BIRD TALK

Dear Bird Talk,

I am a retired federal employee spending each winter in Florida. I have medical coverage under the Public Service Health Care Plan for up to 40 days outside of Canada. To extend this, I fly back and forth to Ontario every few weeks to keep renewing the 40-day coverage, a rather expensive and tiring process. The alternative would be to buy additional insurance for the winter at a much higher cost. I wonder if perhaps the CSA could prevail upon the PSHCP to permit extended coverage for snowbirds like myself, if necessary, for an additional premium. Better this, than giving the money to the airline industry.

W Gordon
Ottawa, ON

Response:
Ed.: The PSHCP could sell you extra coverage, but I am afraid that the price would be substantially higher than Medipac in most cases. We do know other people who fly back to a border town on a U.S. airline (which is usually much cheaper) and then drive their vehicle across the border for a day or two. As you say, it’s a lot of hassle but insurance premiums can be very, very high if you have serious health issues. We are not sure that this will be economical now, with our devalued dollar. We were very happy to see that PSHCP increased their limits to $500,000, as people were relying on their old plan and many experienced claims trouble with bills in excess of the old $100,000 limit.