Posted on 09/01/2007 4:24:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
If Canada's national health-care system is so dang wonderful, why are so many Canadians coming to America to pay for their own medical care?
Why is the hip replacement center of Canada in Ohio -- at the Cleveland Clinic, where 10 percent of its international patients are Canadians?
Why is the Brain and Spine Clinic in Buffalo serving about 10 border-crossing Canadians a week? Why did a Calgary woman recently have to drive several hundred miles to Great Falls, Mont., to give birth to her quadruplets?
It's simple. As the market-oriented Fraser Institute in Vancouver, B.C., can tell you, Canada's vaunted "free" government health-care system cannot or deliberately will not provide its 33 million citizens with the nonemergency health care they want and need when they need or want it.
Courtesy of the institute, here are some unflattering facts about Canada's sickly system:
Number of Canadians on waiting lists for referrals to specialists or for medical services -- 875,000.
Average wait from time of referral to treatment by a specialist -- 17.8 weeks. Shortest waiting time -- oncology, 4.9 weeks. Longest waiting times -- orthopedic surgery, 40.3 weeks. Average wait to get an MRI -- 10.3 weeks nationally but 28 weeks in Newfoundland.
Average wait time for a surgery considered "elective," like a hip replacement -- four or more months.
Hello, Cleveland.
The Canadian system is horribly short on consumer choice and competition. But it isn't all bad -- if you don't mind waiting to access it. As health policy analyst Nadeem Esmail of the Fraser Institute said last week, it does "a decent job of saving your life but treats you terribly in the process."
Esmail says no one knows exactly how many Canadians go to the United States each year for medical care. His best estimate for 2006 -- a conservative one -- is 39,282. Whatever the actual number is, however, it is growing.
Clinics in Detroit and Buffalo market speedy MRIs, CTs or ultrasounds to Canadians which, by law, cannot be purchased privately in some provinces, including Ontario.
Ontario residents have three options: wait months for their free public MRI, travel to a province like Quebec where it is legal to buy one privately or travel to the U.S.
It's no wonder private medical and surgical brokers like Timely Medical Alternatives of Vancouver have sprung into existence. Rick Baker said his three-year-old company refers about 100 Canadians a month to U.S. clinics and hospitals for such things as MRIs and knee replacements.
Timely Medical's services came in handy for Lindsay McCreith, a retired auto body shop owner who was told in 2006 he probably had a brain tumor. He needed an MRI fast. But the wait time for a "free" public one was 4 1/2 months and it was illegal to purchase a private MRI in Ontario.
McCreith contacted Timely Medical, which got him an MRI the next day in Buffalo that showed he had a Titleist-sized tumor. Four and half weeks later, McCreith had received the brain surgery that could have taken eight months to happen in Canada -- if he had still been alive. It cost him $28,000 -- for which Canada's government won't reimburse him.
Stories like McCreith's -- and the downsides of Canadian and American health care -- will be exposed Sept. 14 by ABC's John Stossel in his "20/20" special, tentatively titled "Sick in America." Rick Baker hopes Hillary Clinton and her friends will be watching.
The worst thing that could happen to Canadians is to have Hillary win the presidency and convert us to socialized medicine.
Yup, that’s the kind of system we want. Yup, that’s it all right. Can’t wait until we have it.
Ya know, if somebody could point to a single government agency that is run efficiently, then the Socialized medicine crowd might be able to effectively argue their point. Truth is, though, the only thing that gubmnint is good at is wasting money.
If folks think health care is expensive now, wait unti it's "free"......
I watched a TV show called Critical Hour last night.
The hospital was in Toronto.
Several traumas came into the ER.
There just seemed to be a reluctance on the part of the staff to commit to extensive diagnostic procedures.
In several instances portable X-Rays were taken to see if the patient required a CT.
These were major traumas, comatose woman thrown from a horse, man fell two stories landing on his face, woman ejected from an auto accident, man crushed by an overturned ATV, etc.
I’m used to seeing a patient rushed to CT when brought in from an accident.
Seemed odd.
I don’t know if it was mentioned in this article or not but some man was in Florida and he rushed back to Canada for some kind of surgery. NOT that Canada is better, but that Canadian insurance DOES NOT TRAVEL. They have to have the treatment IN Canada. We are with Dow Chemical (husband’s employer) and MANY employees here are Canadians. I don’t think they want to have to go back to Canada for everything. Our Canadian neighbors have been here for 14 years. They have applied for US citizenship. I guess they don’t mine living here with our medical care.
They might not pay directly out of their own pockets, but they pay regardless through; like you said, Taxes
....Tiel says the cost of France's socialized health care is growing faster than its economy. Workers pay about fifty percent of their paycheck each month into healthcare, retirement and unemployment and more companies are outsourcing jobs to avoid those costs. Quality of care also suffers in France, says Teil, because hospitals and doctors resist government requirements to report their success and failures. ......
The 50% figure doesn't mention taxes for National Defense, roads and all the other Federal expenses.
Can you imagine how much it would cost us, with our 20 million illegals??
I’m no fan of the Canadian health care system, don’t get me wrong. But I will say that I’ve never waited for a referral to a specialist. Maybe I’ve been lucky, but I’ve always had an appointment at the specialist within a week of seeing my GP and occasionally the same day.
It helps that I have a GP who used to be the head of our county’s medical association. It helps that I have a GP at all...
Well the system we have now is out of reach for most working middle class families. So, what’s the solution? Actually the present system is insane. Anthem in Maine is asking for another almost 20% increase in rates! A routine colonopscopy is $6000. An routine tooth extraction is now almost $200. There’s not enough space here for examples of greed andever rising health care costs in this country. Please somebody!, is there a solution??
I suppose the middle class working people could just die off and “decrease the surplus population”! Under the surface people are getting VERY fed up with the health care system and it’s costs in this country. The sound of rebellion is getting louder every day - listen!
Let me take issue with the approach used in this article.
There is no end to the horror stories and inefficiencies found in socialized medicine, that much is objectively obvious.
However, those who *adore* socialized medicine don’t care. Not one bit. They want socialized medicine for the same reason that Muslims want Sharia Law. Not because it is better, or even because it has any redeeming features at all.
They want it because it is their religion. Facts and reason mean nothing to them. They have unending faith.
This means the argument against socialized medicine has to be changed. You can’t just endlessly continue to point out how rotten it is.
What you have to do is advocate moving in the *other* direction!
That is, parts of our medical care system have already become more like socialism. And in turn, these parts have been dragging down the more efficient parts.
So don’t point out the glaringly obvious, that other nations have, and continue to suffer with socialized medicine. Advocate changing OUR system to make it LESS socialist.
This will hurt the socialists deeply. It is not just “holding the line”, which they feel they can overcome with gradualism, by introducing socialism a little bit at a time: “Two steps forward and one step back.”
Instead, it is a counterattack. It is dismantling their precious socialism, tearing down their inroads, ripping up their socialist framework, setting “the cause” of their religion back by years, or decades.
And they will scream bloody murder. Much like Muslims scream bloody murder when you take away their precious Sharia Law, and make them equal to everyone else under a secular law. They cry that they are being oppressed, because it is their right to oppress others, because Allah, or Karl Marx, in the case of socialists, said so.
The bottom line is that socialists don’t care if anybody gets any health care, as long as it is done the socialist way. And that is why they should not only be stopped from designing or controlling such a system, but anything they do in such a system has to be reversed.
If we don’t, then people will needlessly suffer and die. All in the name of the foolish and vicious religion of socialism. Sacrifices on the altar of man-as-a-herd-animal.
Don’t just play defense. Go on the attack. Look at our system of medicine to see how it can be made better by removing the socialist parts. Having a functional system is more important than not having to pay for standing in a long line to get cruddy care, or no care at all.
Finally! THE answer to the Social Security crisis. Just have socialized medicine and the payout will drop...
Just don’t eat the soylent green.
Perhaps you are lucky
The solution is as simple as one, two, three...
(1) Deregulate doctoring.
(2) Allow advertising of quality and rates.
(3) Break the mutual masturbation practices of our abject politicians and the AMA.
Or would you perfer to wait in a waiting room reading old magazines for all of the money grubbing and self-righteous physicians of this country to heal themselves?
I think it has more to do with having a GP in general and who my GP is in particular. He’s a rather well respected member of the local medical community. Was a former president of the county medical association etc.
I find that many of the people that complain about referrals to specialists are getting these referrals from doctors at clinics rather than those with established practices.
Where do you live? My last one a few years ago was about $1200. Covered by insurance which was/is about 200 a month.
No, its not luck. This is a hallmark of socialism. When decisions are not based on the free econmical decisions of willing partneres and government is controlling, then ‘who you’ know becomes more and more important.
I saw this when I visited a friend in Paris who had a desirous publicly subsized (socialized) apartment. Why she had it and not somebody poorer? — ‘Oh, I know somebody in zee ceety hall’.
I was in US Army Health Care. I saw military family members clueless about their health care and scrambling to get appointments 6 weeks out. Knowing how the system worked and who made decisions helped me get my wife care when it really counted (e.g. her health was at risk because of surgery scheduling considerations). And believe me, “The General” could get care when he wanted —no waiting in “sick call” lines.
You have some knowlege of, relationship with, an influential member of the medical profession probably due to your socio-economic standing. You get better care than your fellow citizens because of this. Really how is this different than an American getting the quality of healthcare they are willing to pay for?
Frankly, a system like this seems to me more underhanded than just letting willing consumers of health care services find willing providers of health care services. It also is just the greatest way for politicians to get in on the action and become an influential middleman for the right campaign contribution.
In the end, socialism is always about power and we will rue the day that we allow it to dictate medical care.
Maine. $1500 doctor. A little over $4300 for hospital & assorted labs & stuff I never heard of. Everything normal too. Doctor wants one every 3-4 years. Yeah, right!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.