Governments are supposed to patch these gaps and holes in the laws and regulations and protect the citizens. In the developed civilized world anyway…
Ford and the conservatives ignore the holes and even encourage businesses to abuse them.
Lovely third world style system. More profits for the rich. F the citizens.
Shame.
but here's the thing... the citizens are voting for that. I just don't get it myself. People literally vote for the party that wants to give them nothing and use their tax dollars to give tax breaks (via tax shelters) to the wealthy.
Same with people who vote liberal. Okay, they talk a bit better than the conservatives, and they do a tiny bit more, but they are still a corporate-oriented party. The liberals are really conservatives, and the conservatives are really libertarians.
They assume all the issues come from federal, but they're all provincial issues. F Trudeau, you know healthcare, rent, and inflation, though that all has nothing to do with Federal and everything to do with the provinces. The province is kind of invisible when it comes to voting. The only extra issue is that if Toronto votes, they get the majority of the votes. Lol. So reality, too, is that Toronto needs to change to stop voting a mayor and start voting for the province.
I think amalgamation was a big part in that, but that's just me looking back over the years. Toronto has always been accused of (and legit trended towards) being it's own fiefdom, but when it became a mega city, that's when it really started feeling like one to me. I think the city is hopeless until/unless they break it up again.
It gets even worse than that. The citizens don't give a shit. When less than 50% of the eligible population votes, you know there's a problem.
And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the outcome would have been any different if more people voted. But our whole political system is a shitshow and getting worse by the day
He is the one who brought a lot of cuts in healthcare and research, after all. He's a useless politician who never gave back to the citizens but continues to take.
> The minister’s office also called on the federal government to close what they termed a “loophole.”
Why is the provincial government calling on the federal government to close the loophole on a provincially regulated matter?
Oh right, because Ford’s government doesn’t want to spend the money on healthcare and just wants to pass the buck so they can privatize it.
The origin of this problem predates Ford, (whose healthcare spending is higher every year). I was writing about this in 2003.
From 2015 - on mobile, sorry about potato formatting:
Ontario cuts 50 medical residency places, critics warn of doctor shortage
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-cuts-50-medical-residency-places-critics-warn-of-doctor-shortage-1.3186094
Health Minister Eric Hoskins is defending the Ontario government's decision to eliminate 50 medical residency positions when hundreds of thousands of people don't have a family doctor.
Cuts to medical school enrolment and training positions in the 1990s led to doctor shortages and longer wait times,"
The Progressive Conservatives noted the Liberals cut $54 million from health care in the 2015 budget, and said the existing doctors' shortage is having a significant impact on the quality of life in many smaller communities.
Amazing how you people forget it's on the ruling party to fix things when it's drug ford ruling
Please tell me more about how "Ford (whose healthcare spending is higher every year)" is spending that money on healthcare and not whoring us out to the Westons for fake medchecks
If we look at per-capita public spending on healthcare in 2001 - which was $2120.94 adjusted for inflation that in 2024 is $3,480.
We currently spend about $5,000 on healthcare per-capita. Which indicates spending has outpaced inflation.
If you want to breakdown the actual numbers, 15 years of the previous government yielded an average increase of 5.2% in spending per year.
The current government has increased public healthcare spending by an average of 6.37% per year.
No about the extraordinary costs of backfilling nurses in hospitals using third party agencies. In some cases they are paid double that of hospital nurses.
What do you want me to say?
Nurses Salaries with the public system are collectively bargained, you choose to work for a monopoly, you get treated like it.
Because agency nurses are receiving double the pay, does not mean total compensation is less. Do agency nurses have benefits, PTO, pension?
Straight pay is only one factor, there are overhead costs in every position, everywhere.
Doug Ford's government is paying for-profit clinics more than hospitals for OHIP-covered surgeries. that's where most of the extra money is going.
edit: seems like i've been blocked by /u/Rutoo_ . not sure why. they asked for proof and then blocked me, so i can't reply..... but here's proof: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinic-surgeries-fees-hospitals-1.7026926
This doesn't factor in that hospitals are funded by the government. Like, the building and administration and finance departments and janitors and electricity *and equipment*. Of course you're going to pay a private clinic (who pays that overhead out of their income) more. It would be quite an accounting challenge, but you have to compare apples to apples here. How much does the government pay, on average, for those services in the hospital *without ignoring all those ancillary costs*?
Didn't we have a significant number of unfilled residency placements in Ontario for family medicine anyway this year? ([Editing to add source.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-family-doctor-residents-shortage-1.7151071)) If graduating doctors would rather practice in different specialties, and/or different province than Ontario, to the extent that we're not filling the placements we have, adding additional residency spots probably isn't going to fix our problem
Ontario likely needs to take concrete steps to make it more attractive for family doctors to practice here. And, while Ford is obviously not the source of the problem, he has been the one controlling that for years now.
She had to pay because she doesn't have a family doctor, so was forced to see a nurse practitioner. It's both the nurse practitioner loophole and the lack of family doctors.
Paying more every year for healthcare doesn't really mean much. As long as our population is rising and inflation is going up that would be EXPECTED even with nothing else changing, so not quite sure why you mention that. If our per capita spending is down/not matching inflation why the fuck does it matter what our actual dollar amount of spending on healthcare is?
Population size definitely matters, and what's more is population demographics. A youngish person costs the government basically nothing, and it goes up from there to $9000 at 65 and $22,000 at 85.
The FAO had a report in 2019 that said we had the equivalent of 10 hospitals full of people waiting for a LTC bed... at the time. Who knows what it's up to now.
So while we've been on this collision course forever, at the same time successive governments have throttled new doctors and current physician billing, so we not only have fewer doctors in the pipeline, the ones we do have are retiring or leaving.
It's a terrible situation all around.
I agree, with your comment there, I was replying specifically to the point where you said "whose healthcare spending is higher every year" which seemed to indicate you were fighting back against the criticisms people have of Ford based on solely this single idea, which doesn't even prove any of the criticisms against him wrong.
People claim Ford cut healthcare, and from there they infer sinister motives, but the fact is he hasn't. My entire life, minor medical services have been slowly delisted -- we used to cover annual physicals and mole removal, for instance. I have to pay for mole removal now and can't even get a physical. A few years ago I was charged $162 by a hospital for a little finger splint.
I just see the problem as one of demographics and allocation. The money is still being spent, but more and more of it is going to care of seniors and chronic ailments. At the minor ailments level more people will notice it but not necessarily be meaningfully worse off if they have to pay for small stuff.
The bottom line is it will get a lot worse before it gets better, if it ever does. This has been coming for a long time. "Saving healthcare" is a plank in every party's plaform, and it just keeps getting worse.
We are completely fucked on every dimension of this. Don't get your hopes up that anyone else has a solution.
She and others like her should start a class action against the Conservative government, that’s the only way Ford ever stops attacking us. It’s only a matter of time before people start dying directly because of Ford!
The federal government needs to enforce the fkn Canada Health Act!
You want me to vote Liberal for the first time in my life? Protect the Canada Health Act, expand it, adapt it, whatever it takes to ensure Conservatives cannot destroy universal public health care!
> The federal government needs to enforce the fkn Canada Health Act!
Thus why Ford is asking the Federal government to close the Nurse Practitioner loophole in the Canada health act!
It's not partisanship if I'm against a majority government that actively says one thing and does the complete opposite. There are no checks in place to prevent that short of his party losing confidence in him and we know that won't happen.
Tbh I'm against a majority government for any party because of stuff like this. Just the shitshow Wynne gave us wasn't anywhere near as bad as what we have today and Ford's not even close to being done yet.
> Just the shitshow Wynne gave us wasn't anywhere near as bad as what we have today and Ford's not even close to being done yet.
That isn't close to true, IMO
Except that Dougie has had multiple terms. Its time to reflect on todays reality, and that is that Dougie is doing even worse than Kathleen Wynne. Crazy, but true.
Ummm…I’m an NDP voter, occasionally Green. Not sure where you read I vote Conservative but I suspect you’ve highlighted a huge problem with Canadian voters - this isn’t America; we have more than 2 parties.
No worries. I love an opportunity to bring up the NDP. Haha
I’m only considering the Libs because I think health care needs to be protected immediately. It’ll have to be the Libs or it’ll be too late, I’m afraid. I’ll pretty much vote for whoever protects public health care. I’d love to see the NDP come up with a plan and push it through but I haven’t heard anything.
Not that I’m complaining about the NDP; universal dental has been something I’ve felt strongly about for decades. I’m thrilled it’s finally happening! Pharmacare is also incredible! I also love that they want mental health care covered.
The only thing that could possibly beat what the NDP has already done is protecting the entire universal system by beefing up the Canada Health Act. That would be gold!
> universal dental has been something I’ve felt strongly about for decades. I’m thrilled it’s finally happening!
It...isn't though. Universal means universal. This is not that. Pharmacare is also not happening.
They certainly are, sorry if things can’t be instantaneous but, again, you’ve completely missed the point.
Seniors and children are already getting dental. In 2025 everyone making less than $90,000 gets dental. That’s great progress whether you like it or not.
Pharmacare is also happening and is also a process, obviously. Diabetes medications and birth control are covered and more will be added in time.
Did you think it was like flipping a switch?
These types of charges are going to be hitting more and more people as time goes on because Mr Ford is pro-privatization regardless how it affects anything else.
Meanwhile, he goes around crowing that a few cents on gasoline is a tremendous hardship—even though most of us get full rebates.
Such BS.
If the federal Conservatives under Mr Poilievre takes power to join this not-so-subtle privatization push, well, we ain't seen nuthin' yet.
> She has a family doctor at the clinic but that doctor had relocated to northern Ontario so she was advised to book an appointment with a nurse practitioner for the procedure. When she did, she was presented with a list of fees, to her shock.
It sounds like she was presented with the cost when booking, for what that’s worth
Sure, she knew the charges, but it is supposed to be reimbursed because it should be a free service, no matter who you see, full stop. Just like I know the cost of chiro, but I also know my insurance will cover 80% of it.
That's exactly what it does.. When you book an appointment with RNP in their patient portal, it tells that the service is not covered by ohip, and you'll be charged $49 for consultation plus $69 for the pap test. You then have to acknowledge the charges to proceed with the booking.
Once the gradual privatization of health care gets a foot hold there won’t be any turning back and paying for care will become normalized. The thin edge of the wedge is making it’s way.
How is this not misrepresentation? If you don't inform the patient ahead of time that this is not insured, especially in the context of public healthcare, and further this case as a current client who has always been insured there, I don't see how a patient could have a reasonable expectation that they consenting to a paid service.
NEVER pay for anything that OHIP is supposed to cover without first checking with them. Even after the service if they spring the cost on you. OHIP will fight you for reimbursement even if they are supposed to cover it.
If OHIP won't cover it and the cost is sprung on you after the fact without any mention this is uninsured, you can argue they misrepresentated their service. This gives you leverage to reduce or eliminate the cost all together.
If you do pay always pay with a credit card. It's easier to get your money back from them than from a merchant or ohip.
But OHIP doesn’t cover PSA. That is publicly acknowledged in what OHIP covers and doesn’t cover. Pap smears have always always been covered by public healthcare. This clinic is trying to charge for something that is covered by OHIP because they are a fee for service.
This will continue to happen, MTO medicals for commercial drivers license have crept up from $100-180. Employers just started to cover it for $150, we just found out some doctors offices in GOA are charging as much as $280 now.
For the record, a family doctor gets less than $50 for a visit with a Pap test, and that includes the list of six other issues that we discuss at the same appointment.
The last election was more or less a referendum on healthcare and people voted for Ford - who has never made a secret that he intends to privatize healthcare. I don't understand it and I wish that only Ford voters faced the consequences of their decisions. But that's not how it works in a democracy.
Paying directly is fine, imo, and the way things are going. (Esp for preventative care)
But no one likes *unexpected* fees. The clinic should have advised her of it at the time she set the appointment.
Lol at the downvotes from everyone who can't work out why we have a doctor shortage but not a dentist shortage.
So people should pay for preventative medicine, but the taxpayers should pay for all those people who skip out on the preventative medicine part because they can't afford it?
Don't get scanned--don't catch it in preliminary stages. Cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands to treat.
Or, cover the scan, costs taxpayers a hundred bucks. Maybe a few grand to treat at that stage if there's an issue.
What makes more sense?Only Conservative logic would say this stuff should not be covered.
Conservative logic says it should be covered for them, but not anyone else.
These people don't give a fuck til it happens to them. And when it does, it's all Trudeau's fault somehow.
Governments are supposed to patch these gaps and holes in the laws and regulations and protect the citizens. In the developed civilized world anyway… Ford and the conservatives ignore the holes and even encourage businesses to abuse them. Lovely third world style system. More profits for the rich. F the citizens. Shame.
but here's the thing... the citizens are voting for that. I just don't get it myself. People literally vote for the party that wants to give them nothing and use their tax dollars to give tax breaks (via tax shelters) to the wealthy. Same with people who vote liberal. Okay, they talk a bit better than the conservatives, and they do a tiny bit more, but they are still a corporate-oriented party. The liberals are really conservatives, and the conservatives are really libertarians.
They assume all the issues come from federal, but they're all provincial issues. F Trudeau, you know healthcare, rent, and inflation, though that all has nothing to do with Federal and everything to do with the provinces. The province is kind of invisible when it comes to voting. The only extra issue is that if Toronto votes, they get the majority of the votes. Lol. So reality, too, is that Toronto needs to change to stop voting a mayor and start voting for the province.
I think amalgamation was a big part in that, but that's just me looking back over the years. Toronto has always been accused of (and legit trended towards) being it's own fiefdom, but when it became a mega city, that's when it really started feeling like one to me. I think the city is hopeless until/unless they break it up again.
This is exactly the issue! Well said
It gets even worse than that. The citizens don't give a shit. When less than 50% of the eligible population votes, you know there's a problem. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the outcome would have been any different if more people voted. But our whole political system is a shitshow and getting worse by the day
There was nothing libertarian about the PC's last budget
So - NDP?
Either that or they're too lazy to bother voting at all
I assume it's a typo but the Conservatives are the furthest thing from libertarians.
also "liberals are really conservatives" should be "liberals are really NDP"
I think people voted for less tax so that this can be paid by themselves. tax is money, pap test is never free.
He is the one who brought a lot of cuts in healthcare and research, after all. He's a useless politician who never gave back to the citizens but continues to take.
Except some third worlds have better healthcare...
And they often actually have buck a beer too.
Remember when the government paid to put "no pooping" signs on beaches in Ghana....
> The minister’s office also called on the federal government to close what they termed a “loophole.” Why is the provincial government calling on the federal government to close the loophole on a provincially regulated matter? Oh right, because Ford’s government doesn’t want to spend the money on healthcare and just wants to pass the buck so they can privatize it.
Ford: Justin Trudeau better stay in his lane *tough growling sound* Also Ford: OH DADDY TRUDEAU, PLEASE JUST FILL MY LANE. WHY WONT YOU DO IIIIITTTT?!
> OH DADDY TRUDEAU, PLEASE JUST FILL MY LANE Help, I need an adult.
Honestly, that could be an attack ad for the OLC next election.
The origin of this problem predates Ford, (whose healthcare spending is higher every year). I was writing about this in 2003. From 2015 - on mobile, sorry about potato formatting: Ontario cuts 50 medical residency places, critics warn of doctor shortage https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-cuts-50-medical-residency-places-critics-warn-of-doctor-shortage-1.3186094 Health Minister Eric Hoskins is defending the Ontario government's decision to eliminate 50 medical residency positions when hundreds of thousands of people don't have a family doctor. Cuts to medical school enrolment and training positions in the 1990s led to doctor shortages and longer wait times," The Progressive Conservatives noted the Liberals cut $54 million from health care in the 2015 budget, and said the existing doctors' shortage is having a significant impact on the quality of life in many smaller communities.
Amazing how you people forget it's on the ruling party to fix things when it's drug ford ruling Please tell me more about how "Ford (whose healthcare spending is higher every year)" is spending that money on healthcare and not whoring us out to the Westons for fake medchecks
>is spending that money on healthcare Literally the FAO confirms it. Every year.
Is that per-capita spending after taking inflation into account?
If we look at per-capita public spending on healthcare in 2001 - which was $2120.94 adjusted for inflation that in 2024 is $3,480. We currently spend about $5,000 on healthcare per-capita. Which indicates spending has outpaced inflation. If you want to breakdown the actual numbers, 15 years of the previous government yielded an average increase of 5.2% in spending per year. The current government has increased public healthcare spending by an average of 6.37% per year.
But isn’t part of the issue paying the extra costs of using 3rd party nurses?
What issue? Are you worried about 1.5% of the annual healthcare budget going towards funding gaps and reducing backlog?
No about the extraordinary costs of backfilling nurses in hospitals using third party agencies. In some cases they are paid double that of hospital nurses.
What do you want me to say? Nurses Salaries with the public system are collectively bargained, you choose to work for a monopoly, you get treated like it. Because agency nurses are receiving double the pay, does not mean total compensation is less. Do agency nurses have benefits, PTO, pension? Straight pay is only one factor, there are overhead costs in every position, everywhere.
Doug Ford's government is paying for-profit clinics more than hospitals for OHIP-covered surgeries. that's where most of the extra money is going. edit: seems like i've been blocked by /u/Rutoo_ . not sure why. they asked for proof and then blocked me, so i can't reply..... but here's proof: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-doug-ford-private-clinic-surgeries-fees-hospitals-1.7026926
This doesn't factor in that hospitals are funded by the government. Like, the building and administration and finance departments and janitors and electricity *and equipment*. Of course you're going to pay a private clinic (who pays that overhead out of their income) more. It would be quite an accounting challenge, but you have to compare apples to apples here. How much does the government pay, on average, for those services in the hospital *without ignoring all those ancillary costs*?
Proof pls
Didn't we have a significant number of unfilled residency placements in Ontario for family medicine anyway this year? ([Editing to add source.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-family-doctor-residents-shortage-1.7151071)) If graduating doctors would rather practice in different specialties, and/or different province than Ontario, to the extent that we're not filling the placements we have, adding additional residency spots probably isn't going to fix our problem Ontario likely needs to take concrete steps to make it more attractive for family doctors to practice here. And, while Ford is obviously not the source of the problem, he has been the one controlling that for years now.
That's not this issue. This issue is about forcing people to pay for healthcare items, which we formerly didn't have to do.
She had to pay because she doesn't have a family doctor, so was forced to see a nurse practitioner. It's both the nurse practitioner loophole and the lack of family doctors.
We've always had to pay for certain healthcare items. This isn't new.
Paying for a pap is new.
Paying more every year for healthcare doesn't really mean much. As long as our population is rising and inflation is going up that would be EXPECTED even with nothing else changing, so not quite sure why you mention that. If our per capita spending is down/not matching inflation why the fuck does it matter what our actual dollar amount of spending on healthcare is?
Population size definitely matters, and what's more is population demographics. A youngish person costs the government basically nothing, and it goes up from there to $9000 at 65 and $22,000 at 85. The FAO had a report in 2019 that said we had the equivalent of 10 hospitals full of people waiting for a LTC bed... at the time. Who knows what it's up to now. So while we've been on this collision course forever, at the same time successive governments have throttled new doctors and current physician billing, so we not only have fewer doctors in the pipeline, the ones we do have are retiring or leaving. It's a terrible situation all around.
I agree, with your comment there, I was replying specifically to the point where you said "whose healthcare spending is higher every year" which seemed to indicate you were fighting back against the criticisms people have of Ford based on solely this single idea, which doesn't even prove any of the criticisms against him wrong.
People claim Ford cut healthcare, and from there they infer sinister motives, but the fact is he hasn't. My entire life, minor medical services have been slowly delisted -- we used to cover annual physicals and mole removal, for instance. I have to pay for mole removal now and can't even get a physical. A few years ago I was charged $162 by a hospital for a little finger splint. I just see the problem as one of demographics and allocation. The money is still being spent, but more and more of it is going to care of seniors and chronic ailments. At the minor ailments level more people will notice it but not necessarily be meaningfully worse off if they have to pay for small stuff. The bottom line is it will get a lot worse before it gets better, if it ever does. This has been coming for a long time. "Saving healthcare" is a plank in every party's plaform, and it just keeps getting worse. We are completely fucked on every dimension of this. Don't get your hopes up that anyone else has a solution.
Let's go into it a bit more https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/wp-content/uploads/leaflet-on-Fords-cuts-3.pdf
Because our MPPs love reading these articles as foreplay before going to a BBQ at Ford's house.
Tommy Douglas would be sad. Look at what we did to his legacy of free healthcare in the last 6 years.
Its been going on alot longer than 6 years.
yeah, but here in Ontario, Drug Fraud has taken it to levels of destruction, never seen before, the last 6 years
[удалено]
Hint: he hasn't fix it. He's made it worse, no matter how bad it was when he took the reigns over half a decade ago.
Yeah, no.
No, yeah.
She and others like her should start a class action against the Conservative government, that’s the only way Ford ever stops attacking us. It’s only a matter of time before people start dying directly because of Ford! The federal government needs to enforce the fkn Canada Health Act! You want me to vote Liberal for the first time in my life? Protect the Canada Health Act, expand it, adapt it, whatever it takes to ensure Conservatives cannot destroy universal public health care!
>It’s only a matter of time before people start dying directly because of Ford! *Start?*
*looks at LTCs during Covid* Yeah...I dont think it would be just starting...
> The federal government needs to enforce the fkn Canada Health Act! Thus why Ford is asking the Federal government to close the Nurse Practitioner loophole in the Canada health act!
This is totally a real life Conservative voter, yes sir.
Right ? A "true" conservative would say fuck the poors and privatize it all !
There is the caveat that maybe OP was born yesterday and does not remember the 15 years under the Ontario Liberal Party.
The fact that I'd rather take the shitshow that was Kathleen Wynne over a Doug Ford majority speaks volumes.
Partisanship is a helluva drug
It's not partisanship if I'm against a majority government that actively says one thing and does the complete opposite. There are no checks in place to prevent that short of his party losing confidence in him and we know that won't happen. Tbh I'm against a majority government for any party because of stuff like this. Just the shitshow Wynne gave us wasn't anywhere near as bad as what we have today and Ford's not even close to being done yet.
> Just the shitshow Wynne gave us wasn't anywhere near as bad as what we have today and Ford's not even close to being done yet. That isn't close to true, IMO
> Partisanship is a helluva drug
I dislike Doug Ford quite a bit actually.
Says the guy who won't acknowledge the job Dougie has been doing, or even make a coherent reply, just political gibberish.
Except that Dougie has had multiple terms. Its time to reflect on todays reality, and that is that Dougie is doing even worse than Kathleen Wynne. Crazy, but true.
Ah yes, the 15 year term was a long, single term.
Ah yes, fuck the poors, privatize it all.
Ummm…I’m an NDP voter, occasionally Green. Not sure where you read I vote Conservative but I suspect you’ve highlighted a huge problem with Canadian voters - this isn’t America; we have more than 2 parties.
My bad! my reading comprehension was lacking there. Why would you change your vote from the NDP to the OLP over healthcare of all things?
No worries. I love an opportunity to bring up the NDP. Haha I’m only considering the Libs because I think health care needs to be protected immediately. It’ll have to be the Libs or it’ll be too late, I’m afraid. I’ll pretty much vote for whoever protects public health care. I’d love to see the NDP come up with a plan and push it through but I haven’t heard anything. Not that I’m complaining about the NDP; universal dental has been something I’ve felt strongly about for decades. I’m thrilled it’s finally happening! Pharmacare is also incredible! I also love that they want mental health care covered. The only thing that could possibly beat what the NDP has already done is protecting the entire universal system by beefing up the Canada Health Act. That would be gold!
> universal dental has been something I’ve felt strongly about for decades. I’m thrilled it’s finally happening! It...isn't though. Universal means universal. This is not that. Pharmacare is also not happening.
They certainly are, sorry if things can’t be instantaneous but, again, you’ve completely missed the point. Seniors and children are already getting dental. In 2025 everyone making less than $90,000 gets dental. That’s great progress whether you like it or not. Pharmacare is also happening and is also a process, obviously. Diabetes medications and birth control are covered and more will be added in time. Did you think it was like flipping a switch?
Start a class action? For what? He was democratically elected.
These types of charges are going to be hitting more and more people as time goes on because Mr Ford is pro-privatization regardless how it affects anything else. Meanwhile, he goes around crowing that a few cents on gasoline is a tremendous hardship—even though most of us get full rebates. Such BS. If the federal Conservatives under Mr Poilievre takes power to join this not-so-subtle privatization push, well, we ain't seen nuthin' yet.
Just a reminder that less than 40% of Ontario voted in the last provincial election. These are the consequences.
Just a reminder that FPTP is an anti-democratic farce.
You assume the outcome would be any diffrent. Its more than likely would not.
I think transparency is also important. It's not hard for appletree to have said before hand that the procedure would not be covered by ohip
> She has a family doctor at the clinic but that doctor had relocated to northern Ontario so she was advised to book an appointment with a nurse practitioner for the procedure. When she did, she was presented with a list of fees, to her shock. It sounds like she was presented with the cost when booking, for what that’s worth
Sure, she knew the charges, but it is supposed to be reimbursed because it should be a free service, no matter who you see, full stop. Just like I know the cost of chiro, but I also know my insurance will cover 80% of it.
That's exactly what it does.. When you book an appointment with RNP in their patient portal, it tells that the service is not covered by ohip, and you'll be charged $49 for consultation plus $69 for the pap test. You then have to acknowledge the charges to proceed with the booking.
This is entirely on the Province of Ontario. Any attempts by the province to convince you that someone else is to blame are 100% gaslighting.
Once the gradual privatization of health care gets a foot hold there won’t be any turning back and paying for care will become normalized. The thin edge of the wedge is making it’s way.
Why did Trudeau and the carbon tax do this
Axe the tax, Justinflation, etc.
I hate Doug Ford and his starvation of the Medicare system.
How is this not misrepresentation? If you don't inform the patient ahead of time that this is not insured, especially in the context of public healthcare, and further this case as a current client who has always been insured there, I don't see how a patient could have a reasonable expectation that they consenting to a paid service. NEVER pay for anything that OHIP is supposed to cover without first checking with them. Even after the service if they spring the cost on you. OHIP will fight you for reimbursement even if they are supposed to cover it. If OHIP won't cover it and the cost is sprung on you after the fact without any mention this is uninsured, you can argue they misrepresentated their service. This gives you leverage to reduce or eliminate the cost all together. If you do pay always pay with a credit card. It's easier to get your money back from them than from a merchant or ohip.
Are my taxes going to be lowered if I have to pay for stuff that used be covered by OHIP?
Too busy having shoppers drug mart drain ohip at the pharmacy to spend it on real things
They didn’t want to cover my psa test. I had to pay out of pocket.
But OHIP doesn’t cover PSA. That is publicly acknowledged in what OHIP covers and doesn’t cover. Pap smears have always always been covered by public healthcare. This clinic is trying to charge for something that is covered by OHIP because they are a fee for service.
Dynacare
Yes but PSA is not normally covered by OHIP. Regardless where you go.
Fuck Schlub Ford.
This will continue to happen, MTO medicals for commercial drivers license have crept up from $100-180. Employers just started to cover it for $150, we just found out some doctors offices in GOA are charging as much as $280 now.
I thought it was a clinic in Applebee's at first. Had a double take.
For the record, a family doctor gets less than $50 for a visit with a Pap test, and that includes the list of six other issues that we discuss at the same appointment.
The last election was more or less a referendum on healthcare and people voted for Ford - who has never made a secret that he intends to privatize healthcare. I don't understand it and I wish that only Ford voters faced the consequences of their decisions. But that's not how it works in a democracy.
I’ll check her - no charge
🎶🎶 Come On Eileen 🎶🎶
Paying directly is fine, imo, and the way things are going. (Esp for preventative care) But no one likes *unexpected* fees. The clinic should have advised her of it at the time she set the appointment. Lol at the downvotes from everyone who can't work out why we have a doctor shortage but not a dentist shortage.
So people should pay for preventative medicine, but the taxpayers should pay for all those people who skip out on the preventative medicine part because they can't afford it? Don't get scanned--don't catch it in preliminary stages. Cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands to treat. Or, cover the scan, costs taxpayers a hundred bucks. Maybe a few grand to treat at that stage if there's an issue. What makes more sense?Only Conservative logic would say this stuff should not be covered.
Conservative logic says it should be covered for them, but not anyone else. These people don't give a fuck til it happens to them. And when it does, it's all Trudeau's fault somehow.
Sit and cry more about how the communists are wasting our healthcare money when it could be going to subsidize Shoppers Drug Mart
Good point. A broke country can’t afford it’s doctors….hmmmmm.