From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Subject: Re: Canadians receiving health care in the USA (was: National Health Care)
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: Curious Goods (formerly Louis Vendredi Antiques)
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 20:38:48 GMT

clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU (Stewart M. Clamen) writes:
>
>Gary fails to take into account the atrociously high US health care
>prices (when compared to those in Canada). ... (I am a Quebecer going
>to school in the US, and am thus still covered by the Quebec health
>insurance system.)

True, Stewart, I simplified it a bit because my last Quebec newspaper
came from a mid-January stop at Dorval before the changes in coverage
by La Regie in your cited article.  Many of those Florida hospitals
and clinics were taking Quebec retirees and tourists at La Regie's fee
schedule because they had excess capacity for paying customers.  (And
hence, that old gentilhomme who said that his routine winter checkup
was paying for those Americans piled up in Emergency because they had
no coverage.) The western Canadian retirees who end up following their
retiring doctors to Arizona (in part-time practice solely for getting
a Green Card and Social Security, taking Alberta/etc. insurance rates)
may also have a Quebecois analogue in Florida, too, but I don't have
sufficient contacts to verify that ...  my uncle Oscar is now retired
in sunny Phoenix from the Calgary Oil Patch and I got a postcard from
him yesterday which brought back of all that he told me ... he told 
me that the Arizona Canadian retiree doctors took their insurance at
provincial rates (usually for regular checkups, nothing too taxing) 
so that they won't catch hell at the golf course during the rest of 
the week!  (-;

I'm covered by Manitoba Health Services Commission myself, but I still
need to buy the Columbia University package anyways because MHSC would
be enough just to cover my *deductibles* because of the obscene price
differentials between New York City and Winnipeg.  This ugly fact was
brought home to me about two years ago when some no-neck from Joisey
grazed my skull with a 2x4 in Greenwich Village because he objected to
my being with an attractive white woman (my fiancee now) ... you see,
my family went to Canada from China about 85 years ago.  I woke up in
St. Vincent's Hospital, and having had the foresight to carry my
health insurance card, spent the next hour on a 1-800 line trying to
figure out how much I have to pay after leaving my student number,
insurance code, etc. to cover the balance (Try doing that with a big
splitting headache and a numb shoulder!). The MHSC paid me the full
Manitoba rate after I had sent in a receipt for the deductible, which
was justice because they had stiffed me when I was working in other,
much more expensive provinces (somehow, things always happened before
my new provincial coverage kicked in and old coverage transitioned
out).

gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				Elections 1992-93:
> gld@cunixB.cc.columbia.EDU		* Jean Chretien (Canada)
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			* Perot^H^H^H^H^H Elvis! (USA)
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