Who Said There is No Two-Teir Health Care in Canada?
September 19, 2007 · By Greg Farries
The wealth and privileged frequently travel to the United States for treatment, while the rest of us stand in line…
Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, who is battling breast cancer, travelled to California last June for an operation that was recommended as part of her treatment, says a report.
[...]
“Belinda had one of her later-stage operations in California, after referral from her personal physicians in Toronto. Prior to this, Belinda had surgery and treatment in Toronto, and continues to receive follow-up treatment there,” said MacEachern.
The $64,000 question: who paid for the treatment? The Ontario Ministry of Health or Stronach?
actually the article you linked said both that she paid for it herself and, “speed was not the reason why she went to California.
Instead, MacEachern said the decision was made because the U.S. hospital was the best place to have it done due to the type of surgery required.”
which proves that in the us, we are all paying through the nose for treatments only extremely wealthy canadians can afford. oh, canada!
why are the comments closed on that other post about polygamy? i wanted to come note how clever i was!
I closed the thread because the comments of most of the commentators weren’t particularly intelligent.
Well gee, bright, if Belinda says that speed wasn’t the reason she fled Canada for treatment then I guess we’d better take her at her word, eh?
My question is, who really cares? She isn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last Canadian willing to pay for medical care in the United States. Neither is this a new phenomenon.
Smarter:
The reason we care is that she was part of a government that seemed to think that everything anyone needed in the wolrd of medical care was available from the single tier public health care system and which took steps to prevent any encroachment on that monopoly by withholding money if Provinces (other than Quebec) took any steps to permit private care.
However, once she had a need for prompt attention, she spent her father’s money on the best care it could buy and only tolerated the domestic system for the basic work that could get done within a reasonable timeframe.
“once she had a need for prompt attention, she spent her father’s money on the best care it could buy”
which was it? i won’t argue that the u.s. excels at a few spectacular treatments. our system has the inverse problem as yours. but it is swiftly becoming untenable, in the way that people typically predict for socialized systems. let’s compare and contrast our experiences and see whose system is worse/better? in all honesty, i think a hybrid system would probably be best.
the problem here in the u.s., is we at once treat healthcare as a right and a privilege. we all have to pay for services, yet at points they are denied no one. for example, our emergency rooms are crowded with people exploiting one of those holes. that is one spot where our care is beginning to fail. on your side, i think what happened to lindsay mccreith is horrible.
http://www.thecourt.ca/2007/05.....oing-away/
Anyone can get speedy healthcare, you just need 1 or 2 of these
http://e-ditionsbyfry.com/Acti.....p;page=235