23 Shocking Healthcare Stories From Canadians Who Lived In Other Countries

17.

“American living in Canada now. My kid was born in the US with several GI issues, and had to have two major operations in her first month, totaling around half a million dollars US.

“The result of my daughter’s issues meant she was left with liver disease. No terrible outward hardships, really, but her medicine would cost me $80-$300 a month (even across 3 different ‘top-tier’ insurance plans). Every time I got her medicine I felt absolute soul-crushing sadness and guilt for all the thousands and millions of people who need medicine and can’t afford it.

So fast forward some years later, and we moved to Canada. The liver medicine is now $10, so that’s nice. But then we found out she had a tumor in her brain. So she had brain surgery and got it removed, and got all the follow-up tests to find out that, thankfully, it wasn’t cancer. She gets yearly MRIs just to be safe, and for now everything seems fine.

After all the care she received, we never even got so much as a statement or anything from the hospital. I kept waiting for something, anything, to come in the mail. A line-item breakdown of how things were covered. Information I might need for my taxes. Something. But to my great relief, there was nothing. I just didn’t have to think about the financial aspect of it at all.

The amount of peace of mind that brings can never be overstated.”

–PowermanFriendship