Posted on 02/28/2023 10:58:59 AM PST by grundle
Bernie Sanders recently said the following regarding his health care plan:
“The system is going to work similarly to what exists in Canada, and what we are going to see is an expansion of Medicare where almost all doctors are now in Medicare to cover every man, woman, and child in this country.”
Since Sanders want the U.S. to copy the Canadian system of health care, here are some examples of what he is talking about:
When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, Canada, needed cancer treatment, he came to the United States and paid for his health care with his own money.
And when Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach needed cancer treatment, she also came to the United States and paid for her health care with her own money.
And when Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams needed heart surgery, he, too, came to the United States and paid for his health care with his own money.
If Sanders gets his way, and the U.S. adopts Canadian style health care, where will Canadian politicians go when they get sick?
And that’s not all.
Here are some horror stories about Canadian health care as reported in the New York Times:
Canada’s Private Clinics Surge as Public System Falters
The Cambie Surgery Center, Canada’s most prominent private hospital, may be considered a rogue enterprise.
Accepting money from patients for operations they would otherwise receive free of charge in a public hospital is technically prohibited in this country, even in cases where patients would wait months or even years before receiving treatment.
Dr. Day, 59, says. “This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years.”
Canada remains the only industrialized country that outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services.
Canada has a national doctor shortage already, with 1.4 million people in the province of Ontario alone without the services of a family doctor.
The median wait time between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist has increased to 8.3 weeks… Meanwhile the median wait between an appointment with a specialist and treatment has increased to 9.4 weeks
Average wait times between referral by a family doctor and treatment range from 5.5 weeks for oncology to 40 weeks for orthopedic surgery
And Sanders is proud of this?
And there’s still more. This is from the Toronto Sun:
Wait times for knee- and hip-replacement surgery at Southwestern Ontario hospitals are among the longest in the province
People who go under the knife to get their knees replaced in Strathroy have waited an average of 671 days for surgery
Stratford is running the second-highest wait in the province for those needing a hip replacement: the average wait there was 364 days.
In London, the region’s largest medical centre, patients waited an average of 307 days to replace a knee and 299 days to replace a hip
Caption from above photo: Judy Congdon shows how difficult standing is with her bad left hip. Congdon will wait two years for a hip replacement in London, Ont.
Londoner Judy Congdon waited more than a year to have her right knee replaced when her Strathroy surgeon told her he’d have to replace her left hip next. Told last year to expect surgery in September 2017, her date in the operating room was cancelled, and the surgery delayed a second year
I really don’t understand why Sanders thinks this is a good role model for the U.S.
And there’s still even more.
KOMO TV, a Seattle, Washington affiliate of ABC News, reported:
Some Canadian mothers forced to give birth in U.S.
SEATTLE – A problem in Canada’s hospitals is sending scores of pregnant women south of the border to have their babies.
Carri Ash of Chilliwack, B.C. was sent to the U.S. to have her baby after her water broke on Sunday, ten weeks ahead of schedule.
“And they came in and said ‘you’re going to Seattle,'” she said.
Ash’s hospital couldn’t handle the high-risk pregnancy. Doctors searched for another hospital bed, but even hospitals in Vancouver, B.C. didn’t have a neo-natal bed.
“So two provinces didn’t have enough room, so I have to go to another country,” said Ash.
Ash was sent to Swedish Medical Center where, nurses told KOMO 4 News, five Canadian women have come to have their babies in the past six weeks. Some were even airlifted at up to $5,000 per flight.
And a woman from Calgary, one of the wealthiest cities in Canada, had to travel to Montana to give birth to her identical quadruplets.
“We always regret when we have to transfer a baby or mother to another jurisdiction for care,” said Canada’s Health Minister George Abbott.
Aidan Nassey was born premature in Canada and developed breathing problems before his mother could even hold him.
“It was terrifying. And he was taken away and that was it,” said Courtney Nassey, his mother.
There wasn’t a hospital in western Canada that could take in Aidan, and a helicopter had to rush them to Seattle.
Vicki Irvine crossed the border to see her daughter, Carri Ash, give birth.
“You can’t even have a baby near home. It’s horrible,” she said.
Irvine and Ash are questioning Canada’s priorities when it comes to health care spending.
“I think it’s ridiculous that we can have the Olympics but not enough beds so I can have a baby,” said Ash.
The family says there is one benefit to their neo-natal nightmare — the newborn will have dual citizenship and, so far, they like what they see on this side of the border.
If Sanders’s health care plan gets adopted, where will those Canadian women go to give birth in the future?
The above article mentions a Canadian woman who had to go to the U.S. to give birth to quadruplets. Here is more info on her situation from canada.com
A rare set of identical quadruplets, born this week to a Calgary woman at a Montana hospital, are in good health and two of them were strong enough to be transported back here Thursday.
The naturally conceived baby girls — Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia — were delivered by caesarean section Sunday in Great Falls, their weights ranging between two pounds, six ounces and two pounds, 15 ounces.
Their mother, Calgarian Karen Jepp, was transferred to Benefis Hospital in Montana last week when she began showing signs of going into labour, and no Canadian hospital had enough neonatal intensive-care beds for all four babies.
There was no room at any other Canadian neonatal intensive care unit, forcing CHR officials to look south of the border.
Let’s take a look at some population statistics to put that into perspective.
Canada has a population of 37 million people.
And yet according to the last paragraph in that article, there was not a single hospital in all of Canada that could accommodate that woman giving birth to four babies at the same time.
Meanwhile, Great Falls, Montana, which is right across the Canadian border, only has 59,000 people, and yet somehow, it was able to accommodate this same woman when she gave birth to four babies at once.
So a relatively small U.S. city is able to provide health care that cannot be obtained anywhere within the entire country of Canada.
And Sanders wants the U.S. to copy Canada’s system?
In January 2008, the Globe and Mail reported:
More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here.
Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care.
If the U.S. adopts Sanders’s plan, where will Canadians such as those go when they need that type of health care?
Below is a video of John Stossel’s TV special “Sick in America.” In the video, he talks about some of the problems in U.S. health care. But then he goes on to show why the U.S. should not switch to the Canadian system. Here are some examples:
19:41 A Toronto man who had a hearth attack waits and waits in an emergency room because there are not enough ICU beds to give him the treatment that he needs.
20:15 A young girl who has seizures does not have a regular pediatrician, and cannot get a bed at a hospital.
20:23 “More than a million Canadians say they can’t find a regular family doctor. Some towns, like this one, hold a lottery. Once a week, the town clerk gets this box out of the closet. Inside are the names of everyone in town who wants a family doctor. She pulls out one slip, and then calls the lucky winner.”
Stossel then goes on to explain that in order to avoid such long waiting times, some patients have gone to private clinics where they spend their own money on health care, which is illegal in Canada. Even though it’s illegal, it’s actually quite common.
21:36 A businessman makes money by helping Canadians travel to the U.S. to get the health care that they can’t get in Canada. One such example was a woman who had a blocked artery that prevented her from being able to digest her food. She was starving to death. She’d lost 50 pounds. Then she hired the businessman to help her, and she traveled to Washington state and got the health care that she needed. The American doctor said that she would have died within a few weeks if she hadn’t gotten treatment. However, the Canadian government considered her care to be “elective.”
22:11 Stossel shows that at veterinary clinics in Canada, which are privately run and privately funded, animals can get medical treatment immediately, without having to wait. All of the latest high tech equipment is available and ready.
Here’s the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Liz2tXypFAY
So the next time that Sanders or anyone else tells you how supposedly wonderful the Canadian health care system is, and that the U.S. should copy it, you can show them these examples.
I know one that treats everything that old Marxist says as gospel and him as a great leader type.
Church going liberal female.
BUahahahahahaa!
US citizen living in Canada.
Where we live, there is a two year back log for knee replacement surgery, and not enough GPs to service the population.
The docs all retired who could. The Pandemic did them in.
Emergency rooms in smaller hospitals are closed on the weekends for lack of staff.
The US health care system is far superior to the Canadian one.
My wife is a Canadian (and now also a US citizen.)
Every time she travels up north to see friends and relatives, we buy short term emergency health insurance to fly her out of the country should she need more than a bandage. Costs about $150 and worth the peace of mind
Well, one thing is for sure. Under any new health care scheme federal officials will keep their gold-plated medical plans. That plumber down the street, he’s not that important to society. So make him wait months to see a surgeon.
But lazy, grifting senator, please step to the front of the line.
Other nice features of Canadian “health” care -
You’ve patiently waited 300+ days for the knee surgery. You haven’t been able to work in that time (say you are a grocery store checker) so in unemployment with is less than your normal wages.
Now, you have to travel hundreds of miles to the one hospital that will do the surgery, get a hotel or short term apartment and wait some more so you don’t miss your place in line. Ker-ching! The non hospital expense is not covered.
And if the hospital goes on strike (strikes are frequent in Canada), you get bumped to the back of the line as YOU missed your turn.
If I’ve heard once, I’ve heard a 100 times “I wish we had free health care like Canada”. No you don’t
Yes very true. There is one clinic in my town of 66,000 to see patients who don’t have a doctor. And I would say many do not have a doctor. As you said, they are all retiring.
So once the US goes full on socialized medicine like Canada, then what are the Canadians going to do and where are they doing to go?
Where are these people getting junk medical care? I live near a big city. I can see any doc or specialist, get an MRI or other scan, or get scheduled for any procedure within days or a week at most. Why does the left want to ruin what we have? It isn’t like their “marginalized” people are getting turned away. Heck, even illegals just wander in and get care courtesy of US taxpayers. I don’t understand the gripe.
Natasha Richardson.
Congress should pass a law making it a felony to cross the US border for the purpose of medical treatment.
In response to the woman with the bad hip.
Sorry whitey. There are NEW Canadians who need it more than you.
It all comes down to whether they have enough doctors. If they don’t then the hospital won’t be able to help you. The US has the same problem but to a lesser degree.
Sam baby.....anyone who would check themselves into a hospital up here would have to be desperate or half crazy.
All the doctors who were made to lie for the government for the sake of their salaries and fees have retired or left for greener pastures in the Caribbean and the USA THOSE Who ARE NOW ENSLAVED BY GOVERNMENT ARE HARDLY MORE THAN PRESCRIPTION WRITING NURSES AND SOCIAL WORKERS. Most of the are still clinging to “phone medicine” for a living. Those who prescribed Ivermectin lost their medical licenses, leaving the cowards here to tremble and obey.
My son was all in for Bernie. Free college. He was in his first year in college. Then I told him that if they ever get that passed, he will be out of school and working. Then he gets to pay for someone else’s Free College after paying his own. He wised up.
The one one I know will insist if Bernie says 2+2=17.5, she will believe it no question.
One good feature of Canadian health insurance is that it’s completely detached from your job … so you don’t have to deal with it when you are making employment decisions. And employers don’t have to deal with the nonsense of administering health insurance for their employees, either.
On this I agree, insurance should be decoupled from employment, especially when you don’t have to worry about the insurance for employees who live in India. It puts American workers at a disadvantage.
I actually did end up in the hospital from a gash in my arm caused by my stupidity. The medical staff was fine but obviously overworked. No beds were available so cots were rolled out into the hallways. I was triaged because I wasn’t bleeding out - just a huge non bleeding gash in my arm, they later sewed up.
“”Judy Congdon shows how difficult standing is with her bad left hip.””
I have a bad hip and back and the last thing I’d do is sit on soft furniture - haven’t in 20 years and NO intention of having surgery.
Bernie’s plan and Canada’s is what was called “Hillary Care” in Bill’s time in the WH. Thankfully, it went NOWHERE!
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