Thread: Larger Number of Canadians Coming Here For Healthcare

http://news.therecord.com/News/article/635108

Should Ontarians have to use a passport to get health care?
TheRecord.com

By Melinda Dalton, Joe Fantauzzi and Matthew Strader
Record numbers of Ontarians are being sent to the U.S. by their government for routine health care that should be available at home. A Metroland Special Report shows thousands of others are funding their own medical treatments south of the border, at high personal cost.

The numbers have been rising for the last 10 years. Government approvals for out-of-country health care funding are up 450 per cent. Should Ontarians have to use a passport to get health care?

WATERLOO REGION — Dany Mercado of Kitchener had a choice to make: travel to Michigan for a risky mismatch marrow transplant or watch his time tick down on a transplant list in Ontario.

Tyler Agnew’s options were just as limited. The genetic evaluation that could shed light on cause of the Cambridge man’s frequent lung collapses is widely available south of the border, but not in Canada.

Both families turned to the U.S. for care when they ran out of options in the Ontario system.

Agnew and Mercado are not alone.

Long waits, unavailable procedures and poor physician access are driving record numbers of Ontarians to seek treatment south of the border and sometimes, overseas.

A Metroland Special Report on Cross-Border Care shows:

A 450 per cent increase in OHIP approvals for out-of-country care since the beginning of this decade, a period of explosive growth in new technologies and therapies not covered or available here. The province agreed to fund 2,110 procedures or treatments in 2001, and 11,775 last year.

Patient demand has created a new breed of health-system navigators, known as medical brokers, who find U.S. options for the growing number of Ontario patients who elect to pay for medical services south of the border themselves.

Medical brokers negotiate discount rates with U.S. centres to get Ontarians faster diagnostics, second opinions and surgery.

Brokers say that for every patient sent south by the Ontario government, there may be up to 10 others who go — and pay — on their own.

Ontario’s spending on out-of-Canada medical services has tripled in the last five years. Payments in 2010 will balloon to $164.3 million, from $56.3 million in 2005. The province said in last month’s economic forecast that it needs to increase health spending by $700 million to cover “higher than anticipatedâ€

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