Canadians offered free care in the US paid by the Canadian government have sometimes declined it. In 1990 the British Columbia Medical Association ran radio ads asking, "What's the longest you'd wait in line at a bank before getting really annoyed? Five minutes? Ten minutes? What if you needed a heart operation?" Following this, the government responded, as summarized by Robin Hutchinson, senior medical consultant for the health ministry's heart program. Despite the medically questionable nature of heart bypass for milder cases of chest pain and follow-up studies showing heart bypass recipients were only 25-40% more likely to be relieved of chest pain than people who stay on heart medicine, the "public outcry" following the ads led the government to take action:
"'We did a deal with the University of Washington at Seattle' said Hutchinton..to take 50 bypass cases at $18,000 per head, almost $3,000 higher than the cost in Vancouver, with all the money [paid by] the province..In theory, the Seattle operations promised to take the heat off the Ministry of Health until a fourth heart surgery unit opened in the Vancouver suburb of New Westminster. If the first batch of Seattle bypasses went smoothly..then the government planned to buy three or four more 50-head blocks. But four weeks after announcing the plan, health administrators had to admit they were stumped. 'As of now..we've have nine people sign up. The opposition party, the press, everybody's making a big stink about our waiting lists. And we've got [only] nine people signed up! The surgeons ask their patients and they say, "I'd rather wait," We thought we could get maybe two hundred and fifty done down in Seattle..but if nobody wants to go to Seattle, we're stuck,'".[70]
A vast hue and cry over the length of waiting lists for heart surgery FORCED the government to provide quicker surgeries, despite 20% higher costs--and not even ten people took advantage of the opportunity to jump to the head of the line. It makes me wonder how many of the horror stories about people dying on waiting lists are anecdotal, if even that. Still, while I don't envy your dad waiting all day to have a sprain treated, he DID get treated and, if it's anything like the province where Scott lives, he didn't have to pay a dime beyond what he'd already paid in income tax. That's a far sight better than going to an ER where you'll be triaged and likely still wait most of the day to be told you've got a sprain--and here's your $500 bill for having it treated at an ER since they're the only ones who MUST treat you even without insurance. It brings to mind the man who went to a Chicago ER with chest pains and was told he just had gas, given an Alka Seltzer and sent on his way; he made it as far as the parking lot before his heart attack killed him. Or the girl who died last year hours before her private insurer caved to public pressure and decided that maybe they'd cover her organ transplant after all, though they did stress in their press release that she was NOT covered under her policy, they chose to do her a favor. They just chose to do so only after a year and a half of legal battles and, of course, the death of the patient.
A big part of healing is having the support of family and friends when recovering. A person who has just gone through an ordeal such as open heart surgery will have an easier time recoverfing being close to home where they can receive the support of their friends and family. I can imagine a person not wanting to go through such a traumatic experience in another country, possibly totally isolated from anyone close to them. The fear of dying alone is also going to be a deterrent for anyone who would have to go through this by themselves. The cost of the procedure may have been provided for by the government but that still leaves the expenses of room, board, transportation, time off, to all of the friends and family of the person who needs the medical treatment. To avoid the isolation for the patients a better solution would have been to allow a U.S. organization to put a clinic in Canada until the waiting list declined sufficiently .
Understand, I believe in a two tiered system; public healthcare should be availabe for essential basic care but if you want and can afford extra luxuries they should be available. Of course, based solely on Wikipedia (i.e. NOT direct experience with the Canadian systems) it looks like that's available; people can pay extra for out of pocket for private rooms and the like, but heart surgery is heart surgery and it's really not fair to say you can get it next week if you can pay for it yourself but have to wait until next year if not. However, the sticking point seems to be that Canadian federal law forbids charging patients for essential care, so that problem can be remedied by simply making it legal to charge patients for their care rather than billing the government, but requiring enrollment in and support of a public system so no one does without care entirely. You may have a hard time convincing a majority of your fellow Canadians they should be directly billed for essential healthcare though. 
One of the biggest problems with the Canadian (Ontario specifically) system is the shortage of Doctors which makes the waiting lists so bad. A lot of the best Doctors end up going to the States instead of putting up with the Canadian system. The chance to work with top people in top facilities is to alluring for many of these doctors. The bigger pay checks probably don't hurt either.
Another big factor in the shortage of Doctors, in Ontario anyways, was the election of the NDP,(a very socialist party), in the 90's. Even in the 90's the cost of health-care was skyrocketing. The problem according to the NDP was the Doctors. Socialist thinking: The cost of health-care is to high; a big part of the high health-care costs are because of expensive Doctors; solution to high health-care costs - have less Doctors. The NDP paid the University of Toronto, which has the largest medical school in Ontario if not all of Canada, to produce less Doctors. Ontario was already having issues with the shortage of Doctors when this occurred. The shortage of Doctors just became worse and worse. In my opinion the system still has not recovered from that 4-5 year period.
All good things come to those who wait.
Another judge rules ObamaCare unconstitutional - 
- 31/01/2011 10:57:24 PM
861 Views
- 31/01/2011 10:57:24 PM
861 Views
I feel the need to set up a pool of some sort for when this goes to Supreme Court.
- 01/02/2011 02:19:41 AM
590 Views
all are part?
- 01/02/2011 02:47:32 AM
599 Views
Supreme Court Ruling are all or nothing, right?
- 01/02/2011 06:49:17 AM
462 Views
Giving to NPR would be the same as giving to the democratic party. 
- 01/02/2011 11:55:57 AM
440 Views
- 01/02/2011 11:55:57 AM
440 Views
Yeah but NPR's still good
- 01/02/2011 02:09:48 PM
466 Views
No - only parts of McCain/Feingold were declared unconstitutional.....
- 01/02/2011 04:19:19 PM
524 Views
*NM*
The biggest problem with the healthcare law is that it IS a Dem law.
- 01/02/2011 01:54:55 PM
444 Views
And whose fault is that?
- 01/02/2011 07:39:58 PM
434 Views
yes it was the evil republicans *NM*
- 01/02/2011 09:40:32 PM
228 Views
Ultimately, Obama and Liebermans, for reasons I've stated at length and often.
- 04/02/2011 11:54:35 PM
492 Views
Could you please explain to a confused Canadian...
- 02/02/2011 02:40:09 AM
504 Views
They have heard how bad the Canadian system is?
- 02/02/2011 08:21:24 AM
526 Views
No way to use any alternative? They banned private insurance and forced all docs to take insurance?
- 05/02/2011 12:48:08 AM
503 Views
The alternative is to go to the U.S.
- 05/02/2011 08:10:20 AM
642 Views
That's pretty asinine then, yes.
- 05/02/2011 09:38:50 AM
526 Views
Re: That's pretty asinine then, yes.
- 06/02/2011 07:55:43 AM
583 Views
We have a boatload of paranoid pessimists in our country. Thats all.
- 02/02/2011 11:52:27 AM
526 Views
It's not just a Catholic thing; there's a strong and justified sense charity isn't compulsory.
- 05/02/2011 12:56:24 AM
475 Views