- All Canadians and their families are eligible to the free Canadian health care
- Not all Canadians pay taxes, however, so it literally is free for those who don't (whether due to low income or no income)
- the various health systems (in my case, the Alberta Health System) then obviously pool the portion of money from taxes that they can spend on health care
- meanwhile, thousands of clinicians are hired by the government on a contractual basis to perform the needed medical treatments. Here's an issue: these contractors/doctors are paid per procedure, so they are incited to request as many tests and perform as many procedures as possible, to maximize reimbursement to them
- the health system (gov't) tries their best to anticipate the procedures that will performed in a given year, and then budget $$$ to pay for those procedures. Here's the next issue: procedures that are most publicly sensitive, gets the most dollars. So, labor & delivery and maternity are very well funded.
- But that then begs the question: what do you think isn't as well funded? So what happens there? Simply put, those procedures are very much unfunded, meaning low capacity. So even if the clinician orders a procedure or test for those medical needs, suddenly there is a long waiting time.
- Now what happens, if in Alberta for example, the economy "hits the fan". Say, oil prices crash which they did recently. Tons of people are laid off; suddenly income tax revenue hits the basement. Now there's less funding for health care--but the same health care needs exist. Do you defund labor & delivery to balance it out? Do you not? What do you think the government would decide?
- Now say you've just been laid off, or not. And you have a funny pain in your stomach; could be your kidneys, maybe not. Could be you're just out of shape, could be cancer. Who knows. Pain won't go away. You go to the emergency room (there are no urgent cares in Alberta). They take you into triage... "strange pains?", they ask... sounds like it'll be difficult to diagnose. May need a specialist. Your wait time is ___________.

- Or, you could just try googling it and DIYing it, ignoring it, or ... find a private physician with an MRI machine who will bill you directly. Yes, they exist in Canada and they are insanely expensive, obviously.

And there you have it: the Canadian Healthcare System. It was great when my daughter was born. But there was a time when I was quoted with an 8 hour waiting time in an emergency room and it struck me: "time is money". I can't afford waiting 8 hours--I have to get back to work. Who can afford this garbage healthcare system? Oh, that's right... the poor unemployed, who have all the time in the world (and who, by the way, don't pay taxes).