Low Cost Health Insurance Canada

Low Cost Health Insurance Canada

Most health insurance in Canada is administered by each of the provinces under the national law that requires all people to have free access to basic health services. Collectively, the public provincial health insurance systems in Canada are called Medicare. Private health insurance in Canada cannot cover the same services provided by the universal Medicare services paid by the government. Private health insurance in Canada is allowed only for services the public health plans do not cover; for example, semi-private or private rooms in hospitals and prescription drug plans. Canadians also must use private insurance for medical services such as Lasik surgery, plastic surgery such as liposuction, and other non-basic medical procedures. Private health care cannot cover physician fees which are covered by Medicare. Private sector services not paid for by the government accounted for nearly 30 percent of total health care spending [Canadian Institute for Health Information: National Health Expenditure Trends, 1975-2003 (2003)].

In 2005, the Supreme Court of Quebec ruled, in Chaoulli v. Quebec, that the prohibition on insurance for health care already insured by the state constitutes an infringement of the right to life and security. It is yet to be seen if this ruling will change the overall delivery of health insurance across Canada.

Insurance Waiting Lists and Comparisons to US Health Care
Waiting lists in Canada are essentially different for each hospital system. There is no true system-wide average wait time, as wait times change on a daily basis as patients come in to receive services, and waiting lists are different for each hospital. A Canadian patient has the choice to visit a different hospital system if the primary care they received at the original hospital is found to be unacceptable. For example: If hospital A has a waiting list of five weeks for a surgery, the patient can go to hospital B that may have no waiting list at all. It is important to note that only elective surgeries, such as hip replacement, have waits associated with them. Emergency procedures are performed as soon as medically necessary, based on doctor opinion. This triage system is essentially the same as used in American hospitals where PPO, POS, and HMO managed-care plans may schedule elective surgeries several weeks or months out, but emergency procedures are carried out as soon as medically necessary based on doctor opinion. The American and Canadian systems are more similar than many people realize, and in effect only different in how the majority of insurance claims are paid.

Both the Canadian and American health systems are undergoing major debate for each respective system in order to get more access to health care for the people who need it, in order to lower mortality rates. Each system has unique problems that need attention, mostly dealing with funding and insurance issues.

Canada has a slightly lower mortality rate on average, particularly when involving HIV mortality. The US rate for HIV mortality is approximately 4x higher; however, there are not 4x more HIV cases per capita in the United States.