Canadians buy U.S. health care

[kempo]

Canadians buy U.S. health care as weak economy pushes down prices

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... le1931073/

I ran across this article today and just curious what everyone thinks. I didn't realize that the cost of major operations had dropped that much.

[TooGroggy]

So, my insurance premiums went up 60% this past year while the cost of procedures went down 84%. Something doesn't seem right about this math.

[Mightily_Oats]

Ha, that's awesome. It's just like people from the U.S. going to Mexico for medical care or people from all over the world going to India for medical care, because they can do it cheaper and just as well.

I like the idea of these Canadian companies that help people get faster medical service if they're willing to pay more. The campaigns opposing health care reform in the U.S. try to portray the modern medical systems that exist in other countries as though they're some sort of communism but it's as market-based as anything in the U.S., which really has tons and tons of socialist programs and socialist bail-outs that we won't admit to - "socialize the costs, privatize the profits" as they say.

A relative of mine has cancer and the U.S. insurance company is trying to cancel our policies... the PPACA, the 2010 healthcare reform act, has eliminated a number of the sleazier ways that they could've dumped us, and it eliminated the "recission" technique they used to use that was sort of like a medieval marriage annulment - where they'd claim that they had never really agreed to cover you, send you a check for all the premiums you've ever paid, and sue you for reimbursement of all of the claims they've ever paid (they actually threatened to rescind us, but I managed to delay them past the September 23rd deadline after which the PPACA's anti-recission provisions took effect, muahahaha) but unfortunately they have found a couple of other loopholes they're trying to exploit. Overall it's been a hell of paperwork and the insurance company playing games and trying to trick us in various ways for almost a year now... stuff my relative with cancer would not have been able to handle on her own if I wasn't there.

It really is just such a monumentally stupid system we have here... I get aggravated with the people at the insurance company, but they of course don't personally mean us any ill and they're just doing their jobs to try to cut an expensive cancer patient off their rolls which any profit-oriented organization would do. The problem is that the profit motive has too much of an upper hand in an industry that makes decisions that can kill or cripple people, and that profit motive then monkeys with our democracy to perpetuate itself.

[Goofproof]

It's a shame the Canadians are getting ripped off, they could vacation in Mexico, then cross the border as mexican, and get health care in the U.S. for free. Jim

[Mightily_Oats]

And leave the Arizona desert full of decapitated bodies, which Canadians and Mexicans and other foreigners like to do, as everyone knows.

[BlackSpinner]

A lot of the procedures are actually paid for by canadian health care or the extra insurance that people have from work. My Brother in law had his bariatic surgery done in Detroit. There is a long waiting list in Ontario because it is not seen as a priority. Their insurance covered everything.
Due to our population base it is not cost effective to have some elective surgeries done in our hospitals so Medicare buys services from across the border.

How ever the Canadian infant mortality rate, dependent on good pre natal care, is vast better then in the USA which is one of the highest in the developed world.

here

Of the 33 countries that the International Monetary Fund describes as “advanced economies,” the United States now has the highest infant mortality rate according to data from the World Bank. It took us decades to arrive at this dubious distinction. In 1960, we were 15th. In 1980, we were 13th. And, in 2000, we were 2nd.