ellen teapot 🏳️‍⚧️

As an American whose life has been saved by US public healthcare more than once, and now enjoys the privileges of Canada’s universal healthcare system…

You really, really, really do not want Canada’s per-capita level of healthcare spending under a universal system. The benchmark should be Tri-Care.

Apr 28, 2024 at 3:39pmIvory for iOS
Show threadellen teapot 🏳️‍⚧️Apr 28, 2024
Canadian progressives are fighting to *increase* our per-capita healthcare spending, and for good reason. We can’t keep emergency rooms open in public hospitals serving increasingly less-rural areas. Guaranteed dental care for our children and seniors was just introduced this year.
Show threadBen LangmuirApr 28, 2024
@asmallteapot Wikipedia suggests US DOD healthcare costs about $5400 per person covered (didn’t find numbers for just tricare’s part of that total). Adding in their portion of Medicare spending brings that to about USD $8300, if I did the math right. That’s more than the CAD $8500 per capita that Canadians spend. Is the idea Canadians are underfunding their healthcare system? It wasn’t obvious to me what you were suggesting by the comparison
Show threadellen teapot 🏳️‍⚧️Apr 28, 2024
@bdwl Yes, we are absolutely not spending enough per capita. https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/07/20/BC-Emergency-Room-Crisis/
BC’s Rural Emergency Room Crisis | The Tyee

Data shows a spike in locked doors, with some Vancouver Island health centres closing dozens of times in 2022.

The Tyee
Show threadBen LangmuirApr 28, 2024
@asmallteapot yeah been hearing horror stories about emergency care in Ontario as well 😞 In that case it feels there’s a certain willfulness by the conservative government to create a failure of the public system. Not sure what the dynamic is like in BC
Show threadellen teapot 🏳️‍⚧️Apr 28, 2024
@bdwl We have a majority-NDP government that’s likely cruising to re-election. They are technically trying to improve things but not doing nearly enough