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Report: Thousands fled Canada for health care in 2011
- Thread starter mandym
- Start date
We have had many doctors leave Canada for the USofA because the pay is greater! As far as wait time is concerned, I have never waited more than an hour for emergency care. Then I don't go for the common cold or sniffles. I did wait three months for special xray examination.......non-emergency, and I waited a month for my eye-surgery....again, non-emergency!
Admittedly, there is a lot of abuse of our system. In every system we can read stories about incidents, and they do happen. We are not perfect in Canada. There are some procedures we just don't do here, and wealthy people head to the USA for treatment. Our system often pays the Canadian fees and the patients pays the rest.......the rest often exceeds our fees by thousands of dollars in the USA.
My one daughter works in the American system, and has done so in three states. She does so because she is married to an American, but she can relate tales of woe in all three states; people who can't afford medical treatments. One man was taken to four different hospitals by the same ambulance..He died before being accepted at the 4th hospital. Refused because he didn't have the right policy.
As I said, tales of woe are not limited to any system, and news reports are going out of their way to make headlines, and that's all they are, headlines.
Cheers,
Jim
Admittedly, there is a lot of abuse of our system. In every system we can read stories about incidents, and they do happen. We are not perfect in Canada. There are some procedures we just don't do here, and wealthy people head to the USA for treatment. Our system often pays the Canadian fees and the patients pays the rest.......the rest often exceeds our fees by thousands of dollars in the USA.
My one daughter works in the American system, and has done so in three states. She does so because she is married to an American, but she can relate tales of woe in all three states; people who can't afford medical treatments. One man was taken to four different hospitals by the same ambulance..He died before being accepted at the 4th hospital. Refused because he didn't have the right policy.
As I said, tales of woe are not limited to any system, and news reports are going out of their way to make headlines, and that's all they are, headlines.
Cheers,
Jim
Wow, no longer than an hour wait at the ER. Wish I could say that. Two weeks ago I took my wife to the ER for a possible cracked pelvis ... thank God it was not cracked. We were there six [6] hours ... 8:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. This was in the new greatly expanded ER that when opened cut down on the waiting time.
Admittedly, there is a lot of abuse of our system. In every system we can read stories about incidents, and they do happen. We are not perfect in Canada. There are some procedures we just don't do here, and wealthy people head to the USA for treatment. Our system often pays the Canadian fees and the patients pays the rest.......the rest often exceeds our fees by thousands of dollars in the USA.
Yes there is abuse in every system and every system has its strengths and weaknesses. The US is a very tough country to be in concerning health care if you are poor.
So true, it depends on which axe the publication wants to grind. The Daily Caller certainly would never print a positive article about Canadian or European healthcare. Balanced reporting is not in their interest.
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Yep!....:thumbsup:
I'd like to see that sourced. I simply do not believe it.
Yea it is not a credible or even a believable story.
I bet, instead of being offered proof, I get maligned for not buying it.
So did you call your primary care physician during that time?
Actually, the better question is: What other cases were being worked on by an already-reduced/over-worked medical staff that were classified as "more urgent" than his wife's, thus causing the extended wait?
The times I've had to wait in the emergency room were because someone with a more severe problem came in while I was still waiting, causing me to be "bumped" back down in line. The time that I took my daughter to the ER because we weren't sure if she'd eaten an entire bottle of children's aspirin (still don't know how she managed to get the lid off that thing), we went immediately to the head of the line so she could get her stomach pumped.
Yes, that is a better question and we talked about that. I do not know what other people were being treated, other than a few I saw in the waiting rooms we were in and they were not bleeding or holding chests like a heart attack. However there may well have been numerous others who needed rapid response and if so I hope they received it quickly. We were not upset about waiting. I was simply responding to Jim's not having to wait over an hour. That is great. I wish all ER could respond so fast.
It's amazing what telling an ER person "I have chest pains" will do for your position in line. While in Afghanistan, I told my clinic guys my chest was hurting, but that it was because I had been coughing, and I was pretty sure I had strained an intercostal muscle. They rushed me across town and hooked me up to EKGs and other crap anyway.
I do, too -- but now we have to see what the fall-out from "Affordable Care" is going to do to the numbers of doctors available to us.
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It's anecdotal. A family member.
They can't. They're too busy treating people with no insurance. Some of them , literally, until they have been forced to shut down.
As an example, treating illegal aliens for free has caused many hospital ERs to shut down in Southern California.
That's what will happen to many hospitals across the country when they are forced by the government to lose money on treating all patients, not just those on medicare. There will be no one left to shift the cost to, as they do now.
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:laugh: Could be.
ER visits are not always long in the USA.
I had to go to an ER a few years ago. I had fallen off a pogo stick (don't ask why!) and hit my head. At my pastor's house. In front of most of the kids from church. After the fire department and EMTs had checked my out, I spent about an hour waiting to be seen, and was released about an hour later. 21 stitches! I told the ER staff the details of my injury, and ALL of them had a great laugh with me. They said it was the best injury story of the night! BTW, this was in the good old USA.
I also have never seen a bill for my copay for ER visits. Thank you, Lord, for that!
The next day (Sunday) I went to church, not wanting to teach my Sunday School class, but to show the kids I was okay. After all, they had watched this "crazy old man" get on a pogo stick and get BADLY hurt! (I think they destroyed the pogo stick! LOL!) It was a lesson I was ashamed but still happy to teach -- don't do crazy things!
Bill :godisgood:
I had to go to an ER a few years ago. I had fallen off a pogo stick (don't ask why!) and hit my head. At my pastor's house. In front of most of the kids from church. After the fire department and EMTs had checked my out, I spent about an hour waiting to be seen, and was released about an hour later. 21 stitches! I told the ER staff the details of my injury, and ALL of them had a great laugh with me. They said it was the best injury story of the night! BTW, this was in the good old USA.
I also have never seen a bill for my copay for ER visits. Thank you, Lord, for that!
The next day (Sunday) I went to church, not wanting to teach my Sunday School class, but to show the kids I was okay. After all, they had watched this "crazy old man" get on a pogo stick and get BADLY hurt! (I think they destroyed the pogo stick! LOL!) It was a lesson I was ashamed but still happy to teach -- don't do crazy things!
Bill :godisgood:
Why is that a "better" question?
At any point did you call your primary care physician while you were sitting in the ER?
My point being - if you have insurance and a primary care physician why were you filling up the ER with a non-emergency condition instead of calling your regular doctor who may have been able to assist you right away.
Not only would you possibly have had medical attention sooner and the ER would have been less busy and available for people with greater and more urgent need and...
You wouldn't be complaining now about the medical system - if you had simply used it properly.
My family's primary physician always saw us within less than an hour's notice with a simple phone call to his office whenever we had a somewhat immediate need for non-emergency medical attention.