In Canada we have free health care and a similar homelessness situation as in the US.
USA 17.5 per 10K
Canada 10 per 10K
Americans like to think that universal health care solves every problem but it really doesn’t. It’s a good system and helps many things but not a panacea.
Free health care isn't free housing nor is it free food. Housing and food are the most important things for maintaining health. Healthcare is of very little value if you're routinely sleeping outside in wet and cold weather and have difficulty finding food.
Mental healthcare coverage in Canada is pretty abysmal. It's barely covered at all unless you're in a crisis situation, which is not very different from many US states.
That’s fair. Though to be clear the following are covered:
* Family doctor or clinic visits for mental health
* Psychiatrist visits
* In most provinces, medications
Talk therapy through a psychologist is what is generally not covered outside of work insurance. That’s a big gap, but also not quite right to say “not covered at all”.
The problem is of intake. Family doctors (if you have one) are ill equipped to deal with mental health issues and may miss them entirely - a lot of the population meanwhile simply don't have a family doctor and can only get 15 minute clinic visits. Often how it works out is that a psychologist or therapist will be the one equipped to refer you to a psychiatrist to begin with if needed.
Additionally, because of artificial constraint in the supply of psychiatrists (and doctors in general to a lesser degree), the wait time to see one can reach ~1 year, which doesn't have anything to do with how healthcare is financed but is still a problem in Canada.
Therapists and psychologists are two incredibly impactful resources when it comes to mental health. No one said it wasn’t covered at all, just that the coverage is missing the most impactful services.
Yes and then if you are in a crisis they will book you for a specialist psychiatric visit... in 2 weeks time if you're lucky, or maybe 2 years from now
Your healthcare system doesn’t (from my anecdotal experience knowing someone in Ontario) cover that much mental health. She could effectively see a therapist a few times of year before it became an out of pocket expense. If we want to address homelessness that’s related to mental health we need much better access. We also need housing, food.
We need things that are doable but we don’t do them because capitalism doesn’t allow for it.
There is a strong belief in some circles that outpatient mental health care can cure most people. It cannot, and that is one of the fundamental flaws with the community based treatment model. First, many conditions can only be managed with current therapies. Second, there are many people who are so far gone that they can no longer even effectively treat themselves. Leaving them in the community to slowly die, strangled by their own minds, is not humane. Especially when we know that intensive inpatient mental health treatment can drastically increase quality of life for many of these people.
Do we need more safeguards? Yes. But inpatient mental health treatment needs to be viewed as a first line treatment in some cases, rather than a treatment of absolute last resort.
USA 17.5 per 10K Canada 10 per 10K
Americans like to think that universal health care solves every problem but it really doesn’t. It’s a good system and helps many things but not a panacea.