Canadians Visit U.S. to Get Health Care
DETROIT FREE PRESS -- Hospitals in border cities, including Detroit, are forging lucrative arrangements with Canadian health agencies to provide care not widely available across the border.
Agreements between Detroit hospitals and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for heart, imaging tests, bariatric and other services provide access to some services not immediately available in the province, said ministry spokesman David Jensen. The agreements show how a country with a national care system -- a proposal not part of the health care changes under discussion in Congress -- copes with demand for care with U.S. partnerships, rather than building new facilities.
MP: Where will Americans go if we ever decide to adopt Canadian-style health care?
33 Comments:
Also, where will the Canadians go? :P
The story's main character "said the U.S. backup doesn't show a gap in Canada's system, but shows how it works."
"I go to the hospital in Windsor and two hours later, I'm done having angioplasty in Detroit," he said. His $38,000 bill was covered by the Ontario health ministry.
...
Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University health economist who has studied the U.S. and Canadian health systems, said arrangements with cities like Detroit "are a terrific way to manage capacity" given Canada's smaller health care budget.
"This is efficient," he said. "At least in Canada, you don't worry about going broke to pay for health care. You do here."
from 'Foreign Policy' magazine: The Most Outrageous U.S. Lies About Global Healthcare
I have to say, we have been reading and endless stream of anti-Brit and Canada health system stories.
Okay.
But both those countries are fairly robust democracies. And the voters are sticking with it.
Do the voters know something the pundits do not know?
@Benny:
Social Security is popular here. So is Medicare. Hell, anything the government gives for "free" is going to be popular. But this is only what is seen; what goes unseen are the private businesses that are crowded out, the extensive waste of taxpayer dollars used to prop up inefficient systems, the politicization of healthcare decisions- the list goes on and on.
Health care is NOT a right! It is a good or service that an individual is free to consumer. Get the government, and all of its programs and regulations out of the health care system, and free-market solutions will naturally evolve. Of course, that is politically unfeasible.
Of course there will be services not available in Windsor that there are in Detroit, considering Detroit is more than 10 times bigger than Windsor. Is that really anything surprising? If a procedure is not available in Windsor, why not go right across the river to Detroit instead of traveling 4 hours away to Toronto?
Props to the Detroit hospitals for providing the needed care and the Canadian system for covering the patients. Reading anything more into this article is too much.
This cartoon says it all.
Americans like buying Canadian souvenirs? thanks for the info.
Of course there will be services not available in Windsor...
If a procedure is not available in Windsor, why not go right across the river to Detroit instead of traveling 4 hours away to Toronto?
Is Vancouver large enough to provide comprehensive health care? I'm just wondering where they will go after this announcement:
The Vancouver Sun
"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize" - Dr. Anne Doig, president of the Canadian Medical Association
The Canadian Press
When comparing Canada’s single-payer health insurance system with the pluralistic system in the United States, many people mistakenly assume that Canadians enjoy universal coverage while receiving the same quality and quantity of medical goods and services as Americans, but at lower costs. The reality is that, on average, Americans spend more of their incomes on health care, but get faster access to more and better medical resources in return for the money spent.
In truth, the Canadian health insurance system is not cheap at all: it is actually among the most expensive in the world. Recent statistics show that only three other comparable countries (United States, Iceland, and Switzerland) spend more of their national income on health care than Canada. More importantly, Canadians do not get good value for money from their health system. There are many hidden costs in Canadian health care that are ignored by advocates of single-payer systems.
The Fraser Institute
Canadian Doctors - Health wait times require action now.
Dr. Uwe Reinhardt, a Princeton University health economist who has studied the U.S. and Canadian health systems, said arrangements with cities like Detroit "are a terrific way to manage capacity"
Really? Can you link to a single article about U.S. patients being sent to Canada, on a regular basis, to "manage capacity"?
This is just more leftist drivel. The socialized system in Canada refuses to make the investments needed to provide actual care, as opposed to waiting lines for care.
Get a life, Steve.
The first thing to realize is that free public medicine isn't really free. What the consumer doesn't pay, the taxpayer does, and with a vengeance. Public health expenditures in Quebec amount to 29 per cent of the provincial government budget. One-fifth of the revenues come from a wage tax of 3.22 per cent charged to employers and the rest comes from general taxes at the provincial and federal levels. It costs $1,200 per year in taxes for each Quebec citizen to have access to the public health system. This means that the average two-child family pays close to $5,000 per year in public health insurance. This is much more expensive than the most comprehensive private health insurance plan.
Link
Canadians and Europeans pay just as much, and in some cases more, than Americans pay for private coverage. The difference is that we get fast, high quality care, while they wait on line for whatever care their governments see fit to grant them.
Nationalized care is not "free" care.
anon, nobody is saying that Canadian health care is perfect. If anything, it is encouraging that there are Canadian physicians are proactive in trying to improve the system rather than smearing other countries.
While you're selecting quotes, here's another one from Dr. Doig who reassured her support for medicare.
"In the past few weeks, I have been asked many times whether I support medicare. Implicit in this question is an underlying false assumption - that the desire to improve the system of health care delivery means choosing something other than medicare."
Furthermore, please give a concrete example IF they actually start cutting back on operations in Vancouver. Falling short of that, it is just speculation based on a leaked document.
Look, I know I won't convince you that the Canadian system is better, and with that, you'd better know you can't convince me with some selective choice of articles on google. So let's just leave it at that alright?
More importantly, where will Canadians go if the United States adopts Canadian style health care?
Canada.
I'm Canadian and I've never heard of a single person who has ever gone to US for an important medical procedure.
The 300 patients mentioned in the article is a drop in the bucket compared to the entire population. Seriously, stop exaggerating.
"I'm Canadian and I've never heard of a single person who has ever gone to US for an important medical procedure"...
Yeah consider the shortage of ENT doctors in Canada, that's not real suprising...
Just kidding...:-)
From Health Affairs: Phantoms In The Snow: Canadians’ Use Of Health Care Services In The United States
From the Washinton Times, date June 9, this year: About 500,000 Americans annually travel to other counties such as India, Thailand and the Philippines for high-quality but much cheaper medical care, he said. Few of them go to Canada, where the notion of funding public hospitals with money from U.S. patients has been politically unacceptable...
Very informative article, 1.
Here's a selected quote:
"Canadian hospitalizations in the three U.S. states represented 2.3 per 1,000 total admissions in the three Canadian provinces"
In other words, 0.23%.
Hey Hoiles, the whole point of it all is that there certain procedures that aren't readily available in Canada as compared to many parts of the US...
Then again Canada isn't quite as heavily populated either...
Numbers help drive the market...
I have Canadian friends who have come down to St. Louis, Mo area twice for 'open MRI' something that is available in Calgary but there's a bit of a waiting list (about four to six weeks I'm told) whereas its a one or two day wait locally...
Thanks Steve for reminding me why the FP is still a waste of bandwidth...
Canada.
I'm Canadian ...
So, what would you know ...?
1, good points, I'm not going to refute anything here.
anon (or whoever) seriously what's the deal with all the Canadian bashing? Looking up all these articles on the net must take some time... that's quite the little hobby you have.
...seriously what's the deal with all the Canadian bashing?
Let's be clear, I'm not bashing Canadians. I'm bashing socialists. If the shoe fits...
Remember when Natasha Richardson died in Canada when she fell and hit her head on that ski slope? I remember reading an article at that time stating that if that accident had happened in the US she probably would have been still alive, because MRI machines are readily available in US hospitals; apparently such "high tech" equipment that is routine in the US is scarce in most Canadian hospitals...I have friends who live in the UK and can attest firsthand that the nightmare scenarios you hear about over there are TRUE. Wake up America. Do not allow politicians in Congress to ram down our throats legislation that they exempt themselves or union members from. WAKE UP. It's a matter of your life and death.
...except Canada has a Conservative government
Have a good evening
OMG, the Canadians have a conservative government? Well in that case, nevermind.
No access to a MRI machine was not what killed Natasha Richardson. What killed her is that the Canadians decided that there's no need to have air ambulances available for the ski slopes. Road based ambulances are cheaper. Natasha Richardson had to wait for an ambulance to arrive and then had to wait in the ambulance until it arrived at the hospital. It was painfully slow.
In the United States medivacs on helicopters are common. A business realizes that people value the service, that insurance will at least partially cover it, and provide the service. In Canada you have pencil pushers making that determination.
A good comparison with the Natasha Richardson/Canada is with the ski slopes in Washington State. The area is remote but the ski slopes are popular. Fortunately if you hit your head you can get out before you die.
"...except Canada has a Conservative government"...
Hmmm, but aren't some of the provinces run by a more socialist strain of politico?
I know that Harper the Prime Minister in Ottawa is more conservative than the previous PM but that doesn't apply to every province does it?
Sure, many of the provincial governments are more liberal than the federal one. In a multi-party system there will be differing types of government throughout the country, which is pretty much inevitable in any democracy.
If Canada were "socialist", they wouldn't have elected a Conservative government. Among other things, they wouldn't have gone into NAFTA with the US.
I can go on and on with other examples, but I'd prefer if the google-happy Canada bashers wasted their own time instead of mine.
"Sure, many of the provincial governments are more liberal than the federal one. In a multi-party system there will be differing types of government throughout the country, which is pretty much inevitable in any democracy"...
Well Hoiles maybe there a large number of neo-socialists in Canada and maybe not...
You can tell who the socialist players are in this country today...
Maybe some Canadians are screwy and some not, then again the said can be said for the US...
None the less one has to give props to some of the finest soldiers on the planet who just also happen to be Canadian...
For instance: Consider Rob Furlong...
Sadly it seems that Canadian brass and politicos hosed some of these fine lads...
Today, more than four years later, three of the five decorated snipers who served in Afghanistan are no longer in the army, brushed aside by a military machine that seemed all too willing to watch them go. Persecuted instead of praised, they fell victim to what many still believe was a witch hunt driven by jealousy and political correctness. Arron Perry was pushed out the door. Furlong left on his own, so disillusioned that he could barely stomach the thought of putting on his uniform. Graham Ragsdale -- the leader of the unit -- suffered perhaps the worst fate. Stripped of his command and later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he has spent the ensuing years battling deep depression...
I can go on and on... We've noticed ... with other examples..., Examples that lack any foundation or supporting evidence because you're to lazy to use Google ... but I'd prefer if the google-happy Canada bashers wasted their own time instead of mine. It's our time you're wasting.
I've noticed
Fixed that for you.
Examples that lack any foundation or supporting evidence because you're to lazy to use Google... It's our time you're wasting.
You're the one attacking Canada. The burden of proof is on YOU to find examples, not me. That's the way discussions usually work.
On the other hand, thanks to 1 for the interesting discussion.
Ur all idiots.... are any of you Health care professionals? Politicians? Senators? Are you even remotely connected to any of the decision making, actual studies/audits or investigations related to health care in either country? Have you use the health care system in the country your shooting down? Have you ever actually visted the country? It's amazing how many canadians/americans are willing to kick the other in the ribs while they're down but have never actual crossed the border and visited the country in question. Bloddy hypocrits......
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