This's from a Canadian think-tank called the Fraser institute; there's enough methodology info to make one's eyes glaze over, so it's not just rhetoric. It's no wonder so many Canadians bring their money southwards to get health-care from here instead.
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did this study factor in the increasing age of the Canadian population and their % increase in general population into these statistics for increase in wait. One could assume that the percentage of doctors/medical facilites was unchanged between 93 and 05 and therefore the increase in demand led to increase in wait.
Of course, things always look greener on the other side of the fence, both for us and for the Canadians. For those who can pay, there is no wait in the US - for those who can't however, Canada looks pretty damn good.
so they have a 2-tiered system - those who can afford to come here, the rest just wait. But we have that too. My wait is 4-6 weeks just to see my GP. It's 6-8 weeks if I want to see the OBGYN or a psychiatrist. But I'm sure those who have better insurance (say, members of Congress) don't have that problem. Mind you, that's still shorter than Canadians, but I pay $212 a month for mine.
BTW, a recent article in Scientific American shows mixed results in a comparison of the two systems.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=53B61670-E7F2-99DF-3E9FD5664899BF24&pageNumber=2&catID=4
also:
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/21/3/19
1998 study
"To examine the extent to which Canadian residents seek medical care across the border, we collected data about Canadians’ use of services from ambulatory care facilities and hospitals located in Michigan, New York State, and Washington State during 1994–1998. We also collected information from several Canadian sources, including the 1996 National Population Health Survey, the provincial Ministries of Health, and the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. Results from these sources do not support the widespread perception that Canadian residents seek care extensively in the United States. Indeed, the numbers found are so small as to be barely detectible relative to the use of care by Canadians at home."
actually, I can't find any later data on Canadians coming to the US for medical care. I find a lot of people saying "all these people from Canada are coming to the US" but I can't find any DATA. Have you seen some?
I bet the real cause of the massive decline in service quality that the chart shows over the past decade or so is mostly due to Americans coming north for the free health care.
I'm not arguing that there isn't anything wrong with the Canadian system. I'm just saying that I can't find the data to support the assertion that lots of Canadians are coming to the US for medical care.
Anecdotal, from Canadians I've known... nothing solid. (Croatia, btw, IS now known as an international medical tourism spot in Europe, for precisely the same reasons).
wow, Croatia?! who knew...apparently not me.
I have heard that Thailand has become quite the destination for medical tourism as well. According to a report on NPR's _The World_ back in June, fee for surgery + round-trip airfare tends to run <$10K (sometimes as low as $4k) v. $100K for the same procedure in the United States. Croatia was mentioned in the same article for the same reason.
I know Thailand does tons of joint replacements & sex changes -- I don't know if Croatia is the same way or not. Medical tourism requiring air-travel, though, is to my knowledge pretty marginal.
from an abc news article:
"In 2005, for example, Bumrungrad Hospital in Thailand served more than 50,000 American patients"
now, some of those may have been in Thailand on vacation, but that's only one hospital in Thailand, and only Americans.
from a University of Delaware study:
"Ten years ago, medical tourism was hardly large enough to be noticed. Today, more than 250,000 patients per year visit Singapore alone--nearly half of them from the Middle East. This year, approximately half a million foreign patients will travel to India for medical care, whereas in 2002, the number was only 150,000."
It may have been marginal a few years ago, but it certainly seems to be growing fast...
Well you know the old maxim: "change occurs at the margin". But there must be natural limits on purely out-of-pocket medical care without benefits of insurance.
I'm all for it, really, since it alleviates pressure on necessarily-rationed public services.
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