February 23, 2020
If Canada has such a great healthcare system, why do they have to come to the U.S. to get treatment?
Here's why:
Canadian Medicare, our northern neighbor’s universal health care system, generally receives rave reviews from proponents of nationalized or socialized health care, but the Fraser Institute found that more than 63,000 Canadians left their country to have surgery in 2016.
As Americans contemplate overturning our health system in favor of one similar to Canada’s, we must ask why so many leave.
The Canadian system consistently ranks low or lowest across numerous metrics in the Commonwealth Fund’s extensive survey on health care. With regards to specialists and surgeries, the United States ranked best or nearly best.
After being advised that they need a procedure done, only about 35 percent of Canadians had their surgery within a month, whereas in the United States, 61 percent did. After four months, about 97 percent of Americans were able to have their surgery, whereas Canada struggled to achieve 80 percent.
America is significantly outperforming Canada in surgery wait times even as it’s likely that tens of thousands of Canadians come here to use the American system.
General surgery, procedures such as appendectomies, cholecystectomies, and hernia repairs, make up the largest portion of those who leave Canada for care. Based on the latest available date from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the total Canadian caseload for many of these procedures is about ten percent of America’s.
Question; where will these Canadians go when America adopts their system? And how will Canada's system survive? Right now they can indulge their socialist whimsy because they have the U.S. as a safety valve. When that ends the Canadian system will no doubt collapse.But by then the damage will have been done and the U.S. market will be gone.
Thanks Canada!
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
07:41 AM
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The fact that a handful of Canadians are too rich for their own good and are as stupid as a bag of hammers to boot does not invalidate the Canadian health care system. Other things may do so, but that ain't it.
Posted by: Bill H at February 23, 2020 10:00 AM (vMiSr)
I know for a fact that there are long wait times in Canada. Daren Jonescu, for instance, says his sister has a permanent limp because she had a multi-year wait for an operation. As he pointed out to me, there is strong social pressure to wait your turn in Canada and to not go to the U.S.
I had an e-mail conversation with a woman who needed to see a neurologist. Wait time was a minimum of two years.
The point Bill, is that there is still a safety valve for Canadians; even if they choose not to avail themselves of the American system it is there if they really need it.
It's worse in Britain. Just recently a woman died waiting for a bed to get a transplant.
Bill, I would also like to point out that an appendectomy is hardly a surgery you can just put off indefinitely (that was one mentioned in the article.) Neither is a cholecystectomy, in most cases. Hernie surgery can perhaps be put off but even then, if you wind up with a strangulated hernia...
I get your point about the percentages, but I really don't agree that it invalidates the point. The point is people ARE coming here and for a reason. Nobody would waste the money if they could have the surgery in Canada and it would be covered. You might call them spoiled rich people, but how many people waste money that frivolously?
I would like to point out Bill that this article from the Toronto Sun says that 217,500 left Canada for treatment abroad in 2017, a much higher number than the Frazer study suggests.
The article states:
To that end, secondstreet.org noted Statistics Canada estimates that Canadians spent $690 million on health care abroad in 2017, up from $447 million in 2013. (The federal agency wasn’t able to provide a breakdown of patients seeking medically-necessary procedures and those leaving Canada for cosmetic surgery.)
That worked out to $1.9 million per day in 2017, an increase from $1.2 million per day in 2013.
End quotte.People don't just blow money that negligently if they don't need to do so.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at February 23, 2020 12:06 PM (COhlB)
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