Those only sort of exists. No one actually pays that amount, but it is good to bill that amount. That way the hospital can inflate the amount of charity care they are doing to support their non-profit status. Time did a great article on this:
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So, “steal from the poor, give to the poor.” Sounds about right.
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That is exactly what is going on. Read the Time article, great synopsis. If every hospital actually gave away 10% of their profit in charity care billed at Insurance or Medicare prices, we wouldn’t have a problem in the US. But of course, 1% sounds like a better number if you work as an exec at the hospital. But since that wouldn’t sit well with the government overlords, we create a master bill with hugely inflated numbers and use that to calculate what we gave away.
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Wouldn’t be the first friend I paid to keep? 
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So… Health Care varies from Province to Province. I live in British Columbia, so this is a BC perspective.
In short - if you have an emergency you will get fast treatment. If it is not an emergency then time can take a little bit of time. The procedures people tend to complain about taking a long time are non-emergency things… and yes there is a surgical wait time website for you to play with…
I can see my Family Doctor (primary care physician) usually in 1 or 2 days. If I want same-day doctor service, sometimes my doctor will squeeze me in same day. If not, I go to a walk-in-clinic. You can expect to wait anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours 
it depends how busy the clinic is. The walk-in-clinic by our house is not too bad, if you go in the morning but by end of day it can be busy.
Some people have problems finding a family doctor so they basically have to do the walk-in-clinic route, which can be a bit of a pain. My parents lost their family doctor to retirement recently (ok about 2 have retired on them), but they have not had issues finding a new one.
For specialists, it depends. It takes usually 2-3 months for a normal check-up appointment, but if you have an emergency you can see one in the same week. For instance when my type 1 son was diagnosed, we had an endo visit in 2 days and then we have regular appointments scheduled every 3 months.
For medical imaging, (like MRI’s) it used to take a long time for non-emergency stuff (like aches and pains). You can get private MRIs done for a fee like next day. My mom has done the private MRI thing but it costs $$. Recently, they started to operate hospital MRIs 24 hours a day and have added new machines. The last MRI I had (for pain / non-emergency) took a month to get scheduled but it was like 3am so I had to loose some sleep.
There are private surgical clinics as well that do the sports-surgery type of stuff, but this creates a discussion about “two-tiered healthcare” i.e. the rich getting awesome and fast health care and the poor getting treated poorly… I will not go into that.
The one downside about Canada is that some very specialized procedures are not done - I can’t really think of an example, but I know someone who has a son with a really rare cancer and his treatment is being done in Seattle as it is not available in Canada. The government health plan is paying for the treatment, but the travel costs are borne by the parents so it is not free but the hospital is covered.
We really get excited talking about health care wait times though. Other topics we always talk about are the high price of real estate, the weather… oh and the ferry wait times.
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I have no idea yet. I could message her and ask… if I can just find the time. I figured I’d get it all done at appointment time. She promised to get my a1c tests right so I can test my meters again. 
Which means she will dangle that in front of my face when I start asking questions and distract me.
My sons’ pediatrician charges a “global fee”. It’s $75 for each of them (X3). They also just implemented a “paperwork fee”. You can either pay $25 per child and have them process paperwork all year “for free” (wink wink), or you can pay per request. I told them I’d pay per request—- and then, of course, needed like 16 things right off the bat. So I ended up paying “per request” + $25 annual. That’s how you get it done right there. 
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I order my own blood work from a website such as Walk In Labs because I have such a high deductible. I think even going to CVS’s walk in clinic has A1cs for cheap (ok, $59, so not cheap, but not awful). That way I order what I want and don’t have to worry about the endo… not sure what you mean about your issue with getting your A1c tests right, but I feel more in control doing the labs myself!
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There are pro’s and con’s to every system. Canada like the UK and most of Europe offers great benefits to everyone, however once you age out of a treatment or have a very special procedure or drug you need to get it somewhere else. i.e. two-tiered system. The Germans seem to have the best of both worlds, but of course their economy is strong so the money is there to pay for it currently. The Germans had a system pretty similar to the UK but then moved it towards the US system slightly and have a nice cutting edge medical system right now.
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I knew it!!! 
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Exactly. And of course everyone evaluates a health care system based on their own person value system so there can never be an agreement about what a perfect health care system is because everyone starts with different assumptions. 
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At an earlier point in my life I had the pleasure of launching a cutting edge project in most of Europe and the US at the same time. It was a fascinating project to say the least.
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@Aaron I got to try the BC health system one year at Whistler. As a US citizen, even though it was an emergency, I was suitably impressed with the quality of care and the extremely low cost.
I came off the mtn before lunch, and was on the table that afternoon. Knee and acl repair was approximately $350 USD.
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I hear Whistler has a nice little hospital. For some reason that escapes me they specialize in sports injuries. 
I was skiing at Whistler a couple of weeks ago and saw someone in need of some emergency work on their ankle - did not look good…
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No shame.
I like your thinking. I also have a whole bunch of home a1c tests at home that I just ordered. I like doing them… enough to have ordered a 10 pack. 
They are really cheap in bulk— maybe $8 a piece? I can have an a1c party at that price. A1cs on the house. Limit one each.
I’m being stupid. Again. But I did just order them and can’t wait to get started. I don’t order them to avoid having her do them, I just have them so that I can test when I get the itch. What I was referring to about her not getting my test right was just silly. I didn’t know a doc could order an a1c without it coming with the BG value. Turns out they can. So I brought all my meters to my last lab then found out it was for nothing. She has promised to include the BG on the next one. And I can’t wait. I’ll do a home a1c test the same day if I can take all the excitement. 
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I will vouch for that. Not big but they are very competent. Major medical is airlifted to Vancouver. Whistler/Blackcomb is a special little part of this earth. Especially enjoy the fishing north of Pemberton at Loon Lake. 
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tmi…lol 
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Awww, @elver, a sense of humor after my own heart. 
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glad you got it and were not offended… I didn’t want to sound all complainy.
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Banff and Canmore also have excellent hospitals now - top rated orthopaedics surgeons (as opposed to year ago when we’d always drive our friends with broken limbs back to Calgary).
Plus they have million dollar views from the rooms 
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