this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
289 points (98.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

40046 readers
1123 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

As an American I'm curious what it's like if you need to go to the doctor and how much you pay from say a broken arm to general checkup. Also list what country please

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Canadian. The hospitals are overcrowded and can be a bit dirty, but the quality of care is good and the staff do their best. The biggest problem is wait times, which is typically many hours. No hospital bills, though. A previous Liberal government partially implemented universal pharmacare, but it's still only in its first phase and only applies to insulin and a few other things. I don't expect that it will progress past phase 1.

Universal healthcare is popular enough that they can't just abolish it, but right wing provincial governments (healthcare is administered at the provincial level) continually underfund and mismanage it with the hopes of replacing it with a private, for-profit system. The idea is to degrade the system enough to convince the population that fully public healthcare is untenable, and that private options are needed to take some of the load off of the public system. Then, with its replacement in place, the public system can be defunded at an accelerated rate and eventually fully privatized. This demonstrates that social democracy is untenable, and that a dictatorship of the proletariat is needed to protect the gains of the working class.

[–] jaxxed@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Having been in hospitals in at least 4 countries, 3 w/ national coverage, at least three across Canada - they are quite clean and well maintained in Canada.

[–] GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I guess it depends on the hospital and how busy it is. Last one I was in had puke in the sink in the examination room.

[–] jaxxed@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

This is of course not a problem with universal healthcare in general, it just reflects the mismanagement and poor funding by the right wing provincial government and the general unravelling of society.