The Canadian Health Care Myth

My brother lives in B.C. and had a pituitary gland issue. It caused very bad headaches. He went to see his medical doctor and was told to go home and take lots of Advil. Next day he went unconscious and near death and was taken to a local hospital. A more competent doctor diagnosed a growth around the gland. The hospital stabilized him and managed to reduce the size of the growth with treatment. Since then he has been fine and back to work. But, the surgery required to permanently remove the growth is 12 months out. Such is "free" health care. Don't let it happen here.

I live in Buffalo NY...Canada is a "suburb"...with 4 bridges connecting... over the past few years I ran into 2 Border Patrol Agents on separate occasions ...and asked them both the same question : Do you know how many Canadians per week come to the U.S. for medical treatment?...without hesitation, both said "Between 2,000- 3,000".... think about that ...somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 medical visits per year to the Buffalo area... by people getting "Free Health Care"...???... tells you all you need to know..... ( BTW- the local "news media" won't touch this story even though anyone who has a relative working at a hospital or MRI office knows all about it)

It's free if you live long enough to get to the front of the line.

And what makes things even worse . . . People who went into healthcare who really cared about patients will become discouraged and leave. Those who are are showing up for a paycheck will stay. Thus our providers will be a bunch of lazy annihilists who don't give a damn, and the quality of care will suffer even more. They will only care if they see your "quality of life" is sufficient enough for them to give a damn about their patients' lives and outcomes. And I'm dreading that day. But we will get what we vote for.

A must read for anyone thinking of voting democRAT. This is what Sanders and Warren want to turn this country into, unless you are part of the top political class, then you get A-#1 care.

Look at Bernie Sanders. Listen to him. Watch his mannerisms. Now imagine that Bernie was your internal medicine physician. How comfortable would you feel?

Matches well with a long sad story I was told by an engineer I was working with on a project in Calgary a few years ago. The short version: The wife had hip pain, many months delay to see first doc. First doc says she needs a specialist, most of a year delay to specialist, in a wheelchair from pain at this point. Specialist says she needs a new hip, put on waiting list for 2 years. After several years of wheelchair bound pain, the husband contacts his sister, an MD in Scotland, and arranges a "fee for services" zero insurance hip replacement in a month in Scotland. The results were excellent, but cost him $50K out of pocket. The story, once launched, became an increasingly angry rant, as you might imagine if it had happened to your wife. Hideous malpractice is apparently the norm in Canada. But it's FREE! In contrast, I had a knee replacement in the USA last summer. First contact with the doc resulted in a surgery appointment two months out (he is very busy, because he is VERY good at this, why he was chosen). Walked around the nurse's station the day of the surgery, home the next day. PT started three days later, did it three times a week (later reduced to twice a week by my choice), rapid progress, lots of painful workouts needed. Was able to do a overseas vacation at the 65 day point, walking up to 5 miles per day, although with some soreness, controlled with Tylenol, as it was still quite early in healing process. By 6 months was at 95% strength in that leg, now at 100% strength at 8 months, zero pain after 90 days, essentially like new now. THAT is American health care, just WONDERFUL.

VERY informative article. What is disturbing is that we already KNOW this. Reports from countries with government health care echo this everywhere. We also know that people from all over the world come to the US for healthcare because they want it done right and they want it done quickly. We have a small percentage of people that don't have insurance and NOTE, not all people that don't have INSURANCE are suffering because of it. Young, healthy people often go without insurance without problems. Only a much smaller group of people suffer with medical issues and no coverage. The dems answer is to rip everything up to deal with the small group that has a problem. Frankly, that's insane.

Two takeaways. The country is letting its citizens down to give them such crappy health care and tell them it's glorious and... ...its citizens are idiots for believing it. Idiots.

I feel like Superman. As of November I ceased to be a Canadian and legally (mentally long before that) and became an un-hyphenated American I feel like Superman because I was sent here by Planet Canada to tell you DON"T DO IT. Free med is NOT free especially if you are a doctor or nurse. Do you want to wait 3 months and drive 400 miles for an MRI on a machine that GE doesn't support anymore? Go Bernie. If President Bernie Sanders promises to go to Cuba when he has his NEXT heart attack or Joe promises to go to Canada for … whatever. Ya get my point Joe doesn't know he's not in Canada. MAGA rant ended. KAG

Yes on all the angles here. If you aren't politically connected there, you can't reach the care. But if you aren't economically connected here (usually having a job that includes decent health insurance), you can't reach the quality care we all take for granted. Neither the capitalist system nor the socialist system is perfect. At least the capitalist way is more honest about its costs and benefits; the socialist way makes more promises, but delivers on fewer of them and seems structured to actively thwart efforts to work around its obstacles. A mostly honest pursuit of happiness is far better, IMO, than a promise of happiness that is mostly dishonest.

Before Obamacare, we still had the best healthcare even for the poor without insurance. I was temporarily working for a company that didn't provide insurance. I had terrible gall bladder attacks. Even though I wasn't covered, I still was able to have my gallbladder removed with no wait time. This country has always had the best healthcare in the world. Sure, there are situations where complicated illnesses don't get fully covered for poor people with no insurance, but even with Medicaid and Medicare, most poor do get treatment even for cancer. Working poor with no insurance may have a tougher time, but there are programs that help too. I was lucky to live in a wealthier county that had such a program when I was sick. After Obamacare, however, things got worse. I couldn't get any assistance from the hospital when I was laid off because that was when everyone was required by law to have insurance and local programs were stopped. So, I got a bill for $1400 just walking into the ER one night and leaving without being seen. I only had 5 minutes with a nurse at the front counter who took my basic information. I waited for hours without being seen and finally had to leave. For that (nothing), they wanted $1,400...thanks Obama...thanks Democrats. ACA destroyed what was left of an already crumbling system. Truth is, we were better off long before all the bureaucrats created managed care in the 80s and expanded Medicaid to illegals. That's when we saw more market inefficiencies and more fraud, and costs became more and more prohibitive over time.