19 Dec 2002 | f5 said...

I can identify with your situation SU. Even during the pre-2000 hayday, my insurance didn't cover Dental. The sad thing is I KNEW it when I chipped my two front teeth in half on my kneecap snowboarding.

19 Dec 2002 | Darrel said...

It's funny. Many plans won't include dental care, but once all your teeth fall out and you need dental implant surger, THEN they cough up the dough.

19 Dec 2002 | hurley said...

Even the socialized public healthcare system here in Canada doesn't offer dental. Dental plans can be expensive, but some professional organizations offer group insurance rates. For example, I belong to the National Association of Science Writers, which offers group health insurance; not sure about dental.

By the way, the Canadian system isn't so great. Yes, I have free healthcare, but access to an actual doctor is difficult. There's a shortage of healthcare providers, the hospitals are overloaded, and no doctors in my city (Montreal) are accepting new patients. If you want a simple check-up, forget it. If you need an x-ray, you have to wait three to four months. If you need to see a doctor quickly, you go to the emergency room and wait at least four hours. At least that's been my experience. And income taxes are so high that it would actually be cheaper for me to live in the U.S. and pay Blue Cross out of my own pocket than to live here and not pay anything for health care. On the other hand, I suppose I have the moral satisfaction of living in a country where trigger-happy oilmen don't run the government.

19 Dec 2002 | indi said...

SU - don't forget vision care, blue cross/blue shield doesn't cover that either!

19 Dec 2002 | fajalar said...

Unfortunately, it seems if you want dental you have to sell your soul to a large corporation.

Good teeth = no soul.

I have excellent dental coverage (including elective cosmetic alterations (much higher copay though)). My bitch is that there is no vision coverage.

19 Dec 2002 | COD said...

Dental is usually available privately for a relative low monthly premium. I think I'm paying about $40/mo right now for family coverage via COBRA - and this is in no way a low cost plan.

19 Dec 2002 | SU said...

SU - don't forget vision care, blue cross/blue shield doesn't cover that either!

Actually, they just added that to my coverage (thankfully).

19 Dec 2002 | one of the lucky ones said...

I work for an engineering firm that pays 100% of our benefits--medical, dental, vision, prescription--through Mutual of Omaha. We have about 850 employees, most of whom are very happy.

19 Dec 2002 | ~bc said...

Let's just remember that universal health care is for communists!

And health care alone is not the reason for high income taxes in Canada, and you can easily wait 4 hours in an emergency room in the US. And you stand a good chance of simply being given the minimum legal treatment then being shown the door when you don't have proof of insurace. Good luck!

Just because some places have issues with the implementation of universal coverage, doesn't make it a bad thing. It's easy to become unemployed and lack health care. If a universal system did nothing but preventitive maintanence, it would save enormous costs in the long run. And easily one third of costs in medicine are due to the high costs of overhead in the insurance. There's two ways of reducing the costs and helping more people! Of course no one wants to think forward more than a few years or about anyone other than themselves.

19 Dec 2002 | Darrel said...

I'm not sure if it is a regional thing or not, but if you don't have dental coverage, you may want to look into CAPS. It's a system where you pay a small fee annually (under $100) and in return it 'caps' all of the costs at a standard rate...typically lower than the rate they would have charged the insurance company. We used that for a while prior to getting dental coverage.

I say all teenagers should have their teeth knocked out and replaced with stainless steel implants. I'm SURE in the long run that would save costs. No cavities, no braces, no chipped teath from hockey pucks, no dentures, plus you can safely use them for stripping electrical wiring.

20 Dec 2002 | alisha said...

That sounds typicly American.

Ive got that insurance I mentioned earlier so Im covered publicly. We can go to whomever we want, we pay nothing (except a percentage of our some prescriptions). Theres no upfront payment- you have instead, a card. We have dental coverage too - but just the basics. If you want anything fancy like white fillings instead of silver, you pay. But the privately insured are clearerly the prefered customers because doctors make 2.3% more off them. Insurance here is insanely expensive otherwise, but probably not more than in the states. And the germans insure EVERYTHING. They are completely obsessed with security and insurance, imo.

20 Dec 2002 | Paperhead said...

let's just be blunt, dentists are people who went to medical school, looked at a huge medical textbook and said: "Oh, that looks hard, just give me the page on teeth".

One of the most overpaid professions I know of, and that's the root [sorry] of the problem.

20 Dec 2002 | fajalar said...

I am getting tired of insurance.

20 Dec 2002 | Don Schenck said...

I have medical, dental and eyecare.

I pay $700 a month. Seriously.

20 Dec 2002 | Kosmo Kramer said...

Paperhead , you sir, are a rabid anti-dentite!

20 Dec 2002 | luger said...

Did you know that women account for something like 94% of all health insurance claims? I think men should have their own health insurance policies that exclude the ladies. Kind of like the Masters of health insurance.

20 Dec 2002 | Darrel said...

"Did you know that women account for something like 94% of all health insurance claims? "

Where'd you get that stat from? I suppose it COULD be true, as childbirth is DAMN expensive, and women tend to live a lot longer than the men...still that seems pretty skewed.

20 Dec 2002 | alisha said...

Women got the raw end of the stick. We have problematic plumbing, we have to give birth (on top of 9 mos. of looking and feeling like a beached whale), we have to breastfeed and were stuck with menstration for about 40 years.

"I think men should have their own health insurance policies that exclude the ladies."

Did you know that health insurance is already more expensive for women?

20 Dec 2002 | jean zaque said...

hurley, based on my experience with the cdn health care system, i have to disagree, at least in part. i lived in mtl for quite a while, and one day i came down with a NASTY infection - off to the clsc (french acronym for community health ctr), where i saw a doctor, got a prescription, and was on the road to better health in one day. all paid by ohip (ontario hospital insurance plan). in the city i'm in now, i, and most of the people i know, haven't had any problem finding doctors or getting care. over the last ten years, i've been sick a few times, and i have NEVER sat four hours in an emergency room. "if you want a simple check up, forget it." huh? things may be different in your neck of the woods, but no-one i know has voiced that complaint, as far as i can remember. the system isn't perfect, that's for sure - there are long waits for a lot of treatments - but so far it hasn't let me down . . .

20 Dec 2002 | luger said...

That figure was discussed on NPR and how differently men and women take care of themselves. Men tend to suffer things out - and which I guess expains why we die sooner.

Alisha, I thought menstruation was something to be celebrated? In Philly I lived with this lesbian couple and they would staple their used maxis to the back of the bathroom door. It was "art".

20 Dec 2002 | kev said...

all of my current problems stem from insurance. they do nothing but screw you. of course having had an employer not pay the premiums will also screw you. badly.

20 Dec 2002 | steve said...

Can't say I agree with Hurley. The main reason that you can't get in to see a doctor quickly and easily is because the doctor's association doesn't want too many doctors running around. Fewer doctors = more money and more power for established doctors. If Canada would just accredit a few more universities to turn out doctors, the doctor shortage would go away quickly enough. But that's not what the doctor association wants. Because if that happens, they'd be just like Canadian dentists: too many dentists and not enough patients.

As for waiting 4 hours in the emergency room, that's more because people with bellyaches head there instead of waiting to see their family physicians. When someone goes to emerg to get their false nails removed (don't laugh, it's happened) there's something wrong and it's not the system.

20 Dec 2002 | hurley said...

Well, I can't claim to be an expert on the Canadian healthcare system, but my girlfriend's been living here in Montreal for 15 years and she's had mostly bad experiences. It's apparently worse now than it was a few years ago; a recent survey indicates that more than 15 percent of Canadians do not have a family doctor due to the shortage.

My girlfriend had a severe gall-bladder attack a few months ago and we did have to wait 4 hours in the emergency room for a doctor to see her and give her an IV, by which time she was very dehydrated from throwing up for 8 hours. They told her then (in October) that she needed to schedule an x-ray so they could determine whether they needed to operate on her. The earliest possible date we could get for an x-ray was January 20.

She called about a dozen doctors in town, trying to get an appointment and all of them told her that nobody is accepting new patients. She did manage to see someone at the CLSC, but typically you can't get a followup appointment with the same physician so it's not an ideal situation for a chronic problem like this.

Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that the system itself is bad, it's just that it doesn't seem to be working at the moment, for whatever reasons.

21 Dec 2002 | carrot said...

My understanding of the 15% of Canadians without family doctors is that is applies to people in rural or "underserviced" areas, which is no different than the experience in the States. Doctors want to have a life too, and don't necessarily want to be the only physician in town, so they are drawn to urban areas.

I used to work in the emergency department and if all the people who came in because they have a ring stuck on their finger, an ingrown toenail, drank too much and passed out in a snowbank, shoved a container of deoderant up their ass etc., went to their family doctors or stayed home everyone else wouldn't have to wait. I don't think 4 hours is long to wait considering you need x-rays, lab work, a doctor's examination...health care shouldn't be like McDonalds where you are in and out in 15 minutes. If it truly is an emergency don't you want cursory service.

We're damn lucky to have OHIP (universal health care in Ontario) and receive not only primary medical care but also addiction treatment and rehabilitation for orthopdedic, neurological and musculoskeletal injuries available to us.

30 Dec 2002 | Allen said...

*Sigh*
My partner worked in the insurance industry for four years (still work in health care) and they are telling me that there is hardly any difference between male and female health claims per percentage of population. Women are more likely to take out health care, men are more likely to need it particularly in their younger years because they are involved in more risk-taking activities and later, they are less likely to seek treatment early (at a time when a disease can be treated more cheaply)

29 May 2003 | gomomozono said...

North americans can afford anything they want--just not everything they want. Isn't it all just a matter of priorities? Don't be surprised when the insurance company doesn't care about your health, appearance, or teeth, when you don't care enough to spend your own money to take care of yourself. There are many things that it is more fun to spend money on than health. But it is hard to think of anything more important.
Gomomozono

19 Jan 2004 | Suse said...

The content of SUSE