My big beef with the Canadian system is diagnostic services. We seem to do fairly well once doctors know exactly what is wrong and access to service isn't that bad once they know you have cancer, or other serious health conditions. But the amount of time waiting to determine these things is detremental to your health. In reality what do you want government health insurance for? For the $50 GP visit? $600 MRI? or the $120,000 Treatment for a serious illness? I'd take a service that covers the treatments and makes me pay for the rest. It's really the small stuff that costs the provinces the most amount of money because we have mandated that everything be publically funded. I know there are people out there that can't afford the small stuff and there should be assistance for them too but for the majority of us a GP visit and an MRI are not going to bankrupt us should we need it. If it makes the system more workable for the serious stuff then why not de-list Diagnostics and General Practice? This would go a long ways for retaining doctors too. Especially in Calgary where GP's are seeing their costs go up by 10% a year while the government mandated charge out rate only goes up by 3-4% a year. It's no wonder all of our doctors are getting into plastic surgery or leaving the country.
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