Post: #1

I didn't see a thread for this topic, so I figured I would start one. This thread is for articles about foreigners who live in nations with socialized medicine coming to the USA for health care.

Here is a good start. Canadian singer Michael Buble has discovered his son has cancer. He is getting treatment in the USA. It's even better if you can find a source that isn't political:

http://people.com/babies/michael-buble-s...ed-cancer/

I thought about calling it "Canadians Coming to USA...," but really want it to include all people. I suspect we'll mostly get stories about Canucks though.

Post: #2

It's nothing to do with whether the medicine is 'socialised' or not, it's to do with who has the best specialists in certain fields. Since the US has a huge population, high standard of living and high GDP it's likely that is has many of the world's best in several fields.

All this shows is how celebrities pretend to be like normal citizens, yet know they can just jump the queue with their money. Michael Buble is probably like: 'Go out and vote for Trudeau, he'll raise taxes so that we can improve the health service' when he knows this does not affect him in any way.

We have a very socialised health service, yet we still get plenty of 'health tourists' who come for treatment. And in some cases British citizens have gone to countries with a much worse general health service, just because the world's best doctor for some type of cancer lives there.

Post: #3

NHS in the UK has issues where they can fund many hospital managers on 6 figure salaries + bonuses, suffer high criminality, staff shortage, hospital A&E closures, health tourists, funding health directives for illegals (very expensive) and put out for court cases where they fucked up, on many occasions.

But when it comes to life saving treatment, equipment, specialists or drugs? They are fresh outta money.

In the US you know the cost straight up and if you don't pay they tell you to get the fuck out or send you to a bad hospital? I wish we did that here.

Post: #4

Our dipshit leftist politicians love to rave about how great our holy healthcare system is and how backwards America is, but the wealthiest of them literally won't be caught dead using our system and will pay a lot of money to go to the front of the line across the border.

That's been a standard rich Canadian practice for decades. For two reasons:

1. The standard of treatment in the Canadian health care system is generally good, but the bureaucracy of the system moves slow. Need an operation for something and you'll be waiting for months, maybe even a year. If it's major but non-emergency it's still going to be at least a small wait of 3-6 weeks. A rich Canadian is not going to wait in line-- that's for the proles.

2. As already noted, leading experts in certain medical fields can be found in greater frequency in the US, Europe, Asia, and even South America. A rich Canadian seeking treatment for something major -- like cancer-- not only won't wait in line for treatment like a prole, he's also not going to wait in line with the proles for 2nd rate treatment; he'll gladly pay the premium for the best doctors and surgeons he can afford elsewhere.

Post: #5

(11-05-2016 05:05 PM)Germanicus Wrote:  A rich Canadian is not going to wait in line-- that's for the proles.

.....

A rich Canadian seeking treatment for something major -- like cancer-- not only won't wait in line for treatment like a prole, he's also not going to wait in line with the proles for 2nd rate treatment; he'll gladly pay the premium for the best doctors and surgeons he can afford elsewhere.

But this is against the spirit of socialism. The goal of socialism is to provide excellent health care for ALL people, not just the rich. So, Canadian socialized medicines totally fails in this regard.

In the interest of disclosure, I work as a system administrator for a hospital system. I have seen just how disorganized, bureaucratic, and inefficient the American health care system is. It's a mess, and I perfectly understand why American health care is so expensive.

Post: #6

(11-05-2016 08:29 PM)puckerman Wrote:  But this is against the spirit of socialism. The goal of socialism is to provide excellent health care for ALL people, not just the rich. So, Canadian socialized medicines totally fails in this regard.

No it doesn't. An acquaintance's wife was recently diagnosed with Leukemia. Either the treatment she needed wasn't available here, or there were long wait times, I don't know which. Anyway, she was sent across to the US for treatment, and it was all covered by "socialized medicine".

Post: #7

It's more hilarious how anybody of means in the UK pays for private healthcare especially for familys and children.

NHS helped me with stiches on a cut once. My last ER visit in the US cost me $20 (copay). Not really a big deal to me.

It pisses me off that they make you go to a GP first and require you to get referrals.

Fuck that. Best part of America is going direct to someone who will fix your problem. Not to mention, American medical professionals aren't mean and angry. I swear every nurse and doctor i've met here is massively angry all of the time.

Post: #8

(11-06-2016 10:01 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  Not to mention, American medical professionals aren't mean and angry. I swear every nurse and doctor i've met here is massively angry all of the time.

I can only imagine how mean and angry Brits must be. You said more about them than you did about Americans.

Post: #9

Health care delivery varies between provinces with Alberta having excellent facilites and short wait times in the ER to Nova Scotia having third world facilities and ridiculously long wait times. I had a MRSA infection years ago and was in the ER about six times in one year, I never waited longer than an hour in Edmonton but waited about eight hours for the same treatment in Halifax. Overall I'm satidfied with health care in Canada but it could be better with a private pay option.

Post: #10

The reasons behind why the rest of the world gets to have socialized health care while the US has fuck all is because the US pretty much subsidizes the rest of the world. Health care systems around the world are subsidized by US taxpayers, US companies, and US medical device makers.

US companies do the research and development, operations, marketing and manufacturing that US investors and taxpayers pay for and then the rest of the world gets all the benefits at a lower cost per pill/treatment.

GSK, Merck, Pfizer, BMY-Squibb, Lilly, Abbott, Watson, Mylan, Gilead Sciences, etc. are all US based drug development companies. There are almost no equivalents in the rest of the world. For example, drug development is almost completely dead in Europe except for the Swiss (Roche), and the one or two remaining UK players. I think Canada tried with some lousy company a decade ago and it got soul crushed.

Same thing goes for medical devices: Johnson and Johnson, General Electric, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, St. Jude, and so on. The rest of the world has....Siemens, Mitsubishi and Toshiba. That's fairly sad.

As it stands, the rest of the world only pays the variable costs of all the research, drugs, and new products invented in the US after being subsidized by US taxpayers, government, and investors, which allows them to free-ride over the US.

There are several studies out there that have concluded that the US subsidizes the rest of the world, as well as the market itself showing how simple it is, for example, to make a profit re-importing the same drug from Canada or other countries into the US.

Part of me wishes that we did implement fully socialized healthcare in the US, as I believe the result will be that either the quality of medical care will go down all across the board, or the medical costs of the rest of the world will escalate.

And that isn't even getting into how the US subsidizes much of the world for defense spending, which exacerbates the situation even more.

Post: #11

(11-06-2016 11:32 AM)scotian Wrote:  Health care delivery varies between provinces with Alberta having excellent facilites and short wait times in the ER to Nova Scotia having third world facilities and ridiculously long wait times. I had a MRSA infection years ago and was in the ER about six times in one year, I never waited longer than an hour in Edmonton but waited about eight hours for the same treatment in Halifax. Overall I'm satidfied with health care in Canada but it could be better with a private pay option.

Give it time. As Canada keeps importing in refugees and other 3rd world immigrants, who don't have the IQ to add value to your country, the number of people in the system will continue to grow as the number of people who pay to support it declines.

Eventually it will be beyond miserable. Things don't appear out of thin air, it takes work, and you are slowly replacing your working productive citizens with an invasion of nonworking and nonproductive citizens. The result will be devastating to say the least.

Post: #12

(11-06-2016 12:25 PM)Mr. Accuride Wrote:  And that isn't even getting into how the US subsidizes much of the world for defense spending, which exacerbates the situation even more.

Without the US ready to charge in to save the day, every European country would have to double their spending overnight and they probably still wouldn't stand a chance against Putin. Certainly not against Putin and China together.

Post: #13

I had a talk with a former canadian doctor about this a few weeks ago.

In Canada doctors are paid something on the order of five dollars PER PATIENT.

If they want you to relocate, you must do so even if you are a private practice.

If you don't like it they will fine you thousands of dollars until you go back to practicing and do it where the govt says so. They will even revoke your travel privileges.

Crazy.

Post: #14

I am deeply unsatisfied with health care in Canada. Especially for the insignificant little tweaks I need, I should be able to just go in and pay and have a professional fix it quickly. Instead they do the commie dance of 1-2 visits to the GP, and then a referral (2+ months) to a specialist, then the specialist has to do an initial appointment before he reschedules (another 2+ months) for a serious appointment.

At that point I go on holidays or move and then start again.

For any one of you EVER on the fence about public healthcare, don't be. It's an utter nightmare and a sham.

That's not even going into how they infected my grandfather with Hep C from dirty needles.