This is the last paragraph to an article I am linking here:

Stories like McCreith’s – and the downsides of Canadian and American health care — will be exposed Sept. 14 by ABC’s John Stossel in his “20/20″ special, tentatively titled “Sick in America.” Rick Baker hopes Hillary Clinton and her friends will be watching.

Why quote the last??

Read on.

If Canada’s national health-care system is so dang wonderful, why are so many Canadians coming to America to pay for their own medical care?

Why is the hip replacement center of Canada in Ohio — at the Cleveland Clinic, where 10 percent of its international patients are Canadians?

Why is the Brain and Spine Clinic in Buffalo serving about 10 border-crossing Canadians a week? Why did a Calgary woman recently have to drive several hundred miles to Great Falls, Mont., to give birth to her quadruplets?

It’s simple. As the market-oriented Fraser Institute in Vancouver, B.C., can tell you, Canada’s vaunted “free” government health-care system cannot or deliberately will not provide its 33 million citizens with the nonemergency health care they want and need when they need or want it.

Courtesy of the institute, here are some unflattering facts about Canada’s sickly system:
Number of Canadians on waiting lists for referrals to specialists or for medical services — 875,000.

Average wait from time of referral to treatment by a specialist — 17.8 weeks.
Shortest waiting time — oncology, 4.9 weeks.
Longest waiting times — orthopedic surgery, 40.3 weeks.
Average wait to get an MRI — 10.3 weeks nationally but 28 weeks in Newfoundland.
Average wait time for a surgery considered “elective,” like a hip replacement — four or more months.

Much of the debate about health care in the US is about ACCESS, not availability. So they like us all to think.

At least in the US, it’s never against the law to seek medical care.

It’s no wonder private medical and surgical brokers like Timely Medical Alternatives of Vancouver have sprung into existence. Rick Baker said his three-year-old company refers about 100 Canadians a month to U.S. clinics and hospitals for such things as MRIs and knee replacements.

Timely Medical’s services came in handy for Lindsay McCreith, a retired auto body shop owner who was told in 2006 he probably had a brain tumor. He needed an MRI fast. But the wait time for a “free” public one was 4 1/2 months and it was illegal to purchase a private MRI in Ontario.

McCreith contacted Timely Medical, which got him an MRI the next day in Buffalo that showed he had a Titleist-sized tumor. Four and half weeks later, McCreith had received the brain surgery that could have taken eight months to happen in Canada — if he had still been alive. It cost him $28,000 — for which Canada’s government won’t reimburse him.

Why is it a crime to seek medical care? What is Canada afraid of here?

A government that promises to provide health care for it’s citizens, as per the Canadian model, shows us how poor the outcome can be for citizens. In Britain, people die all the time waiting for tests and treatment. Our system isn’t perfect but it’s far better than anything else offered.

Including this idea:

TIPTON, Iowa – — Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”

Are we going to make it illegal to NOT see a doctor?

What happens next? Say, you’re not OK.

You go in for the mandated check ups and they find something…what about the tests and treatments? You can bet your life you will wait but are you willing to die, while waiting? Many will. Edwards and company need to think their ideas more thoroughly, and come up with something more sustainable.