It would be more tasty icing if not for the fact that Canada has 1/10 the population of the USA. Even if the 'rate' of citizens looking abroad for health care was identical in both nations, there would be ten times as many American doing so.
I'd like to see that info presented in a less skewed format, adjusted for population.
The article was not "skewed"
We have a population of around 33 to 34 million here.
"State hospital discharge data. Over the five-year observation period from 1994 to 1998, 2,031 patients identified as Canadians were admitted to hospitals in Michigan; 1,689 to hospitals in New York State; and 825 to hospitals in Washington State. During the same period, annual inpatient admissions to hospitals within the bordering provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia averaged about 1 million, 600,000, and 350,000, respectively.12 Thus, Canadian hospitalizations in the three U.S. states represented 2.3 per 1,000 total admissions in the three Canadian provinces. Furthermore, emergency/urgent admissions and admissions related to pregnancy and birth constituted about 80 percent of the stateside admissions. Elective admissions were a small proportion of total cases in all three states: 14 percent in Michigan; 20 percent in New York; and 17 percent in Washington."
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/long/21/3/19
DO the math. A MUCH larger percentage of Americans come north of the border for treatment here. Period. (AND EVEN IF you doubled this number, it is still far below !.) PLEASE also note almost half of Canada's population is in Ontario.. WHich borders right on MIch, and NY....... SURE We have a few richer citizen's up here who wish to have surgery the next week for a procedure that would put them on a 2 t o 3 week list here in........ BUT really does that determine what makes a health system better ? AND LETS not rant on our Hospitals... Sunnybrook, SIck Kids, and MANY MORE are some of the best facilities on the planet, and located right here in Canada.
My Cav
I give up...
i'm buying a VW those people love trees, so they should love eachother too... "Andy"
Jeezus. Another Canadian fighting self-induced feelings of low self-esteem, ranting like some crazed evangelist. YOU skewed the information in how you presented it.
No one here wants to mimic your teeny "health care system". Its been proven in our Congress. Your 'nation' would barely make the largest of our 50 STATES. Trying to compare a nation 1/10th the size (no bigger than Uganda!) to the world's superpower is the epitome of lame, no matter how many partial statistics you convince yourself illustrate your "point".
Go wait in line for care. We're fine here.
so basically its saying what? that more americans want to get there stuff for free rather then pay for it? is that really news. that doesn't mean canada system is better, it just means that all those people are taking advantage of you really. heck will canada let every american run up and get free healthcare. then we don't have to pay for it and it will work out great.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography
Bill, you're actually making sense this thread! Kudos!
as for Palin, you Canucks can keep her. i'm sue no one over here really cares.
Check out my build thread!
LOL, Thanks! Just remember...you don't have to agree with me for my posts to make sense
Despite my tendency to rail on recent right-wing ridiculosity (they've just made it far too easy!), I'm no leftie. Far from it!
Here is another hypocrite. Critical if the US gets the option of a government healthcare, would rather go to another government run healthcare country in protest. (?) Well done.
Quote:
San José, Costa Rica – Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh said this week he’d go to Costa Rica for medical treatment if Congress passes proposed reforms to the US healthcare system.
That might sound like an unusual choice, since this is a country with one of the longest standing socialized healthcare systems on the planet. Everyone here (including resident foreigners), are required to pay into the government-run health system, whether they use it or not.
But Limbaugh’s choice may also serve to advertise what many Americans traveling here for medical treatment already know: Costa Rica is a fabulous place for medical tourism.
Life expectancy in this little Central American country surpasses that of the United States and at one point, back in the early 2000s when the World Health Organization rated countries’ general health, Costa Rica ranked higher (No. 36) than its northern neighbor (No. 37), despite spending 87 percent less on health care per capita.
Some who've studied Costa Rican health care consider it better overall, and attribute that to the fact that free coverage extends to 86.8 percent of the population.
But the Cadillac-style private hospitals at Chevy Aveo prices are what really draw 25,000 Americans to Costa Rica every year.
“People travel to Costa Rica (and) receive the same quality of medical services for a fraction of the cost,” said Jorge Cortés, president of the Council for International Promotion of Costa Rica Medicine and medical director of Hospital Biblica, one of three internationally-accredited private hospitals in Costa Rica. “When people see they can get the same surgery for three or four times less, they decide to get medical care abroad.”
Lower labor costs and fewer malpractice suits keep the prices down here. In Costa Rica’s private system, a teeth-cleaning might run $40 and a general check-up costs $50.
A facelift averages $2,800 to $3,200 in Costa Rica, compared to $7,000 to $9,000 in the United States. A knee replacement may cost $11,000 in Costa Rica, but can be as much as $45,000 in the United States.
But there’s another arm of the country’s medical system – the public system – which is relied upon by a majority of the population. While celebrated by Costa Ricans for “universal access,” it’s often criticized for long wait times and delays in treatment.
“There’s a difference between the healthcare system that serves people living in Costa Rica versus that which is known to foreigners,” said Robert Book, a healthcare economist for the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. “It’s the private option for foreigners that Mr. Limbaugh was referring to when he said he would go to Costa Rica.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Limbaugh clarified his comment about leaving the United States, after “the liberal media” celebrated his vow of self-imposed exile, viewing healthcare reform as a way to rid themselves of the conservative talk show host.
“If I have to get thrown into this massive government health care insurance business and end up going to the driver's license office every day when I need to go to the doctor, yeah, I'll go to Costa Rica for treatment, not move there,” he told listeners Tuesday, according to a transcript on his website.
Mr. Cortés said Limbaugh would not be alone in traveling abroad for medical care. He’s expecting medical tourism to increase by 5-7 percent over the next year, regardless of what happens with the US healthcare reform bills.
And that increase is building upon a growth Costa Rica has already seen. Since the recession forced many Americans out of jobs, Costa Rica has seen a surge in the number of their northern neighbors coming here for health services. In fact, there’s an entire industry catering to the medical tourist, including post-surgery spa services, sightseeing packages, hotels, and transportation.
But, if Limbaugh did move to Costa Rica and chose to initiate the process of residency, he’d be required to pay into the government-run social security system – which runs the health care system too. Under law, all people employed in Costa Rica must contribute 5.5 percent of their salary to the state-run social security system and employers are required to match their payment with 9.25 percent. Even those here for retirement are obligated to contribute under new immigration laws, regardless of whether they hold private insurance.
“The strengths of our health system (is) that it is universal, that it’s based on the idea of solidarity and that it’s fair,” says Dr. Ana Morice, vice health minister in Costa Rica. “What we need to improve is access to health services. Many times someone requests an appointment and doesn’t receive it until a year later. In that area, we have much to improve.”
Of course, if Limbaugh decided to move to or buy real estate in Costa Rica, he wouldn’t be the first celebrity. His neighbors might include actor Mel Gibson, model Gisele Bundchen, AOL executive Steve Case, or Vice President Joe Biden’s brother, Frank.
From:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/286856
THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT ONE.
Your forgetting she's from Alaska... wich is basically Canada, the food is basically the same LOL
I actually know this, I actually got thrown out of a bar in the town Palin lived in back when she was governor of Alaska. We also walked into walmart (the same town) @!#$ faced drunk with loaded guns on our hips, and bought about 300 bullets for the guns we had on us in plane site... they guy just handed them to us and said "have a nice day".
I lauged my ass off when they showed the town on the daily show... I was yelling "thats the wal mart!!!" LOL
So, who cares?
5 year old Sarah Palin was TAKEN to Canada by her parents before Canada converted to socialized healthcare. If you lived that close to a bigger city and their healthcare was identical to America's at the time, who cares.
And Rush's protest about going to Costa Rica is: They have less medical malpractice and less unions. Cost to cover people is reduced drastically, and the government can support it. He chose the country with the best socialized medicine. If we want it here in America, we have to lose dependency, peopler expecting the government to give them EVERYTHING, and less lawyers. Makes sense to me, and I don't support the blowhard.
I have an Idea, can we start calling it Comicare? It would be cool of that caught on.
Misinformation Peddler wrote:And you've missed the point that he isn't going there to use their system, he's going there to pay for his own care at a private practice.
And YOU miss the point that your Hero prefers the care that is the product of a socialized system over the care available in the private system of his own nation.
Boy, did ol' Rush catch his dick in his zipper on this one, lol...
^ once again, you disappoint bill.
Rush said he would use the private practice par of Costa Rica's health care, not the socialized part.
Check out my build thread!
Hmm. I fear you don't fully realize what's at play here. Here's another way to say it:
Costa Rica's health care system is a product of its socialized healthcare policies. Whether one pays or not, what one is getting is that product. Yes, even paid private practices are inevitably shaped in some ways by the nation they are located in.
However, Rush lives in a nation (USA) with privatized care that he contends is just fine, not broken, and therefore does not need fixing.
Oddly, Rush chooses to not use the privatized USA healthcare system he insists is hunky-dory, and prefers instead to purchase the healthcare available in a nation with socialized medicine.
You don't see that as horribly inconsistent, even laughably hypocritical?
Limbaughs right nut wrote:Quote:
if doctors are not permitted to opt out of the government insurance pool and so forth, Medicare, Medicaid, whatever it is, and if they're not allowed to establish a private practice with private sector patients paying their own way, then I'll go to Costa Rica
Reading > Bill.
You and Goodwrench have such a hard-on for smearing someone that you completely miss the details.
Where is that quote from? Because I'm not finding it in the yahoo article, maybe I'm not looking close enough. Or is this another backpedal comment after he made it live in his show? I know you have a shrine on Rush, so you can maybe find his
original recording on this. Either way, I can understand if he wants to go Costa Rica and protest the US new healthcare bill, and he has every right to as well; Rush make over $50 million per year so he will be paying into it. Where ever he decides to get for medical treatment, he can afford it. In the end, Rush crying reminds me of Alec Baldwin's chant that he will leave the country if Bush got re-elected. Needless to say, he is still here and Rush will be probably be here too, just now getting addicted on Costa Rican prescription drugs.
edit: It should read: "Limbaugh's right nut" but the quote does not recognize apostrophes
THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT ONE.
If y'all like Costa Rica and its commie ways, MOVE THERE!
by!
oh,,, thats right, osoma is trying to do it here...
Where are is collage transcripts again?
Chris
"An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle sir, is not of the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."
Speech at the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia (23 March 1775) Patrick Henry
Im not reading the fighting anymore..
Im a conservative on pretty much everything and agree with most of what you hear Rush, Glen beck, Jason Lewis, Laura Ingram, and the rest of them say, so you can fiqure out my stand on this plan to illegally pass universal health care.
It takes Rush Limbaugh to be this stupid. Or arrogant. Or careless. Or whatever it was convinced him this was anything but a completely dunderheaded idea. What a colossal dumbass to put his own needs WAAAY above his political positions, and in doing so, make his legions of adoring sheep say "WTF"., while the opposition laughs its ass off.
I call this his "jump the shark" moment. Check back in a year and we'll compare notes on his popularity after the decline this stupid decision will initiate.
LOL
You said that back in billarys days in the 90's, Yes?
Funny it is though.
Chris
"An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle sir, is not of the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death."
Speech at the Second Virginia Convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia (23 March 1775) Patrick Henry
.