Not actually a stupid question at all!

We have shitty fake universal healthcare that most of us (myself included) do not fully understand because we are not actually taught how the system works. Currently reading The Social Safety Net by Nora Loreto to try and better educate myself, but it’s fighting with my epub reader so nyehhhhh

Healthcare in Canada is about 70% public and 30% private, but your mileage will vary by province as healthcare is administered at the provincial level.

Some provinces require people to pay premiums.

As other posters have said, most GPs, specialists, and emergency medicine are covered (but not ambulance service, you get a bill for that later).

Without private insurance (which many employers offer if you work full-time hours), you have to pay for anything considered an elective procedure, dental care, and prescription drugs. Also stuff like physiotherapy, massage therapy, and optometry (or vision testing by an optometrist, at least).

If you spend some ridiculous portion of your income on prescription drugs you can get a shitty tax break, assuming you are able to tabulate everything for the CRA.

National pharma and dental care are “in the works”, but I think currently limited to seniors, people who have been approved for the Canadians with Disabilities tax credit (which excludes a large number of Canadians with Disabilities), and children? At this stage I’m pretty sure it’s still mostly hot air and either Bitcoin Milhouse will kill it as soon as he’s elected (likely), or the Liberals will weasel out of it (less likely, but only because they are almost definitely going to lose the election).

They can go to most doctors for free (generally not dentists or therapists though) but the medications cost a lot without private insurance.

Lots is not covered. Dentists are private for example

No, but that belief is so strong and widespread that as a kid I thought so too. But a lot of provinces are privatizing their healthcare, most notably Alberta (FUCK COVENANT HEALTH AND THE UCP)

Just as an example of how ass-backwards and nickle-and-diming Canada’s universal healthcare is, I had abdominal surgery several years ago. Sure, the surgery was covered, but the travel and parking weren’t, and neither were the pain meds and cane for my recovery.