defund & privatize just kinda going along at pace
Hospitals did nearly 139,000 joint replacements in 2019-2020, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Its research puts the average cost per operation at $12,223, which means the private clinics are charging patients roughly double what the surgery costs provincial medicare systems.
Perfectly normal, legitimate health services:
The Canada Health Act prohibits extra-billing. What that means is doctors are banned from charging patients more than the medicare rate for an "insured service" — any medically necessary procedure that is covered by provincial health plans.
A medically necessary non-emergency surgery such as a hip replacement is an insured service when you're in your home province. When you visit another province, non-emergency surgery is not insured.
"Unfortunately, due to government regulations, you are unable to have private surgery in your home province. You would need to travel to Calgary for the procedure," said the email, which also priced the surgery at $28,000.
The people perpetrating this are criminals who are literally going to kill I don't know how many patients by sabotaging our system and need to be dragged into the streets before they've done irrevocable damage.