Re: Calgary Cops Go Gun Mad

On Feb 2, 4:37 am, grey_ghost471-newsgro...@xxxxxxxxx (Gray Ghost)
wrote:

Which is why there more Canadians in hospitals in US border states than
Americans and why one of your leading gal politicians just had her breast
cancer treated in the US.

in your dreams. Unfortunately for your credibility, people keep track
of this sort of thing, using real numbers.

""These facilities in the three large metropolitan areas [specific
heavily populated U.S. urban corridors bordering Canada (Buffalo,
Detroit, and Seattle) that offered services that might be less
available in Canada] combined saw approximately 640 Canadian patients
for diagnostic radiology services such as computed tomography (CT)
scans or MRI and 270 patients for eye procedures such as cataract
surgery over a one-year period. By comparison, the annual volume for
CT scans and cataract extractions averaged about 80,000 and 25,000
procedures, respectively, in British Columbia alone during the
mid-1990s. In Quebec the annual volume during the same period for CT
scans and MRI averaged 375,000 procedures and 44,000 procedures,
respectively.
...
We received responses to our telephone survey from twenty-three of the
thirty-two organizations [accredited freestanding substance abuse and
mental health organizations] in Detroit (72 percent) and from all
three of the Seattle sites. All but one reported seeing fewer than ten
Canadian patients in the prior year, and none reported seeing more
than twenty-five. In New York State the Office of Alcoholism and
Substance Abuse collects data on treatment encounters at all centers
in the state. From July 1997 through June 1998, 105,456 patients were
seen, of which 246 were categorized as "other country."
...
Over the five-year observation period from 1994 to 1998, 2,031
patients identified as Canadians were admitted to hospitals in
Michigan; 1,689 to hospitals in New York State; and 825 to hospitals
in Washington State. During the same period, annual inpatient
admissions to hospitals within the bordering provinces of
Ontario,Quebec, and British Columbia averaged about 1 million,
600,000, and 350,000, respectively. Thus, Canadian hospitalizations in
the
three U.S. states represented 2.3 per 1,000 total admissions in the
three Canadian provinces. Furthermore, emergency/urgent admissions and
admissions related to pregnancy and birth constituted about 80 percent
of the stateside admissions. Elective admissions were a small
proportion of total cases in all three states: 14 percent
in Michigan; 20 percent in New York; and 17 percent in Washington.
...
America's Best Hospitals [as rated by US News and World Reports]
Response from these institutions was low (eleven of twenty) and
somewhat fragmentary. The numbers of Canadian patients seen in the
prior year were generally very low: Six hospitals reported fifteen or
fewer elective inpatients or outpatients; four hospitals reported 20-
60 patients, and one hospital reported nearly 600 patients (90
percent
outpatients and many related to proton beam radiation therapy for
cancer).
...
Only 90 of 18,000 respondents to the 1996 Canadian NPHS [National
Population Health Survey] indicated that they had received health care
in the United States during the previous twelve months, and only
twenty indicated that they had gone to the United States expressly for
the purpose of getting that care. "
-Phantoms In The Snow: Canadians' Use Of Health Care Services In The
United States;
Steven J. Katz, Karen Cardiff, Marina Pascali, Morris L. Barer and
Robert G. Evans;
Health Affairs, May/June 2002

But let's continue on with your fantasy. The Canadians pay for it with
what? Their mammoth salaries? I can't pay for a US hospital stay if my
insurer won't, can you? Without losing the house? How many Americans
can? Do you think Canadians can? Their average salary being lower than
Americans'? Frankly, if the Canadian healthplan won't pay for
something, Canadians would be forced to do what honest Americans do,
fly to Thailand or somewhere to get it. And the fact that they aren't,
while Americans are, in droves, says something about the systems in
both countries, the opposite of what you are saying.

In fact, Americans are coming to Canada to get affordable health care:
"When Alan Elias played baseball, every step hurt. His former HMO plan
covered surgery to repair his Achilles tendon, at about $20,000. It
wouldn't, however, pay $2,700 for three treatments of a noninvasive
procedure known as extracorporeal shock wave therapy. So, in December
2004, Elias, 48, flew to Vancouver and underwent the procedure for
about $720, saving $1,000 after travel expenses. Elias is one of many
Americans capitalizing on a growing trend."
http://www.foot.com/articles/?p=656

Of course, Americans also have the safety valve of sneaking north to
Canada to steal free medical care. The New Brunswick Health Plan was
reported to have more members than there were people in New Brunswick.
Ontario Health Plan cards were reported selling for $1000. Alberta
Health plan reports "several thousand residents of northern Montana,
Idaho, and Washington State have Alberta health care cards and come to
Lethbridge or Calgary for all their health care needs" They're not
just coming here to get cheap prescriptions; you don't need the card
to buy prescriptions. So, given that any resident of Canada gets a
healthcare card for free, and they're not necessary for buying cheap
drugs, who could it have been buying Ontario Health Plan cards for
$1000, and why? I wonder.

But you choose to believe that in fact, Canadians are filling the
hospitals in the northern US, paying for it with their vast wealth,
despite the huge socialist tax system, eh?




.

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