Now that the Democrats’ health care reform package has passed Congress and is sure to be signed into law, wealthy Canadians will need to start looking for somewhere else to travel for surgery.
Earlier this year Danny Williams, the premier of the Canadian province of Newfoundland traveled to Miami for heart valve surgery. As Sally C. Pipes explains in a San Francisco Chronicle article: “With his trip, Williams joined a long list of Canadians who have decided that they prefer American medicine to their own country’s government-run health system when their lives are on the line.”
In an interview defending his decision, Williams said “This is my heart. It’s my health and it’s my choice.” Williams, a millionaire, has the resources to make a choice that most Canadians don’t have.
Pipes writes that 40,000 Canadians travel to the United States each year for medical reasons. But as big-government health care reform starts to drag down American health care to that of the level of Canada, we can expect to see that number decline.
Medical tourism is a benefit to Wichita’s economy. Galichia Heart Hospital in Wichita offers a wide variety of surgical procedures — not just heart surgery — to people willing to travel to Wichita. The hospital has a website — Galichia Medical Tourism — complete with prices for some procedures. A promotional video on the site specifically mentions categories of surgery that Canadians are finding difficult to obtain in their own country.
Will Galichia be able to maintain this business after the full effect of Obama-style health care reform is realized? Will we have a health care system that Canadians will want to use? It will take some time to know the answer.
Related posts:
- Wichita’s Galichia provides what government health care doesn’t
- Health care reform threatens anesthesiology, patients
- Health care talk gives alternative to big-government reform
- John Stossel covers Canadian health care
- Canadian health care: a personal story of tragedy
- Obama-style health care: the effects in England
- Government health care rations by making patients wait
- Be Wary of Government Control of Health Care
- Drug Runaround: Solved by Universal Health Care?
- Reform health care so it really works
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Where will Canadians go? I’m concerned with where Americans will go!
COSTA RICA It has a two tier medical system. One for the lower class, it’s free. One for the wealthy and foreigner which is for profit. I’ve read that the health care for the American is superb and reasonable priced.
India has an emerging medical tourism industry that is in many ways superior to the current and future health care system in the U.S.
to the grave. When you’re having a heart attack you don’t have time to fly to Costa Rica.
or maybe to back-alley clinics?
I think as this horrendous bill comes into play, finally in 2014, we will see Doctors and Hospitals face the realities that they will be unable to survive in the end without thinking “outside the box.”
I am glad to see Galichia thinking outside the box, and offer such great opportunities for people seeking healthcare at a reasonable price.
BTW: We all need to start saving our money for our health care now. Just like they do in Canada and Europe.
In case people don’t know; Government healthcare is the LARGEST denier of health care we have in America (medicare, medicaid, VA, Indian health Service).