Canadians Flee South for Health Care Treatment
ByFrom the Toronto Star (January 1, 2010):
Kaleida Health, which consists of five hospitals in Western New York located minutes from the U.S.-Canada border, has begun a marketing campaign in southern Ontario encouraging Canadians to come south to avoid wait times for a number of services, including bariatric surgeries, colonoscopies, joint replacements, fracture repairs and MRIs.
So when you hear about the United State’s “crisis” in healthcare, remember that the northern neighbors, with their single-payer system, cannot stop the outflow of desperate patients who need treatment to alleviate pain and suffering.
Wait times are a manifestation of shortage, something that every socialist system experiences without fail.
Yes, a Canadian may be “guaranteed” care, and it may be provided for “free,” that is, by compulsory taxation, but guaranteed care does not mean timely, effective, care that reduces suffering and raises quality of life.
Being that Canadians rely primarily on America for continental defense, they have more money and resources to devote to their citizens (a bad idea from its inception to be sure, but nonetheless not having a sizable military to maintain makes it more manageable). America on the other hand, with its military expenditures and already bankrupt Federal government, will struggle mightily trying to implement a program that would be 10x the size of the Canadian system.
From the Canadian bureaucrats, we get the expected mealy-mouthed detached comment:
Ministry of Health news secretary Ivan Langrish said it isn’t uncommon to see advertising in cross-border regions.
“They have a product to sell. We see ads from the U.S. all the time, especially in border cities,” he said. “But, certainly, here in Ontario, from a health-care perspective, we wanted to reduce the number of people going to the States.”
Nothing to see here. Cross-border trade is normal. This is normal, too. We’ll just increase funding, like always.
Finally, we get inside the head of the self-righteous Canadian politicians:
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said she found the advertising campaign “distasteful.”
“It seems to me … the name of the game is to determine where the perceived need is. I would imagine they are testing the market constantly … seeing where the demand is and trying to fill that gap,” Horwath said.
For those of you out of the “know,” the NDP is Canada’s outright socialist party. Note the complete lack of sympathy she gives her fellow Canadians who seek timely treatment, and the seething resentment of the American system that dares treat the Canadians who flee Ontario like the East Germans once did. And to answer Ms. Horwath, yes, that’s what the market system does – addresses the gaps, rather than talking about them endlessly and using them as a political cudgel.
Americans, do you not see the writing on the wall?
It's the end of the post, now what?
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1 Comments
January 11th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Hey Will, that article was excellent find.
I would like to clarify a part of your commentary for the sake of our liberal audience:
The Canadian system or most other socialist systems don’t even pretend to guarantee care, although many U.S. liberals would like everyone to believe they do.
Those systems do however, guarantee coverage, and hence the confusion.
However, the guarantee of coverage is practically meaningless.
To take an extreme example, we could guarantee health coverage for all residents in the United States for a mere $300 million provided that the coverage is only good for a maximum of $1 per person spent on health care. This would then be guaranteed coverage, but with almost no care provided. And that’s the distinction!
This may be a simplified extreme example, but as evident by the article featured here, denial of care (postponement is the same as denial) is quite common in socialist health care systems, despite the guarantee of coverage.