It's Complicated. The short version is, acute care (hospitalization and such) is covered by the government. Chronic care is not covered. Traveling to another location for treatment that isn't available locally effectively isn't covered (Ontario has a joke of a reimbursement system that will give you back maybe 10% of what you spent if you're lucky, not sure about other provinces). Medication is covered only for some segments of the population (now starting to expand to the entire population for certain types of drugs). Dental is now covered for some segments of the population, but not all. Vision care has never been covered, except for the elderly. Prosthetics and assistive devices are mostly not covered (some of the most basic things may be, but not, for instance, powered wheelchairs). And there's some variation from province to province, because health care is a provincial responsibility.

You can be bankrupted by needing to travel for care or needing expensive meds, in other words, but you won't have to pay if you're in a car accident and get taken to the local hospital.

I had to travel 400 km one way (250 freedom units) to surgery and treatments and couldn't drive every day because I was all messed from the meds and radiation and stuff. That also would be 8hrs driving per day plus an hour of treatments which made me very sick. So... a hotel, meals, travel to see my family when not getting treatments (my youngest kids were 2.5 the oldest was 5), medications, ambulance trips, travel to see various doctors, parking, physical therapy costs there is a lot not covered by our healthcare system, then also home costs bills , rent, car payments, all the usual shit But no employment because I was paralyzed chest down for 8 months and hadn't worked for a year before that due to this illness.

Medical coverage in Canada means you won't get a bill from the hospital or your doctor. That's it. We buy all our own medications, pay for dentistry and vision care on a personal level. We pay for ambulances and specialty services not covered by the "system" sometimes even crazy priced specialty medications if not "approved" in our area. In fact in many cases we even pay out of pocket to have paperwork completed on our behalf for things like government programs aka "disability". Many jobs offer these benefits but being disabled I obviously do not qualify that way as I could not work and had just changed jobs when I fell ill, meaning I hadn't gained employer benefits at my new job yet.

Thanks, everyone, for the education. This was very helpful, and I learned a lot.

The other replies spell some of it out, but there are some things I should note so you have a broader picture.

Some provinces have pharmacare so after a max deductable (based on income) your medicines are free. If you are disabled you can also apply for a provincial form that makes all medicines free (no max starting deductable)

If you have a provincial disability designation you can get dental, eyeware, drugs, therapy, devices needed covered by a special provincial health insurance. The person you asked may not have been aware of this, or they live in a province that has a higher threshokd of what constitutes disability. (The reason I say unaware is their statement about $6800 max earnings is not correct) The only downside is you don't have a list of what is covered, you have to submit the cost or try for preapproval. Why it is a secret about what is covered is a mystery...I can only assume to stop people reading through and taking advantage of free stuff??

If you have cancer and out of work their is a cancer fund that supplements your income. However they look at previous years earnings to determine eligibility, so if you were healthy then suddenly got sick, rather than slow decline in earnings, you have no funding available because of high amount on last tax return. You would have to wait till the following year when you file a low income tax return to get help.

If we are a society that believes in the individual's right to choose, what could be a more fundamental choice than to welcome or decline existence?