drtee wrote:
You obviously haven't seen mine. drtee
Nice coverage of below the 48th parallel. Not many have covered the whole of Mexico. (We have done about half, also half of US and half of Canada.) If you are a complete continental, where is your Canada map?
* This post was
edited 06/29/09 02:01pm by geewiz *
John & Angela wrote: Canadian medical regardless of province covers you anywhere in the world but only up to what the procedure would cost in Canada.
I wonder about actual Canadian insurance covers up to "the cost of the procedure in Canada". Other info suggests that Canadian insurance pays a per diem that seems unrealistically low.
I have been monitoring this topic for years on this forum. As well I have talked to many travelers we meet in Mexico. There seems to be so many opinions. Of course it is different for Canadians and Americans. Some carry no supplemental (self insure). Some subscribe to one of the "fly-home" plans.
This winter, I plan to do a thorough survey of people's actual experiences. I am also curious what insurance options are used. Do they carry complete travel coverage/ what company/ what deductible/ what hospital/ doctor/ etc.
Maybe I can make more sense of it down the line.
This topic comes up at many a Mexican "campfire discussion" Other than a few cheapskates most people do have good travel coverage. I had occasion to use ours in the USA this past fall. Billing was $85,000 ( but haggled down to under $60,000. My cost: ZERO. This was for a minor operation. Something serious would be in the 6 figures. I know people who can only travel for 2 or 3 moths as the cost of their insurance is just too high ( pre existing conditions). For healthy persons the cost is reasonable as the Government plan does PU part of the cost. Your travel insurance is a secondary provider. Depending on where in Mexico you need a hospital and which hospital you choose the fees may be covered totally by your Provincial plan. But travel insurance provides a lot of other services. What if you do not speak Spanish or are leary of getting a bad Doctor? Travel plans wil assist you. And what if you get sick while crossing the USA? That is what happened to me. I have not priced a lot of the plans but I know that the Snowbirds asociation are very expensive. One of the better plans is CARP. There are others and I am sure some of the regulars will chime in.
Our one and only experience was while in the US. We paid up front and "one world assist" sent us a check after it was all over. Took about 4 weeks and we had a small deductible (100 bucks) on our plan. At the time they were awesome on the phone and told us EXACTLY what to do. We could see the breakdown of what health Canada paid and other than the costs for a specialist the numbers that the supplemental health care had to suck up were lower than I expected but still more than Health Canada covered. In our case the specialist told us the MRI follow up could wait for a 6 weeks until we returned to Canada. We got home and within a couple weeks had the MRI, all was well and we were a little more educated on the whole process.
When we do our european tour we will go with non US expat insurance. Not too bad for our age group.
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