$0 out of pocket for the hospital work, a small co-pay for the prescription.
He also spent a few months on a waiting list for surgery. Cataracts surgery. They fixed him, he can now see better. Out of pocket cost? $0.
The system works. If the trade-off for free life-saving treatment is waiting on non-critical surgery, it's a good trade-off. When you're ill, the last thing you want to weigh is whether you will put pay the heating bill, or the ER bill, or whether you should go to some other hospital, because this one will gouge you, even though you're in-network.
The whole point of health insurance is that the healthy pay for the sick. We will all eventually be sick.
Not sure these are just "edge cases"...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/patients-live...
Total cost: $0, 9 stitches, and a lecture from the nurse on the dangers of drinking.
$0 out of pocket, just showed my government issued card everywhere.
Couple of years ago my father was in an ICU for two weeks with Parkinson's related complications. That one had a $0 out of pocket bill as well. The ICU was in a world class university teaching hospital.
System works here. Sure people can cite edge cases, but they are relatively rare. The single payer, $0 out of pocket system also encourages pro-active care as opposed to waiting until the problem is severe, which in turn keeps costs down.
Wouldn't trade our single payer, socialized medicine for anything. There's reason why Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian socialized medicare, was voted the greatest Canadian of all time by the public in a recent CBC poll.
(Shameless plug: software industry is booming in Toronto and there's lots of jobs. Just sayin'...)