U.S. President Donald Trump says Canadians would have “much better” health coverage if Canada became the 51st state.
He made the remarks during a briefing in North Carolina, where he toured areas struck by Hurricane Helene on Friday.
“I would love to see Canada be the 51st state,” he said. “The Canadian citizens, if that happened, would get a very big tax cut – a tremendous tax cut – because they are very highly taxed.”
“They’d have much better health coverage. I think the people of Canada would like it,” said the president.
He’s preying on some real issues with our system, such as the chronic lack of primary preventative care for the majority of the population in places like Montreal. When it takes months to see a doctor who rushes you, the private options prevalent in the US start sounding attractive.
So let’s make sure this fool has no leg to stand on by properly funding our public healthcare system, treating our healthcare workers right, and by reducing the barriers to the recognition of foreign healthcare workers’ credentials.
That just sounds exactly like the US system though but you have to pay for it. My girlfriend has been dealing with medical stuff lately and was being bounced around between places with a month or more waiting time between each one. And whenever something came up that she would want to ask her primary care provider about it would be a few months for an appointment. The US system as far as I can tell doesn’t really have much better wait times yet people still act like it’s better here when my experience is it very much isn’t.
Isn’t private healthcare still an option? Not that it should be the case, but I’d much rather pay a thousand a month (which is cheap) for my family to have prompt access to primary care and virtually nothing (?) for hospital trips, specialist etc.
I’m not sure how it works in places with UHC, and my job pays 100% of my insurance now, but a few years ago I was paying $1200 a month where my employer split the cost and still had to pay $300 for every doctor visit for me and about $50 for my son. Anytime any of us were in the hospital we had to ask at every step how much something would cost because we’ve ended up with a few hospital bills totaling up to crippling debt that we’ll never get out of.
Even with my insurance costing me nothing now I still pay ~$200 for every doctor visit because we never hit out deductible of ~$6000 which keeps getting raised every few months. We definitely could hit that deductable but we’d still end up owing money for every little thing. I avoid going to the doctors because we can’t afford it. We have to save for any tests/procedures at this point, I’ve been putting off an echo and stress test that I’m supposed to get every 6 months for about a year and a half, my heart medication just doubled in price, an ultrasound for my pregnant wife cost us $800 last month and for some reason it didn’t apply towards our deductible.
Paying 1k$ a month for doctors is completely ridiculous in Canada. I’m comfortable right now but that would completely break my budget.
It is an option I guess for the rich rich, but for the vast majority that’s just not a thing that we’d consider “reasonable”, much less “cheap”.
Employer health insurance covers dental, drugs, eyes though. So people that don’t have it struggle and that’s not nothing. Which is why the government just passed some limited coverage but it’s not universal as it should be.
So you see: completely different mindset.
Yeah, in BC when we used to have premiums it was only $75/mo and if I remember correctly it scaled up from $0 if you made below about $10000 to the full $75 around $30000.
Wealthy people would have much better access to trivial / cosmetic medical procedures… Sure… I’ll grant that
Hey no fair, give it to the current citizens first
No thank you.
My wife went to the ER after hurting her foot, it was an hour wait and the only cost was $40 for a set of crutches.
I like our system.
In the US you’d have a 4 to 6 hour wait, $3000 to hospital for using the ER, $2000 for the doctor, and if there were scans and such a $$$$$ for using them! Oh also they will take months to bill you but also send it to debt collectors if you don’t pay it for a month so then all of your personal data is sold and you get harassed to pay your debt!
Here’s a fun one my wife got:
She picked an in network doctor for her treatment so insurance would cover it. She got a large bill anyway because the office that the doctor worked in was out of network.
It’s literally impossible to get insurance coverage. You can pick the doctor or building (I’ve read anesthesiologists can be separate too.) But you are going to pay a bill that insurance won’t cover.
… if you’re lucky.
What is with the huge amount of idiots who would rather pay hundreds or thousands a month in insurance and healthcare costs just to save a couple hundred a year in taxes? Its actually unbelievably dumb.
Yank here. So, we don’t have broad public healthcare because it keeps middle class people terrified of losing their white collar jobs. It also appeals to American racism, putting barriers up for people of color and the working poor to get equal treatment. Many Americans would happily screw themselves over to ensure someone else (they hate) has it worse.
We have hours long lines at private urgent care, and seeing a general practice doc takes 3 to 6 months of wait time (if you’re lucky). Also, I’m queer. If The U.S. did have broad public healthcare, it would instantly be weaponized against all LGBTQ+ folks.
Tldl, in the States it’s mostly about keeping the middle class terrified of losing their jobs, and ensuring there are working-poor people to sneer at.
Yeah i get why the lobbyists want it. I dont get why the answer from so many citizens seems to be “i dont want my taxes to go up”. Like bro youre paying ten times the amount now that you would in any tax increase.
Dude the tax meme for American voters drives me insane.
Funny, because I know plenty of people in Ohio who have gone to Canada specifically for better and more affordable medical treatment.
To be fair, I know people from Ontario who had to travel to Buffalo for diagnostics, because they had to wait for over 9 months in Ontario, and the cost of few thousand dollars was not that great to them.
That’s basically it, right? Per person it treats, the US system is a lot less efficient. It works “better” by leaving some people outside to die so the rich don’t have to worry about waiting or sharing.
and the cost of few thousand dollars was not that great to them.
How wonderful for them…
If you have 3 months to live and not getting medical help needed in Canada, money becomes secondary concern https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/consumer-alert/article/i-had-3-months-to-live-if-i-didnt-do-this-ontario-man-travels-to-united-states-and-pays-600000-for-life-changing-surgery/
Better healthcare is easy, with a small loan of a million dollars.
When he says, “They’d have much better health coverage” he’s talking about the rich people. Not normal people!
He doesn’t consider normal people, people.
I’ve never heard of Americans going to Canada for cheaper medication!
/s
Luigi would disagree.
That’s really the only public figure you can trust on issues of health insurance in the US, everyone lese is lying as First Lady Trump’s statement confirm… Again.
You keep your $1,300 insulin. I like my access to vaccines and $0 hospital stays.
“Mr. Trump, fuck off” will be the universal response of the western world before March.
The media needs to stop reporting ‘neutrally’ on this bullshit, and call it out as expansionist lies.
I spent thirty years in the States and seven years now in Canada. I can say with absolutely certainty that the US system is fucked. I’ve never paid a dime in Canada.
I got major surgery in Canada. I took out my wallet to show them photoID. Then I put it away.
My entire, full bill for surgery? I paid for parking.
California is already wading their feet in ceding, they should join Canada. If not as a provence then as a federation or something
I’ve seen a couple references to this. How serious is the discussion down there?
Size-wise, California would basically be a second Canada if it was independent. For that reason, I doubt we would jump at it (although I’d support it). There’s the whole 1860’s precedent that you aren’t allowed leaving, though.
I wonder if they could convince Oregon and Washington to go with them. We could have a friendly American border again.
