Thousands flee Canada to US for health care.

[_bcspace]

A Canadian study released Wednesday found that many provinces in our neighbor to the North have seen patients fleeing the country and opting for medical treatment in the United States.

The nonpartisan Fraser Institute reported that 46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent — more than double — compared with statistics from 1993.

Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment — the longest they have ever recorded.

In 2011, Canadians enrolled in the nation’s government-dominated health service waited long periods of time for an estimated 941,321 procedures. As many as 2.8 percent of Canadians were waiting for treatment at any given time, according to the Institute.

“In some cases, these patients needed to leave Canada due to a lack of available resources or a lack of appropriate procedure/technology,” according to the Institute. “In others, their departure will have been driven by a desire to return more quickly to their lives, to seek out superior quality care, or perhaps to save their own lives or avoid the risk of disability.”

Increases in the number of patients leaving Canada for treatment were seen in seven of the ten Canadian provinces: British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Some of these patients will have been sent out of country by the public health care system due to a lack of available resources or the fact that some procedures or equipment are not provided in their home jurisdiction,” the report concluded.

“Others will have chosen to leave Canada in response to concerns about quality … to avoid some of the adverse medical consequences of waiting for care such as worsening of their condition, poorer outcomes following treatment, disability, or death … or simply to avoid delay.”

Canada’s median wait time for treatment after consultation with a specialist also increased in 2011, from 9.3 weeks to 9.5 weeks. The Fraser Institute’s report concluded that the nation’s doctors don’t like the status quo any more than their patients..

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/11/report-thousands-fled-canada-for-health-care-in-2011/

As anyone with knowledge of economics (no Democrat or other liberal has any) knows, socialism increases demand and cost while reducing supply and quality. Of course the obvious solution is to throw more money at it........

Wither will they go when Obamacare is in place and especially when it morphs into universal government coverage as it is designed to do?

[_Kevin Graham]

The dailycaller bcspace, really? It says the Right Wing Libertarian think tank, the Fraser Institute, is a non-partisan organization? Its stated mission is to "to measure, study, and communicate the impact of competitive markets and government intervention on the welfare of individuals." Uh huh, no agenda there, right? The fact that you guys have to lie about it being "nonpartisan" tells us plenty right there.

This myth you're propagating was refuted a long time ago.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-k ... adian.html

1) First, they surveyed United States border facilities in Michigan, New York, and Washington. It makes sense that Canadians crossing the border for care would favor sites close by, right? It turns out that about 80% of such facilities saw fewer than one Canadian per month. About 40% saw none in the prior year. And when looking at the reasons for visits, more than 80% were emergencies or urgent visits (ie tourists who had to go to the ER). Only about 19% of those already few visits were for elective purposes.

2) Next, they surveyed “America’s Best Hospitals”, because if Canadians were going to travel for care, they would be more likely to go to the most well-known and highest quality facilities, right? Only one of the surveyed hospitals saw more than 60 Canadians in one year. And, again, that included both emergencies and elective care.

3) Finally, they examined data from the 18,000 Canadians who participated in the National Population Health Survey. In the previous year, only 90 of those 18,000 Canadians had received care in the United States; only 20 of them had done so electively.

See also these articles exposing this myth.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/21/3/19.long
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/myt ... are-part-i
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427

Essentially it manipulates the numbers to come up with these outrageous conclusions that Canadians are intentionally "fleeing" to the US for healthcare, without addressing the fact that a tiny fraction of them who receive health care here came here for that purpose. Many of them were here as tourists when they got sick or injured, but interviews with many Canadians prove that some of them would rather suck it up and fly back to Canada before paying for American health care. The documentary SIcko interviewed a number of Canadians who endured excrutiating pain for hours on a plane ride back to Canada, for that exact reason. One guy was golfing in Florida when his tendon snapped and his bicep slung into his chest area. He found out that it would cost him $76,000 to have the necessary surgery in Florida, so he endured the pain and flew back to Canada to have it done for free.

This "study" also avoids the fact that a large number of them who do come here for that reason, do not come here for life saving treatment that is unavailable in Canada, but rather, they are the elite wealthy who come here for the country-club style treatment offered at some private health facilities. For them it is more a matter of wanting to ride first class and getting special attention in luxury suites, not a matter of life or death situations.



http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordp ... osts%29%29

Of course all of this was handed to bcspaces on a silver platter in the past, but he isn't interested in information unless it comes from his second rate "news" blogs written by liars who don't have the balls to admit their Right Wing agenda: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16140&p=439799

[_krose]

Every time I see a post from bc, the first place I look is the source. It's always some very credible news organization like World Net Daily, Breitbart or Daily Caller.

You can't make up this stuff. No, what I really mean is you don't need to, because they already did.

[_MeDotOrg]

If we assume the numbers are correct, what do they mean? Canada is a nation of over 34 million people. Of those, 75% live within 100 miles of the U.S. border. Out of all those Canadians, 46,000 visited the U.S. for (paid) medical services.

I have no doubt that if you're willing to pay the price, you can get faster medical care in the United States.

But if Canada's health care system were available to Americans at the same rates that Canadians pay, how many U.S. Citizens do you think would visit Canada for medical attention every year?

[_Droopy]

The dailycaller bcspace, really? It says the Right Wing Libertarian think tank, the Fraser Institute, is a non-partisan organization?

Correct. It, like Heritage, Hoover, Hudson, etc., has no party affiliation.

Its stated mission is to "to measure, study, and communicate the impact of competitive markets and government intervention on the welfare of individuals." Uh huh, no agenda there, right?

Yes, it has a political philosophy. It is not partisan, as it states.

The fact that you guys have to lie about it being "nonpartisan" tells us plenty right there.

It tells me that either your intellectual capacity has now descended to below that of a soggy cheerio, or, more likely, you are not intellectually ethical enough to simply engage bc and the authors of the piece on the merits of the case, a case which, empirically speaking, has been long ago settled.

This myth you're propagating was refuted a long time ago.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-k ... adian.html

1) First, they surveyed United States border facilities in Michigan, New York, and Washington. It makes sense that Canadians crossing the border for care would favor sites close by, right? It turns out that about 80% of such facilities saw fewer than one Canadian per month. About 40% saw none in the prior year. And when looking at the reasons for visits, more than 80% were emergencies or urgent visits (ie tourists who had to go to the ER). Only about 19% of those already few visits were for elective purposes.

2) Next, they surveyed “America’s Best Hospitals”, because if Canadians were going to travel for care, they would be more likely to go to the most well-known and highest quality facilities, right? Only one of the surveyed hospitals saw more than 60 Canadians in one year. And, again, that included both emergencies and elective care.

3) Finally, they examined data from the 18,000 Canadians who participated in the National Population Health Survey. In the previous year, only 90 of those 18,000 Canadians had received care in the United States; only 20 of them had done so electively.

See also these articles exposing this myth.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/21/3/19.long
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/myt ... are-part-i
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427

Essentially it manipulates the numbers to come up with these outrageous conclusions that Canadians are intentionally "fleeing" to the US for healthcare, without addressing the fact that a tiny fraction of them who receive health care here came here for that purpose. Many of them were here as tourists when they got sick or injured, but interviews with many Canadians prove that some of them would rather suck it up and fly back to Canada before paying for American health care.

Klein is either a bald liar or a tool, and probably a bit of both. The empirical facts about Canadian and British healthcare are mountainous and they've been well documented for many, many years.

Here's Frasier's detailed empirical and statistical study of waiting times in Canada.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploaded ... n-2011.pdf

And something else for Red Kevin to chew on:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA547Com ... ealth.html

Socialized medicine is a vast scheme of rationing and scarcity, who's most catastrophic effects can be seen where a system as been fully and completely socialized, along with the rest of an economy - in Cuba.

Over the years, I've posted countless empirical studies by distinguished scholars from well known and respected think-tanks and I'm not going to rehash it yet again for our resident court jester of neo-Communism. The facts have been in for a long, long time.

This ought to tickle him pink as well:

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/uploaded ... ff0712.pdf

As is well known, large segments of the healthcare industry supported Hillarycare, as did the big pharmaceutical companies. The same dynamic is in play at the present time with Obama's expropriation of the means of medical production. Why? Because a universal healthcare system, just as with "green" energy mandates and forced technology usage, creates monopoly conditions that few pharmaceutical companies and any number of physicians, at least in certain areas, would be able to turn down. "Free" healthcare and a guaranteed income for doctors, hospital systems, and pharmaceutical companies, and the vast overuse of healthcare services a "free" system will encourage is a dream come true for those who favor stability over risk and for large corporate entities who's services will now be in far greater demand now that health insurance is now mandated by law.

True, as in Canada and Britain, you may get critically ill or die before you ever see an operating table, but at least everyone will be equal (which is all that really matters to the socialist mind) with regard to the long waiting lists, the crowded hallways filled with sick people for whom there are no hospital beds, the critical scarcity of core technology, like CAT scans and MRI machines, long months waiting to see a specialist, get a biopsy, or have a hip replaced; the inevitable flight of doctors from the profession, and other key features of any universal system.

Single payer systems do not create wealth. They cannot, as they are not market based and do not respond to or are affected by market forces. There is no money in these systems save that infused by confiscating it from the private sector (or, if this runs out, creating out of debt). As a non-wealth creating healthcare system, it is always:

1. Critically short of resources, and hence, a system of rationing and cost control.

2. Parasitic. It cannot support itself through the competitive and dynamic principles of the free market, and hence, is dependent upon ever escalating taxes.

3. A fiscal bubble waiting to burst. The actual cost of medical care in Canada is utterly out of control, just as it is in this country and in Britain and for exactly the same reasons: medical care is not free, and making it free by fiat to the consumer creates massive inflation of the cost of its provision to the single payer - the state. All nationalization of any industry does is mask and shift the functioning of the laws of economics to another sector of the economy, where it manifests itself anyway, but out of sight of the average citizen.

The cost of drugs in Canada is in the stratosphere, but the average Canadian doesn't know that because he's been shielded by the state from the actual cost of his own healthcare. Thinking it all "free," demand explodes, and costs, following the laws of economics that underlay all market forces, rise exponentially. That's why drugs are much lower in price in Canada, and Americans go to get some of them there. That's also why a number of life saving and health enhancing drugs available in the United States are not available in Canada at all - the government cannot afford them and must ration drugs just as it rations procedures and operations. Unlike a true free market system, there is only so much to go around in the socialist commons. Once that runs low, some have to get out of the lifeboat. Period.

The documentary SIcko

Graham attacks bc for using a study from a respected think tank and then sends us, as an alternative, to a roundly panned cinematic propaganda screed created by one of the most notoriously vacuous and intellectually dishonest demagogues in American pop cultural history; a movie filmed as a paean to the Third World healthcare system available to the average Cuban in the famed Caribbean worker's paradise.

One guy was golfing in Florida when his tendon snapped and his bicep slung into his chest area. He found out that it would cost him $76,000 to have the necessary surgery in Florida, so he endured the pain and flew back to Canada to have it done for free.

Its not "free." Economic illiteracy and intellectual ineptitude of this kind is what makes the Left so frustrating to debate and so monstrous in its implications for real human beings.

Thus far, I'm going to go on the suspicion, based upon years of researching this issue, that the Healthaffars study is deep fat fried. Without seeing the original article and its methodology, little can be gleaned from a couple op-eds. This is how AGW has been kept alive long passed the date of its brain death: factoid articles breathlessly claiming the the magic beans have sprouted, but without digging much deeper into the details of the actual studies, its all propaganda until its fleshed out at depth.

Secondly, as a matter of well understood economic theory and history, the economics of nationalized healthcare cannot work effectively. No matter how loud the wails of leftist moral sanctimony, it cannot be made to function at anything approximating the level of a true free market, individual choice-based system.

Of course all of this was handed to bcspaces on a silver platter in the past, but he isn't interested in information unless it comes from his second rate "news" blogs written by liars who don't have the balls to admit their Right Wing agenda: http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/vie ... 0&p=439799

Kevin's balls have "left-wing agenda" branded across the entirety of their sweaty exterior, and that must have been a painful process, but perhaps worth the suffering to a committed gnostic ideologue.

[_Droopy]

In point of fact, Lords and Ladies, HealthAffaiars, although it claims to be a "Health policy journal publishing original, peer-reviewed research and commentary," does not appear to be a mediacl journal, like JAMA, Lancet, or other professional journals dealing with aspects of medical practice, but a policy journal that, given a purusal of their most recent front page, appears to be "in the tank" for Obamacare.


http://www.healthaffairs.org/

Of the nine major articles appearing on the front page of the magazine here, 8 deal explicitly with politically oriented concerns and/or cheerleading centered in the Affordable Care Act and/or Medicare/Medicaid and related medical "reform" issues.

On the masthead we see "At the intersection of health, healthcare, and policy." In other words, this is a liberal policy journal, one of who's primary missions is carrying water for Obamacare.

A peek at the mentality at work at this magazine can be seen in the following editorial written just before the Supreme Court ruling on the insurance mandate.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/5/894.full

The opening two paragraphs are instructive for their classic Orwellian linguistic manipulations:

As the nation awaits the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, so do we at Health Affairs wonder what’s in store. Which notion of freedom and liberty will resonate with the nine distinguished justices? On the one hand, there’s today’s “freedom” to go without health insurance and not have to pay a penalty for that dubious privilege. On the other, there’s the freedom described by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who outlined the Obama administration’s case for preserving the law in oral arguments before the Court in March.

As Verrilli described this alternative form of freedom, once the law’s coverage expansions are in place, “there will be millions of people with chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease [who]…will be unshackled” from these conditions and “have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty.” So, too, would “a husband whose wife is diagnosed with breast cancer,” who, thanks to the end of annual and lifetime expenditure limits on health insurance policies, “won’t face the prospect of being forced into bankruptcy to try to get care for his wife.”

Once again, slavery is freedom, and liberty is oppression. The Left's classic playing of the negative liberty of individual freedom off against the coercive "freedom" of government control.

And the beat goes on.

[_grindael]

Kevin, thanks.

[_Drifting]

A McKinsey and Co. report from 2008 found that a plurality of an estimated 60,000 to 85,000 medical tourists were traveling to the United States for the purpose of receiving in-patient medical care; the same McKinsey study estimated that 750,000 American medical tourists traveled from the United States to other countries in 2007 (up from 500,000 in 2006).

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care -- admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada's single-payer system.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"

bcspace guilty of yellow tabloid journalism...who'd a thunk it...

[_MCB]

I am offended by claims such as bcspace's. Most insurance companies serving US customers do not pay for hearing aids, and as for CI's, you are up a creek. Those without insurance are even worse off, because they usually do not have enough money to pay for them. In Canada, HA's are included in the public health care system. Just saw this:

The province of Ontario covers 75% up to a maximum of $500 per ear every 3 calander years for hearing aids

http://hearingaidforums.com/showthread That is not so much, when most insured people are covered for new glasses on a yearly basis. If Romney is elected, I have TWO reasons for moving across the border.

As a person who uses HA's, I see this as egregiously discriminatory. The stress of lip-reading, and downright guessing when not using HA's when needed, adds to other stresses existing in the US. Because it is an invisible problem, some people use religiously-based justification for their attitudes "Woe to those who cannot hear (they just are not trying hard enough)." Just try harder, you can do it. It is no wonder that people with severe loss tend to cut themselves off from the hearing world.

Glasses are less expensive, and are routinely covered. With modern technology, more people with hearing loss can be helped. I know, because my hearing is fairly intact at the ends of the spectrum. But speech-- that is the problem.

bcspace, your reasoning is so egregiously fallacious that I pronounce an intergenerational curse of hearing loss on you.

[_Droopy]

I am offended by claims such as bcspace's. Most insurance companies serving US customers do not pay for hearing aids, and as for CI's, you are up a creek. Those without insurance are even worse off, because they usually do not have enough money to pay for them. In Canada, HA's are included in the public health care system. Just saw this:

The province of Ontario covers 75% up to a maximum of $500 per ear every 3 calander years for hearing aids

http://hearingaidforums.com/showthread That is not so much, when most insured people are covered for new glasses on a yearly basis. If Romney is elected, I have TWO reasons for moving across the border.

As a person who uses HA's, I see this as egregiously discriminatory. The stress of lip-reading, and downright guessing when not using HA's when needed, adds to other stresses existing in the US. Because it is an invisible problem, some people use religiously-based justification for their attitudes "Woe to those who cannot hear (they just are not trying hard enough)." Just try harder, you can do it. It is no wonder that people with severe loss tend to cut themselves off from the hearing world.

Glasses are less expensive, and are routinely covered. With modern technology, more people with hearing loss can be helped. I know, because my hearing is fairly intact at the ends of the spectrum. But speech-- that is the problem.

bcspace, your reasoning is so egregiously fallacious that I pronounce an intergenerational curse of hearing loss on you.

All of this is, as is always, a massive twisting red herring. Nothing within the Canadian healthcare system is "free." Nothing. If you wish to have this kind of system, you are welcome to it. If Americans decide that this kind of socialized, non-market system is what they want, then they can very well have it...at at price.

That price is what they will pay for it as market realities and forces continue to function as the the actual costs of production, delivery, and maintenance of medical services are hidden and masked behind the fairy tale castle parapets of "free" healthcare and resurface as critically long waiting times, unavailability of critical drugs, procedures, and equipment, critical shortages of physicians as doctors flee the system because of poor remuneration and oppressive bureaucratic regulatory oppressiveness, and the really creepy aspect of the system - bureaucrats, not doctors, making health decisions, including who gets treatment and who does not in a system that is always critically short of resources because there is no wealth creation present within the system itself.

The "death panels" that conservatives warned of and which leftists dismissed as hysteria are now known to indeed by a part of Obamacare, as is the case with other similar systems.

Those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security will end, inevitably, with neither.

All bc has done is pass on longstanding empirical data and observation. Its old news.