Moms, Maple Syrup & Medical Bills - U.S. vs. Canadian Healthcare

Ever had to choose between a doctor’s visit and groceries? You're not alone. In this episode of Odd Moms On Call, we’re tackling the frustrating, confusing, and often expensive world of healthcare—comparing the U.S. and Canadian systems through real-life mom experiences. From insurance headaches to the struggle of finding mental health support, we’re breaking down what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to change.

Spoiler alert: There was way too much to cover in just one episode! We’ll be diving even deeper into this topic in a future conversation, so stay tuned. In the meantime, grab your coffee (or wine), and let's talk about the healthcare hurdles parents face and how we can push for something better.

Takeaways:

• Healthcare in the U.S. is often tied to employment and insurance coverage.
• Many Americans face medical debt due to unexpected healthcare costs.
• Preventative care is crucial but often underfunded in the U.S. system.
• Canadian healthcare provides access without debt, but has its own challenges.
• Emergency room wait times can vary significantly between the U.S. and Canada.
• Personal experiences significantly influence one’s viewpoint on healthcare systems.
• Access to family doctors is a growing issue in Canada.
• The for-profit nature of US healthcare impacts patient care.
• Insurance reimbursement rates can affect the availability of services.
• Student loan debt is a significant barrier for healthcare providers. Insurance inequities lead to significant disparities in access to care.
• In the U.S., children on state insurance face long wait times for mental health services.
• Canada's healthcare system has long wait times for specialists, including mental health professionals.
• Occupational therapy is often not covered by private insurance in Canada.
• Private insurance in Canada can be costly and may not cover essential services.
• Emergency care in Canada is generally effective, but preventative care is lacking.
• Healthcare workers in Canada face low pay and burnout, impacting the system’s effectiveness.
• Personal stories illustrate the financial burden of healthcare in both countries.
• Preventive care and mental health support are crucial for a healthier society.
• The conversation highlights the need for systemic changes in healthcare policy. 

Sound Bites:

"It's been a huge, huge thing for me."

"We need to find a middle ground."

"It's a cyclical scam."

Got a hot take you want to share?

Send us a message, or email us at Oddmomsoncall@gmail.com. We might just talk about it on the show!

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Transcript

Chelsea (00:34)
Hey, you're back with Odd Moms, episode two. This is Chelsea. I'm back. I also host Quiet Connection, postpartum mental health.

Britt (00:44)
I'm Britt, I host the Odd Mom Pod.

Midori (00:47)
And I'm Midori and my husband and I host the Simply Midori podcast.

Emma (00:52)
And I'm Emma, I'm the Canadian face of this show and I'm just hanging out on Moms on Call right now.

Chelsea (00:59)
And we're really happy to have you.

Britt (01:01)
We're honored Emma.

Emma (01:02)
Thank you guys.

Chelsea (01:03)
We are, we're all

secretly wishing we could run away to Canada.

Britt (01:07)
Yeah, from Oklahoma over here, I'm like, please save me.

Chelsea (01:12)
There was literally, there was like a joke going around that like, like Trump was like, we'll take this territory or whatever. And they're like, okay, we'll take Vermont. And I was like, yeah, please, please take us. Please, it doesn't need to be a joke. You can take us. We can just walk across the border. So it's okay. Anyway, today,

Emma (01:25)
but

Thank

Chelsea (01:37)
We're going to talk about healthcare. We're going to talk about healthcare in the US and healthcare in Canada. And it's also exciting because Britt works in healthcare. So like they have firsthand experience in there. And then Emma, I feel like I'm talking for everyone, but like Emma's got, Emma's got all the deets on the, Canadian healthcare. And then we can all kind of talk about our experiences with healthcare. So, I mean, I don't know, where do you guys want to start?

Emma (02:07)
Britt do you want to start with your experience on it? What you're dealing with right now? I also have a nursing background and I burned out in 2019, so I have a little bit inside that way too.

Chelsea (02:15)
yeah!

Britt (02:18)
Yeah, so I have like some different perspectives with the United States healthcare system because I am a nurse. I've been a nurse for 12 years now. I actively work in an emergency room here in one of the busiest emergency rooms in Oklahoma City. And

I own my own private practice clinic doing infant feeding. I'm internationally board certified in lactation and have been in practice now since 2022 and do that part time as well. And as a special needs mom, two of my kiddos have a rare genetic metabolic disorder. My oldest has had over 30 hospitalizations and she is 11. And as a lupus,

warrior myself who was just diagnosed with lupus in 2019, I've kind of had unique experiences and touches on all sides of it, from private health insurance, having it to my husband having to join the military so we could have health coverage because we were just sinking in medical debt so much so that we couldn't even afford to really survive. So he ended up having to join the military

in 2018 just so that we could have health care coverage that would cover my daughter's metabolic condition And then later on when I was diagnosed with my own stuff and now having to seek again private health insurance as I'm in the middle of a divorce and will be losing my tri care, the like absolutely

horrifying idea of trying to find healthcare coverages. And if the current administration does scrap the Affordable Care Act, if now my pre-existing condition will inhibit me from being able to even get private health insurance coverage with affordable premiums and what that looks like. And so it's been a very huge contributing factor in multiple areas of my life and has honestly

been the driving force of a lot of very huge decisions in my life from who and how we get care. My oldest, couldn't afford to get her the medication she needed, so she had to go on a clinical trial. We were traveling every month from New Mexico to Pittsburgh for her medical care. And so, you know, like,

It's just been, it's been a huge, huge thing for me and honestly has been one of the main things that I think has like radicalized me when, you know, people are like, what radicalized you? And I think for me being around and in the healthcare system, both as a provider and as a patient and as somebody who has had to mend the way I live my life so that I can get healthcare coverage. It has been one of the biggest things that is genuinely like.

liberalized me and made me such an advocate for, you know, Medicare for all and the importance of healthcare coverage and prevention care and those kinds of things, access to even abortion care when you have a genetic condition that you carry and you know your baby may have a condition that can genuinely impact their life or

impede your ability to care for your living existing children because of those conditions. Like those are all things that become very real when now they enter your life and it's not just a hypothetical anymore.

Chelsea (05:58)
You literally like covered every single concern like that every American is facing right now. And it's all happened. It's all on your shoulders. Like right now.

Emma (06:01)
Yeah.

Britt (06:09)
Yeah,

it's absolutely crazy. it's wild because I'm internationally board certified. I could get a work visa pretty much in any country in the world right now. Lactation consultants are on high demand. And the United States has the most out of any other country per capita as far as lactation consultants go. We have some of the lowest coverage rates for care.

as far as that goes with insurance coverages and things like that. And so it's so wild that I could literally uproot my whole life and go somewhere to Canada or even been looking at like Uruguay and Paraguay because I've been down that rabbit hole of places I can move right now, I kid you not, but it's crazy. And so I'm really excited, honestly, to talk with Emma too, you know, because grass is always greener sometimes when you're sitting here looking

Chelsea (06:54)
You

Britt (07:07)
at like, know, this care would be great, but I'm really excited to have a different perspective of somebody who does live in a place where coverage is taken care of, but what are the other cons or impacts to care?

Chelsea (07:23)
Yeah, Emma, because you have like medically complex like stuff going on in your life too.

Emma (07:23)
I think.

Yeah, so I have bipolar. So I see a psychiatrist every month or so. I see a psychologist every month. My kids are going through things. My son has asthma. He's only a year and a half. We've had two admissions and like countless ER visits. My oldest, we were going through the autism diagnosis process. She's actually a very social kid.

So in North America, we don't have something called sensory processing disorder that is typically from what I believe is in Europe and Australia. But in North America, that falls under the autism spectrum, but they don't get a diagnosis because they're social. So basically we've come to the conclusion as of now she has sensory processing challenges is what we go with. And so that has been a journey. We just realized she might actually have asthma because we're going through that.

So we're doing a lot of things and it's been really interesting to have these conversations because I just want to preface for as much as that goes behind the scenes for free healthcare, like we do pay taxes, that's what funds it and all of these things. A lot of things aren't covered. We do have our own private insurance that doesn't always cover it either. But at the end of the day, like I can say I'm so grateful to be in Canada because we don't have to go into debt in order to have our kids or ourselves be healthy and well.

And there's so much controversy about what goes on behind the scenes with the taxes, but at the end of the day, the average Canadian is not in debt to keep themselves alive. And I think that's just like, to me, that seems like the most basic fundamental thing to do for citizens of a country. And that's like what always gets me worked out about the American healthcare system, because I just, it blows me away.

Chelsea (09:20)
I know I have a, I know I have a stat on this somewhere about percentage of Americans. Okay. I think it was in 2023, um, the Kaiser family foundation.

said reported that approximately 41 % of adults in the US reported having medical debt due to unexpected medical bills or dental bills or they were uninsured. So 41 % of US citizens were in medical debt. Just from from unexpected costs or routine costs, I should specify.

So.

Britt (10:02)
Well,

what's crazy is because our routine care isn't covered, the unexpected things that do happen are so much worse. so I work in the emergency department, you know, these, I had a mind blowing case of one of the sweetest, hardworking people I've ever met my entire life last week, who we had these below freezing temperatures for two weeks straight. It was so horrible.

And he was still getting up and walking a mile and a half to work every day where he worked in a freezer truck, helping to load groceries and then will walk home and he didn't have insurance and his feet. Literally his right foot literally started to fall off. had become so frostbitten and horrific. And he said, I was just pouring bottles of alcohol on it. But once all the skin came off, I knew I needed to come in.

Chelsea (10:49)
No.

Britt (11:00)
because he had no health insurance. He was just using Neosporin and bottles of rubbing alcohol to try and keep the infection from getting worse. And now he is in the hospital with a partial amputation and weeks and weeks of antibiotics and all of these things that now he is an uninsured person having his preventative care covered.

would have made it so that you wouldn't have had to have now this emergent care. When you're looking in the healthcare industry in the United States, like those are the things where like our lowered cost of preventative care for everybody would significantly and drastically reduce the overhead of the unexpected things that come up if those things were just covered for everyone.

Emma (11:56)
think going like from the Canadian perspective, it's interesting because I find Canadian health care great in emergencies, but the preventative care, I want to pull up a stat because one of the biggest things is a lot of Canadians right now can't find a family doctor. I don't think I have the stat on me, but there's

there's a lack of family doctors. So we have people who will move two hours away and still travel back to get a family doctor because they just can't get access. There are a lot more urgent care clinics now that if you have a family doctor with a certain practice, they will penalize you to going to another doctor unless you go to their practice and see doctors in their practice. That's becoming more normalized. We do have walk-in clinics, which anyone can go to.

And that kind of gives you access to the quality is hit or miss depending on the situation. But at least it's something. And I feel like that's so brutal to say in this environment, like at least it's something, but it is. Like when you look at that case that you just shared, like in Canada, he could have gone to the walk in clinic. Our ER times, I don't know what it's like there, but are notorious for eight hours plus to be in the ER.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a horrific migraine after a week. It just could not break. No pain medication was touching it. So I went to the ER. I was there for nine hours from start to finish, but I got relief and I paid for parking. I think I paid $18 for parking and a tea that they asked me because I was very cold and they were out of tea and they said I needed to warm up. So I walked to get myself a tea.

So it's like, sure, could say nine hours is exhausting, but like, I paid $18 for that. And like, just, don't know how you argue that.

Britt (13:52)
And as somebody

who works in an emergency room, that is pretty on average, I would assume here for something like that.

Chelsea (13:59)
So yeah,

I wanted to ask you...

Emma (14:02)
So many Canadians are like,

US is so much quicker, but.

Chelsea (14:06)
So

that's the thing. So the stats that I'm getting, the stats that I got, I could not believe them. this is what, and I did my research, but I honestly can't believe that this is true because this is not what I'm experiencing. But so it says, again, this is 2024. The average wait or time spent in an emergency department before leaving was approximately two hours and 42 minutes. The highest,

Britt (14:07)
No.

Chelsea (14:36)
wait time is in DC and that's about five hours and 15 minutes. And the lowest wait time is an hour and 50 minutes in North Dakota. But I was like, that's, that is not what I'm hearing. That is not what I'm seeing. Like I'm in Vermont and again, it depends on what you go in with, with triage and whatever, but like.

We have people saying like, don't even bother going in. You'll be there all day.

I mean, I feel like I want to like Midori, what do you have you guys like? Do you have to use a hospital often? Do you?

Midori (15:16)
Well, I

I feel probably don't use the doctor as much as like I'm not like anti anything. I, but my experience is the emergency room, but we live like in the suburbs of Chicago now. Like when we lived in this city, like we, I only saw an immediate patient get taken care of.

quickly in Chicago was when literally our friend's husband died and they like got rushed him in. And so obviously they're going to triage him first because he was like, he was like this close to death and then he died there minutes later. So it's the only time I've ever seen like a downtown emergency room move quickly. So we're in the city, we avoided the emergency room like at all costs. Like we just didn't, unless it was like, you actually needed to go in because it just would take all day.

And I will say like moving out to the suburbs of the city, like we're like half an hour outside of the city now. Like my daughter busted her head open on our fireplace and they saw her within it. Like the ambulance was here and they got her over there like within like a 90 minute window, like picking her up, getting her in and getting seen was really fast. And then our neighbor like broke his, snapped his ankle.

aggressively playing kickball with the children, the cul-de-sac And I was also like, I was like, maybe it's because you're 40 or just should let the kids win for a moment, but it's fine. But like they saw him in the same time. But we're also like in know, like we're not in down, we're not downtown. So like that's been our two experience, like personal experiences with the emergency rooms out here. But like I said, when we were in the city, like we definitely did not go. I just think that I agree that we could

help the American people be healthy before it gets super bad in any fashion. That would help. The guy that you were explaining hurt his foot, not just hurt his foot, I didn't mean to downplay that, but had this foot situation. It's like if we could proactively get ahead of some of these things, whether it be with our food or doctor appointments, whatever people need, it would avoid the.

long term issues that we deal with, which costs the country so the people that whatever so much money, right? Like, we have my grandparents living here, like I told you guys before, and it's like, they're 90 something years old. you know, it just is like crazy. It's like a lot of these things, you know, my grandma had rheumatoid arthritis, so she has an autoimmune disease. And they're 90. So like the healthcare opportunities back in the day were much different.

and watching how they cared for her at the end of her life. was like, this is so crazy. Like this is just wild. Like we're spending so much like we got a hospice kit to our house within like 30 minutes. And it was like, because she's on Medicare, because you know, it has like morphine, lazazoprana, I don't remember saying that properly. Yeah. And I was like, how can she get this in 30 minutes? But like when you actually need a preventative kit, like we're so

Chelsea (18:09)
as a Pam. Yeah.

Midori (18:18)
quick to like jump to like this. just is it was like I was like nothing nothing in the medical world like operates this quickly but because she's dying she can get free like we still have it like a freaking thing of morphine that other was it? Yep, lasazoprine. And one other like a tablet within minutes delivered at midnight. Like I was like this is backwards like this is so backwards like

Chelsea (18:35)
Larazapam.

Midori (18:46)
She's been ill for a while and yet it's impossible to get her treatment to help sustain her healthy parts. But when she's dying, we can get things like a hospital bed, all these things delivered with literally within less than three hours. It was insane. At all hours of the night.

Chelsea (19:04)
I have two thoughts. I'm

jumping right, like my initial thought is, or thing that I want to say is like preventative care does not generate money and the healthcare system in the US, don't, again, I don't know about Canada, but same for Canada, it's all for profit. it's, so healthcare and preventative care isn't going to make anybody any money. If you keep people sick, you're going to make more money.

Emma (19:21)
same for Canada.

Chelsea (19:33)
My other question when you're talking about hospice and whatnot is like, do you guys have insurance? Do you have good insurance?

Midori (19:43)
Well, my grandparents are old, I think, yeah, that, but they don't have, I mean, so my grandparents are like a unique situation. Like they were first generation, born and raised in Southern California, in the Japanese internment camps, got everything taken away, moved to Florida with my grandma and her like.

Chelsea (19:46)
they got it through Medicare? Okay.

Midori (20:06)
I think she had eight or 10 children, then ended up in Chicago. So like basically started from scratch in Chicago with all of her children. I say all this to say like they obviously didn't grow up with good insurance because I don't even know like what insurances were available two generations ago, or if it's the same as now. Like I literally have, I'm ill knowledge on that. But

My grandpa worked like two or three jobs his whole, he raised four kids and he was able to like get a really low level job at the airline with American Airlines that he worked for second shift after his day job for like.

almost 30 years. So he had supplemental insurance from that. But that's because he, you know, he like took this entry level position to because he knew he had four children and he's not educated because he didn't use either like education or like go to war. So he went, you know, all of his brothers and him went to fight.

in the war. I say, say they do have supplemental but all of this stuff that my grandma got was from her government insurance because it just is like, it's so much money. Like I would like it costs her nothing out of pocket, right? But I'm like, how much did like the company get paid to provide this? Like it was just wild. I don't know the answer to your question. So they

Chelsea (21:11)
Medicare.

Yeah.

Emma (21:23)
you

Chelsea (21:28)
No, it does. It does answer my question.

had and I'm not as well versed with Medicare and I'm learning more about Medicaid. And I'm curious about how much Britt knows about that and that if that's even like what that would be the equivalent of that would be in Canada. and then with them gutting Medicare and Medicaid.

That's obviously not the solution either.

Midori (21:56)
Yeah, just like so hyperbolic, like, can we find a medium to like, there's a win win for everybody not just like, as well. I'm like, totally fine for the hyperbolic spaces as long as like, it's benefiting, not just one group of people like, that's not that's not helpful.

Chelsea (22:01)
I know Midori's always are, Midori's always are, can we find middle ground? Let's find some middle ground.

Britt (22:07)
you

Chelsea (22:15)
Yeah.

Britt (22:17)
Yeah, and right now that's all it is. mean, you're, you're, you're benefiting these billionaires and the oligarchs who are currently taking over the United States government and the healthcare industries that are funding these things. And it's just such a disgusting for-profit system currently. Medicaid is really hard here in Oklahoma because Oklahoma, when the Affordable Care Act kind of came out and

States decided on federal funding based on if they wanted to adhere to certain parts of the Affordable Care Act. Oklahoma decided to not participate in a lot of the programs that other federally funded programs get. So our access to Medicaid and Medicare here in Oklahoma City is even, or in Oklahoma in general, is even harder and worse than other states.

As a provider, I am in network with Medicaid in Oklahoma and for lactation visits, it's almost impossible to get one covered by your insurance. Usually you have to have a referral for your primary care doctor and access here for Medicaid, like pediatricians and things like that is really difficult to find.

And then once you get your approval from them, think a couple of times I've gotten Medicaid payouts and like $17 for my visit, which like for just like not reference knowledge, my like self care, self pay rate for an hour and a half consultation with me is 225. So like that's how much I'm getting paid out. so, you know, at that point it's not even worth

paying my billing team or whatnot. So I've been seeing like high needs Medicaid clients completely pro bono for years because it would cost me more money to pay my billing team the time and money that I get payout from the insurance. And so like for a very long while, I was the only in network lactation consultant for Medicaid in the entire state of Oklahoma.

And it's crazy. And I'm still one of the only ones that's in network with Tricare. So Tricare is another thing where it's technically government paid as far as insurance, like, as far as like Tricare, the rates change. are closer, like, it's closer to like $90 is what I get paid out from those visits versus what I still make from other insurances.

But then it's crazy because like large insurance companies like Aetna will pay out like almost $400 for one visit. And so then our providers get into these where certain providers will refuse to take certain insurances because it doesn't make them enough money. then, you know, but like as a business owner and as a healthcare provider and somebody who has a lot of medical debt and somebody who has a lot of student loans.

because of my education that allows me to provide for the people, which is why I'm a huge proponent to where I think that student loans should be written off. There should be no such thing as student loans because yeah, exactly, honestly, because.

Chelsea (25:46)
There's another episode.

Midori (25:50)
Or do you remember

our education system? Like our education system is not like, like how are people gonna afford universities when like our kids go to school? Like it was a fortune for us to go to school. If it keeps like increasing at this rate, it's crazy.

Britt (25:53)
Yeah.

you know, I have between my medical degrees and my certifications and all of that, I almost have like $80,000 in school loans from my nursing degrees. And I'm using those daily to provide care for people in my community, sometimes free rate. So why isn't taxpayer money going to pay for my education if I'm serving in my community, you know, those kinds of things.

But like then that's where you get this monopoly of like only certain providers will see certain insurances. And then like when we fostered and had kids in the foster care system that were on state insurance, like a wait to get them in with a counselor would be like six to nine months. But under, you know, my friends Blue Cross Blue Shield, they could see a therapist in the next day and my kid in foster care couldn't get care.

but a kid with private insurance could. And that's where it's like, I'm interested to kind of hear Emma's take on this, because I know with the basic and payer things, that those are similar circumstances. But I also think it's important to note that that's already happening here in the United States. And a lot of people are against Medicare for all, because they're like, then that's going to be happening for everyone. But in reality, that's already happening.

Emma (27:25)
I have a lot to say on that. So the basic structure of how we work is emergency rooms, walk-ins, doctors covered by the taxes that we pay. So different provinces have different levels of taxes, but basically all of that a portion goes into this free healthcare. Because of that, our referral times are insane. So for psychiatrists, let's say for mental health health, it's over a year.

Wait, when I was already in the system in a hospital and my psychiatrist moved, I was still a nine month wait, even as a patient. So my medication ran out, but I'm one of the fortunate Canadians who had a family doctor that was an involved family doctor. Not every family doctor should be in the industry they're in. So she continued my medication for me, so I got in. But most people that I know at this point is over a year wait to see a psychiatrist.

And I'm speaking mostly to Ontario. I know the rest of Canada has similar experiences for specialists, depending on what it is. It can be three months or it can also be over a year. The autism side of things, like if we talk about that, once you get a diagnosis, it's a three plus year wait often to get government funded support.

A lot of the things that I'm seeing is these children are getting diagnosed around six years old once they're in the school system and not getting supports till they're 10 or 11. There's a lot of things like that, not just on the autism spectrum, but again, in emergencies we're great. Preventative care, supportive care,

Britt (29:03)
question. Okay, so when you say government funded support, are you saying like they're not getting any therapies or they're not getting like a substantial income support just because from our understanding what I what that means?

Emma (29:11)
Yeah.

So a lot of supports like occupational therapy, for instance, is not covered. Right now, like my family in particular, my daughter does occupational therapy. We're privileged enough to be able to pay for it. Our private health insurance that we pay for doesn't cover it, and she is not diagnosed with anything, so we're not eligible for government funding. So we have someone who needs it, but because of that, can't do it.

Britt (29:43)
Got it.

Emma (29:47)
will pay for some sort of private insurance. Those kinds range so much on what they cover. So if you have like the basics, maybe it's $100 a month for one person. Speaking to us, we're a family of four. And I got grandfathered from when I was young off of my mom's work insurance. And now we pay privately and I've added my husband and my kids. We pay $680 a month for it.

And that doesn't cover things like occupational therapy. So we have great dental every eight months, which is not even considered that good in Canada. It's usually six months. We have 80 % coverage of dental procedures. I can get new prescriptions every two years. And I can get orthotics every year, because that's a random one, but like orthotics every year. So that kind of stuff is like where that coverage goes. We don't even have that great of

therapy coverage at that price. I think the average psychologist is around 220 for an hour. Mine covers, I think, $60 a session for four sessions in a year. And we're paying that premium. The only reason we have private insurance is because of the medication I'm on. I have 80 % coverage through it. However, I max that plan out almost every year because there's a cap. So then at the end of the year, I'm paying full price.

for the medication. Because I have private insurance, I'm not eligible for anything government covered. For instance, when my daughter was born in 2021, there was a formula shortage. I know there was one in the US as well. She was on very specific formula for reflux and a dairy sensitivity. You could not get that formula without a prescription. I brought the prescription to the pharmacy. She almost didn't sell it to me because I had private insurance. And she was saying I wasn't eligible because I had private insurance.

long discussion with her and I was like I'm not going to not feed my baby. So that worked out but there's a lot of borderline consequences to being able to afford private insurance. However, the average let's say 40 year old isn't going to be covered regardless. We have children, I can't remember the age but under a certain age if you don't have private insurance it just changed. You can get some dental care, you have prescriptions covered.

And I think over the age of 65, it does the same thing. But again, if you pay for private insurance, you're not eligible. So yes, we can go to the doctor if we have one. Yes, we can go to the ER, but we're still paying taxes for that. We're still paying for medication. We're still paying for coverage for other things that don't really cover anything. now it's just like, again, I'm coming from an extremely privileged place that I can still afford to do these things. But I have a friend of a friend whose daughter

has significant challenges with her autism and she waited two years for a diagnosis and just got in and the mother has been unable to work because she can't go into specialized childcare and finding rent, doing government funding, all these things, like it just doesn't make sense. And so that's why when people ask me, I say Canada is amazing in emergency, especially with kids, but like also adults like.

When my son was in respiratory distress, we went to the ER, we were in the back within 30 minutes and then he was admitted that night. So that's really great. And again, I didn't go into debt. spent X amount in parking and some food for myself when we were admitted.

Britt (33:28)
Are those like our hospital admissions or like things like if a child was diagnosed with cancer or something like that, how are those treated in like the Canadian healthcare system? Do those fall under like Medicare or not your like your like systematic system or would that only be eligible for private insurance?

Emma (33:48)
So things like oncology, coverage is considered universal healthcare, so people don't pay for that. Medications typically depend on what it is. So my grandma, my Oma, had cancer around the end of her life, and the actual cancer treatment was covered, the hospital was covered, but I don't know enough outside of that on the medication. I believe she would need to have insurance, or she was over that age where it was covered.

admissions like depending so you can have a shared room that's covered my insurance provides private coverage private room so when I had my babies I could have a private postpartum room however my insurance didn't cover the full of it but at the end of the day I think I paid $50 to cover the difference which is not terrible right like at all

Chelsea (34:39)
god, my god,

Britt (34:41)
my

Chelsea (34:41)
that's

Britt (34:41)
gosh, that's crazy.

Chelsea (34:42)
not terrible. Do you know how much it costs to have a baby in the US?

Emma (34:44)
I have seen in some

of the mom groups, it makes me physically ill when I look at the cost to have babies. That's the other thing. IVF, I had two IVF babies. In Ontario, you wait a year or two to be able to be on the list, but then they will cover an IVF round. You pay for the medications out of pocket, but they will cover the round. IUIs, and I know like the still healthcare, but like IUIs in Ontario covered every time. You can have unlimited IUI tries.

Chelsea (34:50)
Yeah.

Emma (35:13)
but the medication you pay for and then privacy and all that. So it's hard because I say we have an incredible system. We're never fully knee deep in debt, but when it comes to preventative care like Midori is saying and like these other things, there's either huge wait times or you're paying for it. And then you're paying for the insurance that isn't really covering it.

Britt (35:15)
amazing.

So what's the my thing? guess my question would be like, what are the large benefits of paying for a private insurance and a system like that? Because like here in the United States, you either pay for a private insurance or you don't have insurance coverage. And so like for us, it makes sense to pay, you know, I think when, I paid for insurance, thankfully now my kids are covered under their dad's tri care regardless. But like when I was

before he joined the military, it was just me, him and two kids. And I think we were paying like 700 or $800 a month out of my check for my private insurance before that. But then we would pay like a copay amount to go to the doctors or a certain percent of our prescriptions are covered. But like if we went to the emergency room, we'd have to pay $500. And every day that we were admitted, it was a $300 copay.

Emma (36:14)
you

we do the balance okay.

it's the end of the day we get the mask because we were utilizing the healthcare, so we tend to pay that. But once in like...

Britt (36:30)
the end of the day when you did the math because we were utilizing our healthcare, it made sense to pay that. But what in

Canada does that, what is the benefit of having a private health insurance?

Emma (36:47)
And I think that you kind of hit the nail on the head. There's a lot of Canadian's who don't pay for private health insurance because if they go to the dentist, it's like three or $400. They might go once a year. The insurance in Canada is like insurance. So for us, it's worth it because God forbid something happened with the kids and they needed to be hospitalized and they needed all this.

stays are covered, the private rooms are covered, that like extra comfort is covered. For me, my medications not covered would be thousands of dollars because the prices are just outrageous of medication and we can't shop around like the price is the price. The pharmacy has different dispensary fees but like the price, so one of my medications I think is like $400 a month.

But I have 80 % coverage of that. So I do make the money back in it. Like for medication alone, it's worth it. And my husband and I have had this talk actually quite a bit because insurance raises the price every year of what we pay. So it's just steadily gone.

Britt (37:52)
Yeah, I just picked up

even our my prescriptions. I picked them up today double the cost what they were the last time I picked them up three months ago, and I was like, what the hell? But I mean, that makes sense when you think about it that way, because in the US our Medicaid and Medicare covers prescriptions. And so like that's considered covered. So like in

Canada, is there like a bracket of like income or I guess like you said age where like then that stuff does become covered if you aren't on a private insurance?

Emma (38:25)
Yes, so age for sure. I do believe there is an income bracket, but I can't 100 % verify that. And so with that, you still don't get a ton of coverage. So medication is mostly free minus some that they deem not covered. I don't know what their criteria is for that. We have...

One thing like on private insurance, again, there is one puffer that my son needs to take twice a day every day. And most insurances cover it. Mine doesn't. They just don't. When I had hypermesis, Gravidarum with my second, and I couldn't eat and I couldn't function, they covered the medication and then they changed their mind. So the next time I had to pay full price, just changed their mind. They said, we're not covering it anymore. So there's things.

But because I have private insurance, there's no freeness. However, I don't even think that medication is covered because it's not an everyday coverage. So if there's a mom without private insurance, she would have had to pay for it as well. So it's just like, there's a lot of nuanced things. And so one of the big political things is our province just went conservative again. It's been conservative, I think, for four years, which is more inclined to like Republican beliefs. And our premier is what he's called is like,

Senator or Premier wants to privatize healthcare. And there's a big uproar of that. There's a lot of people who support him and there's a lot of people who of course don't. And so after COVID, we had an epidemic in nursing homes. Thousands of people in nursing homes died. It's horrific. And it was because our healthcare workers are so undervalued, so underpaid.

Like we have nurses who try to go to the states because the pay difference, depending on where you are in the states obviously is so different. I want to do a quick thing, but like when I started as an RPN, which is just under RN, so we have like support workers, personal support workers, practical nurses in Ontario, they're registered practical nurses, other where they're licensed practical nurses, and then we have our RNs. I was making...

I'm going to just quickly do the convergence on here. I was making just under $12 an hour as a nurse when I first started. It just, it's insane. And so RNs are paid typically a lot better when they're in the hospitals. But I burnt out before COVID because at that price and the politics in nursing, which I'm sure Britt you know,

Midori (40:51)
Thank

Emma (41:07)
And there's also a saying, I don't know if it's a saying in the US, but like there's a lot of sayings where nurses eat their young is the saying. And I was just in a lot of bad situations. And so I just, my anxiety couldn't handle it. And I was fortunate enough, I ended up stepping back. We focused on having our family. But our healthcare is just like, it's crumbling because no one is taken care of. The nurses aren't, the support staff aren't taken care of.

There's so much abuse from patients in the hospitals especially. And people are just fed up and we are now having government incentives to increase our education and go back to the workforce and go to retirement homes, but nothing's been changed. All the issues are still there. They're just trying to basically buy things. We had a thing a couple of years ago where all the other more male dominant

services are allowed to have increases, but our government decided that nurses were capped. They couldn't have more increases past X amount. Just because. And so it was hard not to see that predominantly what identifies as a female occupation was being penalized. And I don't think it ever really recovered. it just for as good as our health care system is, it's still so broken.

Britt (42:24)
Yeah.

Emma (42:33)
But at the end of the day, I still look

Britt (42:33)
Yeah, I think.

Emma (42:35)
for not to be indebted.

Britt (42:38)
Yeah. So if like, just, and I'm sorry that I'm asking all these questions. I just think it's interesting. And I think it's, I think it's fascinating. And I think it's just really educational because, know, when you are like, I'm so for this, it's now, it's good to see all of the actual sides. So like, there, if somebody is like, say something like a car accident, something really tragic happens, somebody's admitted to the hospital for like long-term amounts of care.

Emma (42:42)
No, I'm so good at it.

Britt (43:08)
If they don't have private insurance, is that type stuff covered? And then if it's not, how is the not debt, is it just like wiped clean or what does that look like?

Emma (43:22)
It's covered.

Britt (43:22)
Okay, that's awesome. Yeah, but then you're like, but then also, okay, so the hospital stays covered, but then are you not going to be able to get occupational therapy that you need afterwards, so you learn how to walk.

Emma (43:23)
it's covered.

So it depends and from my understanding, oftentimes in those kinds of situations, people get assigned a social worker and that social worker will work with government provincial setups to get you in a plan. So basically once you're in the hospital, and again, not speaking to every case just from what I know, a lot of the times you will get a social worker that can put into government funded supports.

So there are things like that and that can fast track it compared to like your average person getting referred that can fast track it

Britt (44:12)
but that still leaves such a significant amount of people who are not getting care. And that still doesn't alleviate the problem of your healthcare system or your health nurse is not being paid. I will say that as one thing that like, I'm so thankful for that. I'm a registered nurse and I do have my bachelors as well. So that kind of helps with pay a little bit too. But like as a nurse here, I can go and I can work part-time nights in the ER and that

takes care of the foundation for me to be able to support myself and my four kids as a single parent. And so I will say that is one thing, I guess that is a huge pro of like a for know, privatized insurance is that, you know, there are some pros to that. However, I also work in a system where now we're seeing a lot of the financial benefits that we were seeing during COVID.

the nurses were finally in the hospitals were finally starting to pay back more money to those nurses. And so we were having higher bonuses. We were having these we were at higher risk of contracting these serious illnesses. But then you know, you're also working hard hours. And if you've never been masked up in full PPE in a room with somebody who's on a vent with COVID for 12 hours lifting them from their belly to like you don't know.

Like we earn every dollar and the fact that like nurses are only making $12 doing that in Canada blows my mind. And no wonder it's such an issue because now we're seeing all these staff like the, as the staff were like, now you did have all this finances of money that you have in the hospitals and the for-profit system has so much money that now we're capable of seeing how much our work is valuable.

And now they're trying to roll back all these financial incentives and nurses are quitting left and right. And we're having high turnover. And it's crazy because they're taking, as somebody who's employed already, they're taking away our over time bonuses that we use to be able to sign up for in periods when the emergency room is really busy. If they're understaffed or we have what's called holds, like our hospital is full, we have people staying in the emergency room.

Emma (46:11)
You

Britt (46:37)
for sometimes days at a time, they'll have extra nurses come in and they say, we'll pay you an additional blank numbers per hour or certain amount of money per shift to pick up and like take these extra patients. And they're rolling back how much money we're getting for those even though our change of amount of work hasn't changed at all.

And so it's starting this internal crumble of our healthcare system too, where now our nurses are starting to see how for-profit the system is and not for actually caring for the people that are providing for the patients. And then the patients are the ones that are feeling that with the longer wait times and all of this, because you have people leaving the field at insane rates.

Chelsea (47:28)
Well, I just, wanna, speaking as someone who is not in the healthcare field at all, speaking, and I guess, like, I don't wanna say that I represent, like, an average American, like, so we have private insurance and we also have Medicaid supplemental, just because of my situation.

But that exact example, like when you're saying if someone got in a car accident and like they had to have a significant stay. So before my youngest was born, my husband was in a catastrophic motorcycle accident. He was hit head on by an elderly underinsured driver. He hit that car, bounced off that car, hit the car behind it, and then rolled down the road.

The doctors, this is, not gonna get into the whole thing, but like honestly, like he should not have survived. And his doctors still to this day are like, I don't know how you are walking. He had, so he broke his spine. Like he had to have spinal surgery. Both of his wrists were broken. One of his wrists was off. Like the list goes on and on. He was a mess. So he was that situation and our family was that situation. He...

We were in the ER and then we were admitted for just over two weeks. And insurance goes so much deeper than just medical insurance in the US. So then you have auto insurance on top of it. So because we're in this medical crisis, but because it was an auto accident,

our auto insurance policies were also involved with our medical insurance. And because the driver of the vehicle was under insured, what should have been a payout to us to cover our medical costs, we didn't get. then so then we had to pay for a lawyer, we had to get a lawyer. And even the lawyer was like, we can't, there's nothing to squeeze out of this guy. He's 80 something like, and I would

We don't want to ruin his life too. So at the end of the day, there's so much to it. So yes, we had great private insurance. It was great. But the bills were still in the hundreds of thousands and there was absolutely no way that we could pay that. And the auto insurance should have covered that, but because the driver was underinsured, it wasn't there.

our lawyer had to have us write letters and make videos begging Blue Cross Blue Shield to not take the tiny settlement that we got. And it was minuscule, minuscule. Like my husband is going to be, he's gonna need services for the rest of his life. He's going to need surgeries again down the road.

what we got wouldn't, it's not gonna pay for it. It's never gonna pay for it. So we're still screwed, but we would have been even more screwed just because they felt compelled by our letters and our videos. They said, okay, we won't take what the auto insurance was gonna pay out. We won't take that. You guys can have that.

so it's not, yes, the medical system's broken and the medical insurance system is broken. And I'm thankful for the insurance that we had, but even with one of the best insurance policies in the state, it was still, we still had a bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars and we had to pay a lawyer to talk them down and then talk the insurance company into not taking our settlement from us.

So like, it's broken across the I wish and my hope for the future for us on Odd Moms is that we can get some more connections.

Like from, have friends in Australia and I have friends in the UK and I have friends in Norway and the healthcare system. I'd really like to hear about what the healthcare system looks like there as well because it's not working and preventative care, preventative care is the model that we should be following.

Midori (52:04)
preventative care and mental health care. if I think you can create if we can if there's a way to couple like support for both of those on like big picture for like everybody regardless of like financial situation like the richest and the poorest like could benefit from preventative and mental health care but it's like the last thing it's the lowest like money driver.

Chelsea (52:06)
Yes, it always comes back to mental health.

Emma (52:08)
And it's fun.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Midori (52:32)
to some degree. yeah, I do, but I also would argue that it's the most helpful. Like I feel like if we can address preventative care and mental health, like we would have a holistically much more healthier country. Like.

Chelsea (52:32)
Well, they just want to keep us sit. so I will.

Absolutely.

the joke in our well, it wasn't really a joke because it was absolutely terrifying when RFK was saying that he wanted to stop all SSRIs and mental health medications and basically put people with mental health conditions on cannabis farms and detox us from SSRIs. initially, I mean, I have OCD and PTSD. So initially I went into a spiral, but that's me. I'm good at that. But

Midori (52:48)
You

Chelsea (53:12)
My second thought was like, well, the drug companies are never going to let that happen. Because it's all for profit because they won't make any money that way. So and yeah.

Midori (53:17)
Never.

Britt (53:24)
And

if you trace back to where the big money payers are going, it's back to the freaking politicians. So they're only going to be cutting their own income.

Midori (53:32)
Yeah, they allow it all to happen.

Like, it's all like a cycle. Like they put, you know, whatever. Yeah, like they make prescriptions, like monopolize them. And then they let them make all these derivatives that everyone makes. It just is like, it's such a cyclical scam. Like insurance, it just feels like it's such a scam. And my experience, like we have really good insurance. And I'm like, this is wild. I could literally go get like a $20, $300 facial, but like,

other things aren't covered. Like this is insane. Like this is like not okay. Like this, this shouldn't like I'm, I'm happy because it like benefits me, but this is not how the system should work. Like this is, it's crazy. I'm like this, some people like it. Yeah, it's mind boggling.

Chelsea (54:03)
Yeah.

This may, we may have to do another, yeah I was gonna say we may have to do another episode about this at some point.

Emma (54:16)
Can I ask a quick question?

Midori (54:21)
Yeah.

Emma (54:21)
And if we need to

put a pin in this question, totally good.

Chelsea (54:25)
my god, no, ask the question.

Midori (54:26)
It could be like our, what's it called?

Chelsea (54:28)
Like a cliffhanger? Cliffhanger?

Midori (54:28)
Pressmaker? Yeah. think it's my sign language.

Emma (54:33)
So I wrote on threads. I was like, this is what I've been doing with my son. I'm so grateful I paid for parking and food. You shouldn't have to go in debt to keep your children alive. And I had, and I don't know her background. I didn't go into it. But she basically let me know that Americans who did not apply for the special programs or funding were too lazy to get out of debt.

Yeah, right. That was my face too. It was some...

Chelsea (55:04)
Was it a Canadian person said that?

or you don't

know. Well, cause it was on threads.

Emma (55:12)
It was on thread. So I didn't even look at her profile. Like I don't want to these people time of day. And I was basically like, I've never heard of that. I'd be really surprised that people are too lazy to live in extremes amount of debt. And she never responded. But she was basically saying there are programs that all Americans can apply to, to get out of debt. And I was like, I don't know about this because I would be surprised that people are living with six and seven figure debt when it could just go away. So, okay. So it's not really a thing. I see all of you shaking your head.

Midori (55:12)
What, Anna?

Chelsea (55:32)
No.

No, so there are programs, there

Britt (55:40)
No, I think there are so

Chelsea (55:41)
are

programs you can apply to, but they're insanely hard to get.

Britt (55:42)
there

Yeah, so like even so like from like my kids metabolic disorder, because it's like so for kids that are listed as like disability, right, like we applied for disability, my kid was in the hospital 13 times in her first year, she has a feeding tube, she had a central line for three years. Because she had a metabolic disorder, we did not call it did not count under the disabilities that would cause blindness, deafness, or mental

impact. So did not, so she did not, she was not able to get any coverage for Medicare and was not able to get disability payments because it wasn't the right type. However, if she would have been diagnosed with cancer or if she had been blind or she had some other things, there are programs that will waive the like income requirements for certain diagnosis where they can then get coverage that they normally

Chelsea (56:17)
like incapacity.

Britt (56:46)
wouldn't. So like my friend's daughter, her daughter Emily had cancer and everything they had private insurance but everything that private insurance didn't cover Medicaid, they got a special type of Medicaid that covered anything remainder because of the grant and because of the diagnosis. So there are certain diagnoses that qualify but not all of them.

Emma (57:09)
Not for

the average person. You're not just going, hey, I would for debt instead of being able to afford to live. Okay, I know it was insane, but I needed to ask.

Chelsea (57:14)
No.

Britt (57:14)
Yeah, yeah. And we appealed and applied.

Chelsea (57:16)
Alright, listen up.

Britt (57:20)
Yeah, and we appealed and applied and you can get like a disability lawyer and you can fight for it, but you have to be able to afford those things first before you can even apply or be able to appeal them.

Chelsea (57:32)
All right, Odd Moms, this is another one of those instances where we have to get back to our regular lives. But listeners, we want to hear from you. We want to hear about your experiences in the healthcare system, wherever you are. You'll hear it at the end, but email us, get on our website, get on threads, get on Instagram, oddmomsoncall, oddmomsoncall.gmail.com. We want to hear your stories. So this is definitely going to become

a conversation that we get into again, but for now, we've got to go back to real life.