Author Topic: Death, Canadian Style  (Read 2633 times)

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Richpo64

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Death, Canadian Style
« on: September 04, 2007, 03:34:29 PM »
Death, Canadian Style
Why national health care has led to Canadians getting world class care -- in Buffalo.


By Bill Steigerwald
FrontPageMagazine.com | 9/4/2007

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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Steigerwald is the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's associate editor. Call him at (412) 320-7983. E-mail him at: bsteigerwald@tribweb.com.

gipper

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2007, 04:56:40 PM »
Assuming this article is correct, how does Cuba, for example, compare to both the US and Canada. Don't forget there are TWO prime issues here in a fair conceptualization: quality and extent.

sirs

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #2 on: September 04, 2007, 04:59:15 PM »
I'll take quality over extent, every day of the week
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Death, to Sirs, with lol
« Reply #3 on: September 04, 2007, 05:18:16 PM »
Everyone would take quality over extent.

But the problem is that most can't afford it. Eventually, with health care costs rising much faster than the rate of inflation, you won't be able to afford it, either.

At is at this point where you will have to choose between your ideals and your survival.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2007, 05:23:30 PM »
I think the ideal solution is found by those who live in Canada but have a short drive into the US , they needn't wait if they are willing to pay and they neednt pay if they are willing to wait.


How can we produce such a hybrid system on purpose?

Richpo64

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #5 on: September 04, 2007, 05:26:24 PM »
>>Assuming this article is correct, how does Cuba, for example, compare to both the US and Canada. Don't forget there are TWO prime issues here in a fair conceptualization: quality and extent.<<

It's my understanding that there are two kinds of healthcare in Cuba. One for the powerfiul and their friends, and one for the rest of the country.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #6 on: September 04, 2007, 05:29:11 PM »
How can we produce such a hybrid system on purpose?

======================================
We can't, because the US is too large, and alas, you aren't Canadian.

You could move to Windsor, ONT, perhaps, and apply for landed immigrant status if you wish.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #7 on: September 04, 2007, 05:36:51 PM »
How can we produce such a hybrid system on purpose?

======================================
We can't, because the US is too large, and alas, you aren't Canadian.

You could move to Windsor, ONT, perhaps, and apply for landed immigrant status if you wish.


I do not handle cold well enough to consider such a thing seriously , but I have visited Canada and I have been on Naval Maneuver with Canadian ships , we are lucky to have Canada as a neighbor , one could hardly ask for better.

But waist deep snow? Burrrrr.... I don't think my health would hold long enough to get to a doctor.

The Canadian border is easy enough to cross why don't I simply vacation there and schedule a checkup in a Canadian clinic every summer?

Amianthus

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2007, 05:46:40 PM »
The Canadian border is easy enough to cross why don't I simply vacation there and schedule a checkup in a Canadian clinic every summer?

You don't have a SIN number.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Plane

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #9 on: September 04, 2007, 05:55:32 PM »
The Canadian border is easy enough to cross why don't I simply vacation there and schedule a checkup in a Canadian clinic every summer?

You don't have a SIN number.


MT could loan me his !

Haveing no SSN seems to be a small impediment to Mexicans who want to cross their northern border , if I find economic benefit by crossing a border myself why should I not?

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #10 on: September 04, 2007, 05:59:39 PM »
Windsor, Ontario is further south than Northern California. That's a geographical fact. Check the latitudes.

Of course, the temperature in Windsor is lower than the temperature in Yreka or Susanville, but still, it's further south. Not very sunny, either.

I would recommend Vancouver Island and perhaps the City of Vancouver as warm enough for human habitation. Both are very pretty and the people are quite friendly.

If you like green, either place is mostly a very nice shade of it.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #11 on: September 04, 2007, 06:01:19 PM »
Windsor, Ontario is further south than Northern California. That's a geographical fact. Check the latitudes.

Of course, the temperature in Windsor is lower than the temperature in Yreka or Susanville, but still, it's further south. Not very sunny, either.

I would recommend Vancouver Island and perhaps the City of Vancouver as warm enough for human habitation. Both are very pretty and the people are quite friendly.

If you like green, either place is mostly a very nice shade of it.




For a visit I have no objection at all.

And if I should happen to be sick while I visit?

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #12 on: September 04, 2007, 06:16:27 PM »
You can take the ferry to Seattle or drive down to Bellingham.

Or you can become a landed immigrant to Canada.

Canada has a lot of aircraft. Perhaps once you become acclimitized, you could become a bush pilot out of Yellowknife, or build a nice cabin along the McKenzie, the Yukon or the Rat.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #13 on: September 04, 2007, 06:51:19 PM »
You can take the ferry to Seattle or drive down to Bellingham.

Or you can become a landed immigrant to Canada.

Canada has a lot of aircraft. Perhaps once you become acclimitized, you could become a bush pilot out of Yellowknife, or build a nice cabin along the McKenzie, the Yukon or the Rat.




Now you have hit me , I daydream of makeing my liveing as a pilot , unfortuneately I am not a pilot yet, just a greasemoney.

This is of course beside the point ,the point being that a Canadian who lives near an American City lacks for no Medicine, haveing both systems avilible . Why should this not work in th other direction as well?

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Death, Canadian Style
« Reply #14 on: September 04, 2007, 07:09:27 PM »
AS Jimmy Carter has pointed out, life is not fair.

You could surely get a pilots' license and get a good used pontoon and ski plane in Canada.

They had really good plaid wool shirts and hats at the St Vincent de Pauw in Seattle, Bellingham, and Vancouver when I lived there. You could make friends with a mountie.

You could eventually stroke a moose.'

 Adventure and adequate healthcare await!

You could learn the lyrics to "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK".

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."