{"id":5391,"date":"2017-06-15T16:45:53","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T20:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=5391"},"modified":"2020-05-08T17:00:43","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T21:00:43","slug":"group-stands-up-for-medicare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/group-stands-up-for-medicare\/","title":{"rendered":"Group stands up for Medicare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-times dtstamp\"><span class=\"posted\" title=\"2017-06-15T06:00:00-04:00\">(June 15, 2017)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"byline\"><span class=\"author vcard\"><span class=\"fn\">By: Sandi Krasowski,\u00a0The Chronicle Journal<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Members of the Ontario Health Coalition arrived at Thunder Bay City Hall carrying an enormous teddy bear that has become the emblem of their Ontario tour to draw attention to health care privatization.<\/p>\n<p>Natalie Mehra, the executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, said it all began when one of the coalition members discovered the large bear at a Costco in London, Ontario. The discovery lead to a campaign idea: \u201cWe can\u2019t bear to lose Medicare.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mehra said they loved the idea and purchased a bear which they are taking across Ontario.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost Canadians take public health care for granted and assume it\u2019s always going to be there for us,\u201d she said. \u201cBut across the country, private for profit clinics are moving in and taking over services that have been cut from out local public hospitals and charging exuberant fees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mehra added that many of these patients are elderly and are being charged thousands of dollars for needed services.<\/p>\n<p>All \u2018needed\u2019 health care has to be provided without extra user fees for patients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe principle of public Medicare in Canada is that access to care should be based on need \u2014 not wealth,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the private clinics are violating Canada\u2019s Medicare laws and undermining the principle of equal access to health care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of these services include audiology, physiotherapy, speech pathology, cataract surgeries, and diagnostic MRIs and CT scans.<\/p>\n<p>Mehra alleges that these private clinics, many of them set up in wealthy neighborhoods in large urban centres, are double-dipping by charging their patients for their service and collecting fees from OHIP as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOHIP is paying these doctors in these (private) clinics and they are charging patients as well. They are double-dipping,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>So why does the patient go to these expensive clinics?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople are going to these clinics to be \u2018exclusive\u2019 and because health care services have been cut drastically or curtailed \u2014 patients have long waits for these services,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut often people are referred to the clinic and have no idea that they are private and will be charged extra user fees. Then they are afraid to say \u2018no\u2019 to the doctor and often, these clinics are upselling using extremist, manipulative language.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mehra said the upselling convinces patients that private clinic procedures are much better than outdated procedures supported by OHIP at your regular doctor\u2019s office or at the hospital. And to add to the pressure, the patient\u2019s doctor is actually referring them to private clinics and will even exaggerate (the length of) wait lists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut they have a choice to go to public hospital,\u201d stressed Mehra.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople should know that everything you need for most surgeries, are covered by OHIP.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.chroniclejournal.com\/news\/local\/group-stands-up-for-medicare\/article_8913cac0-517a-11e7-9c74-1fc047ae4b31.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Click here for original article<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(June 15, 2017) By: Sandi Krasowski,\u00a0The Chronicle Journal Members of the Ontario Health Coalition arrived at Thunder Bay City Hall carrying an enormous teddy bear that has become the emblem of their Ontario tour to draw attention to health care privatization. Natalie Mehra, the executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, said it all began [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Group stands up for Medicare - Ontario Health Coalition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(June 15, 2017) By: Sandi Krasowski,\u00a0The Chronicle Journal Members of the Ontario Health Coalition arrived at Thunder Bay City Hall carrying an enormous\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/group-stands-up-for-medicare\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Group stands up for Medicare - 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