Comment by pjc50
8 days ago
> it's illegal to take private insurance if you also take public insurance.
This seems like an odd excluded middle. In the UK, you can have private health insurance if you want, but you can always fall back on the NHS; the one wrinkle is that you may not always be able to take a prescription from the private to the public system without getting re-evaluated. (e.g for ADHD)
> which public healthcare doesn't provide
== taxpayers aren't willing to pay for.
It's a slippery slope and we really don't want a 2 class system. If you start allowing doctors to bill for things that public insurance covers, you're 30 seconds away from a losing the egalitarianism that Canadians value. You can pay out of pocket for whatever you want, you can tell the doctor not to bill any insurance, and in some clinics (in my experience not many) that will get you seen faster, but it's not really common and it's very expensive.
Drugs aren't considered healthcare for whatever reason. If I got an ADHD pill in a hospital that's free, but if I wanted to get the same at an outpatient pharmacy it'll cost money in most cases.
Ditto for dental.
So while there isn't any overlap between public and private, there's still a gap. Though our drugs cost 10% of American prices.