The Cost of "Free" Health Care in Canada

[somarco]

The woman, whose short, expletive-laced rant about the absurd wait times patients in Canada experience garnered millions of views on social media, revealed that she may have a brain tumor, but she will not know for sure until sometime next spring.

"Today on 'How F***ed is Canadian Health Care:' I need an MRI to see if I have a f***ing brain tumor," she said in the video. "Go ahead — guess when it is? Go ahead, guess. It's in 2026."

She emphasized that bombshell once more in disbelief: "My MRI — to see if I have a brain tumor — is in 2026. It's March 2025 right now."

Watch: Canadian Shows Her Copy of Deadly Piece of Paper Socialized Health Care Delivers to Some Patients

A young woman in Canada revealed that her MRI appointment is scheduled for next year, raising doubts about socialized medicine.

www.westernjournal.com

 

[sman]

Let's not forget, she already has a tumor on her spine. Makes perfect sense to wait a year to check her brain.

 

[annon123]

The woman, whose short, expletive-laced rant about the absurd wait times patients in Canada experience garnered millions of views on social media, revealed that she may have a brain tumor, but she will not know for sure until sometime next spring.

"Today on 'How F***ed is Canadian Health Care:' I need an MRI to see if I have a f***ing brain tumor," she said in the video. "Go ahead — guess when it is? Go ahead, guess. It's in 2026."

She emphasized that bombshell once more in disbelief: "My MRI — to see if I have a brain tumor — is in 2026. It's March 2025 right now."

Watch: Canadian Shows Her Copy of Deadly Piece of Paper Socialized Health Care Delivers to Some Patients

A young woman in Canada revealed that her MRI appointment is scheduled for next year, raising doubts about socialized medicine.

www.westernjournal.com

I wouldn't take that rant at face value for all care in Canada.

The question is how urgent does her doctor feel it is to get the test done? If something is not coded as urgent it can take longer. Sometimes a lot longer. Urgent situations are no worse or better than in the USA on average. Likely in this case it has been deemed not urgent despite her stating that it is (and of course it would be urgent to her because she wants answers even if her doctor doesn't think it).

Also you can get permission to have tests done in a different province if need be (care is regional - province by province).

I have used the Canadian health system when I worked in Canada in the past, I am not Canadian. For myself and the people I worked with things that were urgent seemed to be done at a speed that seemed really no different than in the USA. Now had she lived, for example, in the Yukon (she does not based on the area code on the order - she lives in Ontario somewhere), I could understand a longer wait in province simply because the population is low and the doctor population is low. Also there may be few scanners in that province.

EDIT - I found a site for Ontario that gives real time wait times for MRI's. Clearly she is a priority 4 patient. Based on the phone area code of the facility she is in the greater Toronto area.
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Ontario Health | Ontario Health
under the reporting and data tab

Target (copy/paste):

• Priority 1 patients are emergencies. They are seen immediately.
• Priority 2 patients should be seen within 2 days.
• Priority 3 patients should get their scans within 10 days
• Priority 4 patients should be seen within 28 days

Actual wait times Jan 2025 in Toronto for adults:
Priority 2: 3-6 days
Priority 3: 53-60 days
Priority 4: 89-217 days (clearly she should ask to have it done at a different facility)

So for urgent cases that is a pretty reasonable actual wait time. I had to wait longer in the USA than priority two when they knew I had cancer from a CT scan (that took 3 weeks to get) and they wanted to do a PET scan. It also took several weeks to schedule the biopsy.

 

[annon123]

Let's not forget, she already has a tumor on her spine. Makes perfect sense to wait a year to check her brain.

But likely it was a benign tumor on her spine as she did not say she had cancer. If it was cancer it wouldn't be a priority 4 for another tumor (see my post above this reply). As a result the two tumors - one they know about and one she might have - may be unrelated. Clearly she was deemed by her doctor as a priority 4 for a scan so likely he thinks it is no big deal and will most likely be benign if there even is a tumor there to begin with (that doesn't mean she won't think it is a big deal - waiting is hard). Of course he could be incompetent and a malpractice suit might be in the making...

 

[sman]

I wouldn't take that rant at face value for all care in Canada.

The question is how urgent does her doctor feel it is to get the test done? If something is not coded as urgent it can take longer. Sometimes a lot longer. Urgent situations are no worse or better than in the USA on average. Likely in this case it has been deemed not urgent despite her stating that it is (and of course it would be urgent to her because she wants answers even if her doctor doesn't think it).

Also you can get permission to have tests done in a different province if need be (care is regional - province by province).

I have used the Canadian health system when I worked in Canada in the past, I am not Canadian. For myself and the people I worked with things that were urgent seemed to be done at a speed that seemed really no different than in the USA. Now had she lived, for example, in the Yukon (she does not based on the area code on the order - she lives in Ontario somewhere), I could understand a longer wait in province simply because the population is low and the doctor population is low. Also there may be few scanners in that province.

EDIT - I found a site for Ontario that gives real time wait times for MRI's. Clearly she is a priority 4 patient. Based on the phone area code of the facility she is in the greater Toronto area.
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Ontario Health | Ontario Health
under the reporting and data tab

Target (copy/paste):

• Priority 1 patients are emergencies. They are seen immediately.
• Priority 2 patients should be seen within 2 days.
• Priority 3 patients should get their scans within 10 days
• Priority 4 patients should be seen within 28 days

Actual wait times Jan 2025 in Toronto for adults:
Priority 2: 3-6 days
Priority 3: 53-60 days
Priority 4: 89-217 days (clearly she should ask to have it done at a different facility)

So for urgent cases that is a pretty reasonable actual wait time. I had to wait longer in the USA than priority two when they knew I had cancer from a CT scan (that took 3 weeks to get) and they wanted to do a PET scan. It also took several weeks to schedule the biopsy.

I had to get an MRI on my wrist last year. I called on a Friday and she said I could come later that day at a different location. I preferred the closer location so I went two days later (yes, on a Sunday).

I have a client who is Canadian, but been in the states for two plus decades. She said her daughter still lives in Canada. She was recently told she no longer has a PCP because she's relatively healthy. She had a need to see a doctor. Couldn't make an appointment so had to show up. She got there at 7 am, and if memory serves, she was 70+ in line. Had to come back the next day and wait most of the day to be seen.

I know you like to defend their system, but there are clearly wait issues.

 

[annon123]

I had to get an MRI on my wrist last year. I called on a Friday and she said I could come later that day at a different location. I preferred the closer location so I went two days later (yes, on a Sunday).

I have a client who is Canadian, but been in the states for two plus decades. She said her daughter still lives in Canada. She was recently told she no longer has a PCP because she's relatively healthy. She had a need to see a doctor. Couldn't make an appointment so had to show up. She got there at 7 am, and if memory serves, she was 70+ in line. Had to come back the next day and wait most of the day to be seen.

I know you like to defend their system, but there are clearly wait issues.

If I lived in a different part of the USA that had better health care I'd suspect my waits would be shorter as well (more like your's).

Articles I have read state that there are far fewer doctors (as well as scanners) per patients in Canada than in the USA and that is behind most of the longer waits (not that the longer waits are due to universal health care). Why there are fewer doctors in Canada I have no idea, the pay isn't all that much lower than here, especially when cost of living is factored into it (unlike the UK where it is substantially lower).

Here we'd have even more doctors here if we had more residency slots (those are largely funded by the federal government) as there are a number of doctors who graduate from medical school and then can't get a residency which makes no sense. Most first world nations are headed into trouble as there is such a high percentage of doctors that are boomers close to retirement or are already retired. I'd suspect wait times will increase here (and in other developed nations with the same post WW2 population boom) as more boomers retire. Yes there are more medical school slots in the USA but the residency slots in the USA have not expanded at the same pace. And the population is growing. And seniors usually need more health care visits than younger patients so demand will rise for several reasons.

Where I live many people have NP's as their PCP because there are not enough PCP physicians. Also here to get same day "service" you mostly have to go to urgent care rather than your PCP's office or realize you will see a NP rather than a PCP as the NP handles all the need a sooner apt cases. I am lucky in that my PCP, unlike many practices, reserves a few appointments each day for urgent cases (rather than rely on NP's for that) but even then when I was sick earlier this year with what turned out to be atypical pneumonia I had to get a next day apt as he was full (that practice has no NP's or PA's and doesn't want any).

There probably are no easy solutions to the problems in the USA or in Canada, but with how medical debt trashed my life and finances (no medicaid expansion in this state and I was unable to bail to a state that had expanded it for reasons not worth going into here) I'd prefer the Canadian system because I'd have had no medical debt and my life would be very different than it is now. That, for me, is the big reason.

 

[rousemark]

Let's not forget, she already has a tumor on her spine. Makes perfect sense to wait a year to check her brain.

Until you are the one with the tumor.

 

[sman]

Until you are the one with the tumor.

I hope you realize there was heavy sarcasm in my post

 

[somarco]

I wouldn't take that rant at face value for all care in Canada.

My understanding is that Canada, and other countries with government run health care, do a pretty good job with primary care that is not life threatening.

The queue problem is for more serious care . . .

https://www.cma.ca/healthcare-for-real/why-are-er-times-so-long-canada

They also have the challenge of sparsely populated areas where access to critical care is limited.

Universal health care does not mean there are no barriers. Health care everywhere is rationed. Sometimes the barrier is an affordability issue, other times the barrier is a long wait time.

Just because the patient is not expected to PAY for care does not equate to ready access.

They pay with their money or pay with delayed health care.

 

[sman]

My understanding is that Canada, and other countries with government run health care, do a pretty good job with primary care that is not life threatening.

The queue problem is for more serious care . . .

https://www.cma.ca/healthcare-for-real/why-are-er-times-so-long-canada

They also have the challenge of sparsely populated areas where access to critical care is limited.

Universal health care does not mean there are no barriers. Health care everywhere is rationed. Sometimes the barrier is an affordability issue, other times the barrier is a long wait time.

Just because the patient is not expected to PAY for care does not equate to ready access.

They pay with their money or pay with delayed health care.

To be fair, in many cases, those with government run healthcare pay with their money in the form of higher taxes AND with delayed health care. And I know you know this, but just because they don't stroke a check for a monthly premium or pay when they get care doesn't mean they aren't paying.