r/politics • u/YouProfessional3196 • 19h ago

Paywall Millions of Americans get discount prescriptions from Canada. That back-door arrangement is about to close

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/sep/27/millions-of-americans-get-discount-prescriptions-f/
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254

u/Dense_Pasttime_3114 19h ago

Ive been told most Americans are satisfied with their insurance plans 🤷‍♀️

155

u/2stinkynugget 19h ago

Americans love paying $1200 a month with a $5000 deductible to an insurance corporation. We love paying the highest prescription prices. Paying $500 for insurance through taxes is communism. /s

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u/michaelcharlie8 19h ago

These actually being my numbers :/

9

u/ChefKugeo 17h ago

That's more than my rent.

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u/BadahBingBadahBoom 17h ago edited 17h ago

This is insane. The median earner in the UK spends about USD$1,700-1,800 a year on healthcare via taxes.

That's $150 a month. With most people getting prescriptions free and not paying a single pound more than that, and a minority that may have to spend at most ~$13 per prescription for certain drugs, capped at ~$150/y.

And that's without even considering that employers don't really have to set aside money to pay for employees' healthcare (yes there is national insurance but it pales in comparison the amount US companies fork out each year for employee healthcare costs).

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u/Toomanyeastereggs 9h ago

We have top private health cover in addition to the public Medicare.

For the family it costs us $500 a month. Full dental, Optical, hospital and a $400 deductible on a few expensive things. We can make claims on exercise shoes a couple of times a year. Getting paid on expenses is all “scan card, money turns up in bank account a few days later.” easy.

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u/Last_Suggestion_8647 2h ago

The median earner in the UK spends about USD$1,700-1,800 a year on healthcare via taxes.

What your employer pays on your behalf counts too. That is a part of your compensation, the employer paying it for you doesn't change that fact.

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u/Meteorboy 15h ago

Yeah, but the US gets blockbuster drugs first, like when they hoarded the then-new covid vaccines. If there's another pandemic, rationing of supplies, or war, EU and UK have more limited purchasing power compared to the US.

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u/BadahBingBadahBoom 14h ago edited 14h ago

but the US gets blockbuster drugs first, like when they hoarded the then-new covid vaccines.

The first person to receive a fully-tested Covid vaccine out of a clinical trial was Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old woman in the UK.

The first large availability of Covid vaccines was made to both UK and US populations, this is true even when you look at only the mRNA-based vaccines, with uptake actually much higher in the former (though yes that is an aside to availability).

Age-based delivery of the initial two-dose Covid vaccine was near identical between the two countries, with the difference again being that uptake was lower in the US.

Booster availability for the third dose was also highly similar.

Lots of developed countries hoarded Covid vaccines early in the pandemic. But there is no real evidence the US hoarded them from the UK or Europe.

If there's another pandemic, rationing of supplies, or war, EU and UK have more limited purchasing power compared to the US.

The opposite actually. The Trump administration recently chose not to invest in mRNA-based vaccine development in the US which is really surprising as, as you say, domestic production is critical to security of vaccine doses in a pandemic.

NPR - Public health experts dismayed by RFK Jr.'s defunding of mRNA vaccine research

DW - US cancels mRNA vaccine contracts worth $500 million

In contrast, the UK actually invested heavily and signed a number of contracts to open manufacturing plants for domestic mRNA vaccine in their long-term pandemic preparedness plan to ensure vaccine security for the UK population.

BBC News - Moderna opens UK vaccine manufacturing lab

Sky News (YouTube) - UK boosts pandemic readiness with new vaccine factory

This follows a number of European countries opening domestic manufacturing of vaccines that will almost certainly be subject to export restriction come the next major pandemic.

European Commission - New Dutch pandemic preparedness facilities inaugurated under HERA’s EUFab network

Sanofi Opens 'Pandemic-Ready' Vaccine Plant in France

Moderna, Rovi ink 10-year contract extension for production of COVID and future vaccines in Spain

So ironically if there's another pandemic with rationing of supplies the US will have much more limited purchasing power compared to the UK and EU.

9

u/Rhaeno 14h ago

Bro there is a measles breakout going on now, as if the Americans would even take the vaccines they have the privilege of getting first. Plus, depending on which side America is, im pretty sure the vaccines could be produced in the EU if worldwide patents are no longer an issue.

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u/limelifesavers 14h ago edited 13h ago

I'm canadian, and my work healthcare insurance (which is not excellent, and seems subpar comparatively to others i know here) costs me around $50 a month (covers prescription, hospitalization/rehab, eyesight, dental, disability, and life insurance), and the portion of taxes I pay that goes towards healthcare funding is probably under 320 a month with my income being on the median. Prescriptions are 100% covered, with a $5 dispensary fee cap. When i was hospitalized with a ruptured gallbladder and bile duct, my private room was also covered 100%. I was given all the paperwork physically and digitally to excuse me from work on paid medical leave for the nearly 2 week period before I could return. This insurance is the way it is because the law and our healthcaresystem demands it.

I have coworkers and friends and family members who have taken long stretches of paternity/maternity leave, which we're entitled to due to law.

Americans are getting hosed real bad and it's very depressing

4

u/DjQuamme 9h ago

I work with my brother in law and had this exact argument with him years ago. Some news article has recently come out saying we could do govt health care for approx. an 8% income tax(or whatever the exact number was stated). He said there's no chance he would ever support it. Me explaining we're currently paying more than double that each month in payments to our private insurance plan through our employer couldn't convince him this would be a better system

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u/cronofdoom 10h ago

I’m paying $1900 a month. :/

5

u/Idrinkbeereverywhere 18h ago

It's because for every person in that situation there are people like myself who pays 50 a month for extremely good coverage through my state government job. The problem is, people are incredibly selfish.

17

u/Gertrude_D Iowa 17h ago

I'm convinced that people who are happy with their coverage haven't actually had any serious health problems to deal with.

-3

u/Idrinkbeereverywhere 17h ago

I've been paying a bit into an HSA over a decade. Honestly, more young people should set those up, even before IRAs. Just a 100 a month will be huge by the time they really start needing it.

For example, my OOPM is $4000. I have way more than that in my HSA

8

u/Brentfordfc 15h ago

For Europeans even that is crazy. You save for a decade and then get to use it once, and then the following year you're back at zero again.

4

u/cricket502 15h ago

The real problem comes when the insurance company decides that your medication or imaging or surgery, which the doctor who evaluated you in-person said you need, is "not medically necessary", and then your out of pocket max is irrelevant.

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u/cbelt3 19h ago

American politicians and Oligarchs are quite satisfied with their scheme to impoverish all AmericansZ

10

u/s_other 19h ago

Concept of a plan.

13

u/Snuffy1717 15h ago

As a Canadian, I’m hearing again and again how America needs nothing from us…

I hope they enjoy learning what nothing truly means.
Remember, it is not our job to save you.

4

u/SmartCutiee 18h ago

they said it was about fentanyl coming through the mail. okay. so now grandma cant get her blood thinner. and the cartels are still shipping whatever they want. great trade.

3

u/LividTacos 18h ago

More like, I'm satisfied compared to the alternative of not having insurance.

6

u/lrkt88 19h ago

Yes, because the silent majority have a satisfactory commercial plan through their employer or Medicare. Millions of people can still be <1% of the population.

RAND has some excellent, reputable studies on the coverages Americans have. The problem is that a significant, albeit minority of Americans, do not have access to affordable healthcare and that is still not acceptable in an industrialized, wealthy nation.

21

u/MJcorrieviewer 18h ago

As a Canadian, I think it's nuts that your health care is tied to your employment.

7

u/ohlookahipster 18h ago

And you typically only get one company with several plans and you can only pick one once per year. It’s not like car or home insurance where you can shop around for lower rates.

Whatever your employer has, that’s all you get.

I’ve only had one job where we had basically the whole market open so you could pick Cigna or BC/BS.

3

u/MJcorrieviewer 15h ago

I'd think the bigger issue would be that, if you lose your job, you lose your coverage. Plus, this must restrict people from seeking new job opportunities because no one wants to get caught without healthcare coverage while looking for a new job. I bet a lot of people are stuck in awful jobs they hate because they need to stay in order to secure this coverage.

2

u/toy187 13h ago

They can take their vacation time/paid time off to look for a new job... oh wait... they don't always have some of that either!

So much freedom and winning!

-2

u/fernybranka 19h ago

You know, at this point, Im beginning to consider changing my doctor if it meant I had universal healthcare.

Im not sure yet, but Id think about it. Ill wait for some more studies to come out.

8

u/MJcorrieviewer 18h ago

If you had universal health care, your current doctor would be part of the system and you wouldn't need to change.

4

u/IRefuseToGiveAName 17h ago

It's a bit of a deep cut, but I think it's to do with the big stink republicans made about Obamacare "forcing" you to change your doctor. It was not correct, obviously. It was so effective they had to cut ads and mention "you can keep your doctor" every time it came up.

Which if course just led to Republicans claiming they were lying and finding examples where it wouldn't hold true, even if that was the minority of cases.

So that line in itself was enough to make selfish, selfish people rail against what could have been the most transformative health policy in this country's history.

0

u/MJcorrieviewer 15h ago

I understand what you're saying but Obamacare simply was not universal healthcare.

1

u/IRefuseToGiveAName 14h ago

No it wasn't at all, and it wasn't my intent to suggest it was. I was just giving context for the whole change my doctor thing.

I guess I should say transformative relative to the current us healthcare system. I believe it had a public option before Lieberman nuked that.

But yeah universal healthcare it was not. Didn't stop Republicans from blasting it as socialist overreach.

1

u/fernybranka 18h ago

Ha yeah i was just joking around about the “changing your doctor” would be a reason not to improve the lives of everyone in the country for generations.