That Horrible Canadian Health Insurance System

Went and renewed my Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) card today. Stepped into the OHIP office at 8:30, an office close enough to where I live that I could walk to it . A receptionist looked at my forms and documentation (a phone bill to show my address, my passport to show a signature with a picture, my old health card and a one page form.) She gave me a number, I sat down and was called less than 5 minutes later. The agent looked over my papers, chided me for not renewing it sooner, took a new picture of me, and gave me a letter to use along with my old health card so I can get care till I receive my new card in the mail.

Total elapsed time? Less than 15 minutes.

Now, to be fair, this is a lot better than my experience with OHIP in the early 2000’s when I was upgraded from a non-picture card to a picture card. That experience was a nightmare—long waits, an office almost 45 minutes from where I lived, unclear instructions so that I had to come back a second time, and a hostile and overworked agent. But in general my experiences with the OHIP bureaucracy, including the time I moved provinces twice in less than six months, theoretically making me covered by neither province, have been nothing but positive. In the case where I was covered by no one, a manager quickly made the right decision, on the spot: I had to be covered by someone, I was now living in Ontario, and therefore Ontario would cover me.

Simplicity is next to Godliness when it comes to bureaucracy, and from a patient’s perspective, the Canadian health care system tends to be simplicity itself.