token, I must realize neither would our society want my (a porn peddler's) life be valued more than a little girl's life just cause I have more money :winkwink:

Now before you praise private clinics you need to know both pros and cons about having private clinics. Here could be a start http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2...622326-cp.html

It just seems to me that in reality, if I take myself out of the public system to be treated privately, that's simply one less person burdening the public system.

I don't agree that existing facilities should be able to take paying customers as a priority. I'm saying if a private facility wants to open its doors and offer care and services that wouldn't otherwise be available, they should be allowed to. That's all.

I

I've been to countries where they have both private clinics & gov run hospitals. What happens there is docs quit public hospitals to join private where there's more money, where they can rip off rich people with unnecessary precriptions/treatment cos they don't have to answer to gov for those = easier more money. It could be quite a disaster, public health system caould get shot cause of that.

Ya I still fail to see why so many canadians constantly rave about free health care, sounds like its headed for ruins.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the access to health care. It's an absolute blessing for lots of low income families.

It just bothers the crap out of me that it's pushed to its limits, Doctors and Nurses are strained and over worked, and still nobody trims some of the fat out of the system.

Let's stop wasting money on things like ER doctor billings to give standard test results because "it's policy" and free up those funds to be used for people who are really sick and really need it to have the best care humanly possible. :2 cents:

no, Dr. Warchild, clearly you are not qualified to make any judgements about the canadian medical system.. costa rica is calling....

I don't understand what's got you rowled up, Shemp. I think you've got me wrong somehow here.

There was no emergency regarding my case today. There was 2 days before, and I'm glad to have gotten prompt and complete medical attention. I appreciate it, I really do.

While I was in the ER, I saw nurses doing house work chores, cleaning beds, because they needed to free up beds so fast they couldn't wait for somebody to come clean them. Doctors were clearly very, very busy.

When you send a patient to the ER to get standard test results, somebody somewhere is billing for that. Excuse me if I don't want it done in my name. The cost of admiting me back to Emergency, filling out all new paperwork and me sitting in a bed has got to be a lot more than me visiting my family doctor.

Well you'll have to fix up the system that's all privatising health system isn't the solution to it. Private clinics in the U.S. did pretty much the same to me once plus made me pay for it too out of my own pocket. And for the waitlist.. I waited hours there too each time I visited even those private clinics.

I don't think private health care is the answer either ... I like the idea of two tiered system. Those who can contribute more, do. I don't in anyway advocate a reduction in service or a lower quality service for the public tier. To the contrary, I think it would up the standard of care for the general public.

My original point was just that there's a lot of waste in an already burdened system. It's a shame that with something as important as Health Care we can't clean the beurocracy out.

Yeah, two or three people bitching on an adult webmaster board about medical treatment means a national healcare system is headed for ruins.

:1orglaugh

I'm sure any poll will show overwhelming public support for the current system.

The problem is not overwhelming public support, it's not enough financial support. It's a system that has been underfunded for a long time.

It's not as bad as people are making out here. No one is dying on waiting lists for treatment. Every study I've ever seen says levels of mortality are pretty much equal between the U.S. and Canada when it comes to different diseases.
The difference up here is that you can't demand an MRI from your doctor if your ankle or knee is sore well in the states you can. We also spend less as a percentage of our GDP on health care then Americans do and everyone's covered here; no ones going to go bankrupt or join the working poor just because someone in the family gets sick in Canada.

Just like every countries medical systems ours has it's problems too.


Anyone in Canada wanting 'some' private medical services can visit companies such as Medisys

I live in Montreal. My dog was born with misaligned knees so his knee caps would pop out of alignment ever so often.

Last spring he hurt his knee in the park and his kneecap wouldn't go back into position so we took him to the vet. Since this was after hours we took him to the emergency room at the DMV (animal hospital) in dorval. We had to wait maybe half an hour to see a vet.
By this time his kneecap had gone back into place on its own. The vet took a look at his knee, proscribed some anti-inflamitory medicine and had us schedual an appointment for x-rays a couple of days later.

On the day he was schedualed for x-rays dropped him off at the DMV in the morning on my way to work and on our way home that night we stopped by to pick him up and get the results. Basically we were told he needed surgery to realign his knee or his knee-popping out incidents would get worse and could lead to arthritis in the joint.

Surgery was schedualed for later that week. We took him on the day of surgery and picked up again the next day (with a collar and leg cast).

All in all the whole proceedure from start to finish for non-critical surgery took about a week and cost a couple thousand dollars.

If was a person who needed this operation instead of a dog, I think we'd still be waiting for surgery. Its pathetic that animals get better and faster care than people do.

I've shattered my knee cap before. Well I was stuck in the ER with no pain killers and having test performed for about 5 hours that night; my knee cap was put back together the next day in surgery. After the cast came off I was provided with phsyiotherapy for 3 months. In the 4th month I had the pins, wire and screw's removed in surgery and I was out of the hospital the same day.

I'd say I received prompt medical treatment of the highest standard from our health system. Certainly as good as any animal would receive!

:thumbsup when you are in critical condition you do get treatment pretty fast I'd think atleast that's our experience. My wife's grandmother was taken in intensive care as soon as she arrived at the York Central.. she died in a few days during her stay at the hospital but no-one in her family could complain about the treatment provided by the system. Few weeks ago while visiting a patient at the hospital I've seen bullet wounded people rushed in the surgery too right away. Hey ya know what my wife didn't have to wait on a line either when she went into labor just 6 months ago hehe. Now, for less emergencies things could be a bit different I dunno.

On another token, vets are private therefore fucking rip offs. I took my dog to emergency once. the doc said would cost me $850. After an intensed haggling he agreed on $110 ($65 mandatory for stepping in emergency clinic + $45 for a shot to help stop him from throwing up every 15 minutes). So go figure!

I have sort of a different perspective on that. My sister is a Vet.

She went to school for as long as a doctor, it was harder to get in to school, and she makes much less money than a doctor.

We trust our pets with the people and we hold them to a high standard. We expect the best service and will hold accountable any Vet that makes a mistake.

I understand this is how New Zealand does it. They have free/public and pay/private care (insurance as we know it is optional). Of course you still can't buy your way to the front of the organ donor line, but if you want privileges and increased-urgency you can pay for it.

best of both :thumbsup plus added benefits such as having the gov't negotiate to keep drug prices down.

In any country, in any system, there will never be enough doctors or enough donors or enough expensive equipment, and the bureaucracy of administering it all will always be a messy stressful burden, and when you're in bad shape good health can't come quick enough and that's frustrating... We should all take care of eachother as well as we can with the resources available. Balancing that across an entire population means non-critical stuff might get delayed, and IMO that's quite understandable, and shouldn't be used as an arguement against universal healthcare. Most complaints aren't immediately life-threatening, so if you have to wait a few months to get that bad knee corrected or whatever, fine. Cases should be dealth with by a criteria of urgency. You would feel the same way if your tumor was malignant and the other guys was benign. But if you're the type who thinks your needs are more important than others, then just buy your way into another system. (at least it will make more room for the less wealthy)

infant mortality stats mean much more than your idle hour in the ER....

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html

making a mistake is different than to suggesting shots that are not necessary, checkups/tests that are not quite necessary. For instance they never told me that there is a 3 years rabbies shot avail for dogs until I found out about it on my own. When asked vet said 'but we recommend 1 year shots' basically so I can pay them some money every year (same price for each 1 or 3 years shot). Every fucking time I go to a vet they try to push some products to me like a pushy salesman worse than multi console trap lol, and no, I'm not the only one who feels the push, every pet owner in my community that I know has the same complaint. Few of my cousins are doctors work at Boston hosp I have lots of respect for them as we grew up together but that doesn't keep me from calling many other u.s. docs buncha assholes who try to make more & more money :2 cents: