Why I have never heard a mention of this? What would be impractical about doing such a thing?
Your question makes it sound like you’ve never heard of the concept of immigration rules. Are you asking about Canada’s immigration rules?
You have to be a Canadian citizen to be eligible. Tourists and other visitors are specifically excluded.
To become a Canadian citizen, in addition to meeting other criteria, you have to live there for at least three years.
When I applied for a research job at a large well-known Canadian university, I was told by them that if I was accepted for the position, it would not be guaranteed that I would be even allowed a work visa by the Canadian government.
If that was the case for a job where a Ph.D. was “highly recommended”, do you think the Canadian government would be welcoming other American immigrants with open arms?
This is 100% wrong.
You have to be a citizen or a landed immigrant (i.e. permanent resident) or legally able to work under a work permit that allows you to work for a minimum of 6 months
and you (at least in some provinces) have to have been a resident of that province for at least 90 days (edit: resident for 153 of the first 183 days you establish residency in Ontario) before you can get coverage (so Citizens can’t just hop in and out of the country for medical care)
I’m not entirely familiar with immigration, especially with non-Mexican countries. I didn’t even know that Canada had immigration rules. The didn’t teach this stuff in school!
Why not?
To answer the OP:
The choice to move for a job would be so personal that there’s no easy way to answer this question. I would assert, however:
a) most of the people who are sick and uninsurable (keep in mind, it’s not free insurance unless you’re on the government tit. continuing, you would therefore need to work if you immigrated) probably don’t have the sort of transferable skill set (or job offer) that would yield them a work permit and/or residency in Canada. Although, it’s not entirely impossible to do so, and Canadian immigration standards are far more relaxed than they are in the United States,
b) people don’t like to leave their homes and family. It’s not like pragmatic considerations always outweigh emotional ones.
c) Americans are hyper-jingostic about how this country “rox” and they probably wouldn’t dare move to some foreign strange land like Canada as it would create some cognitive dissonances in their mind. Remember, these are the same do dos who vote Republican but occupy the bottom 1/2 of the economic ladder.
IIRC, there was reference to a (semi?) joking website at the end of “Sicko” that made reference to a website along the lines of www.marryacanadian.com for people that wanted healthcare.
Because Heath Care is a provincial responsibility though funding is federal/provincial.
For the first comment: Because there isn’t open immigration between the US and Canada. Canada isn’t in a position where they need to take any and all immigrants, so they can be selective about it
For the second: Because those Citizens who do this do not actually pay for the services they receive. It’s unfair to the people who pay for it. It’s probably a small issue that is a consequence of a larger issue: when you move between Provinces, you would need to change your healthcare (it’s not nationalized, it’s province-by-province) and, again, they don’t want you to come into that province for care without at least contributing some money into the kitty.
It may come as a surprise, but I found the Canadian immigration services to be extremely suspicious of Americans when I was there as a student. When I first got there I was grilled for an hour on exactly what I intended to do there, and I had to swear that I was not even thinking of staying permanently.
Of course it wasn’t as bad as my experiences with UK immigration, but then nothing is worse than UK immigration.
do you think Canadians are treated any better at US border posts?
There’s a whole lot of nationalistic “you’re coming to our country because we’re better than you” flying around - especially at land borders where it’s real easy to come in with your car and never leave.
In the US, the border dudes are probably assuming all Canadians would die to live in a better economy with lower taxes, and in Canada, the border dudes probably assume that you’re a draft dodger (more modernly, you’re an AWOL soldier/protester) or there to suckle off of the welfare state.
:eek:
Oh hell no, but then I haven’t been able to be at the sharp end of US Immigration Services yet, so I have no comparison. As I say, the UK Immigration Services was far worse than the Canadian services.
Beware the newspaper trend piece but here’s a USA Today article on retirees moving to Mexico to get on their national health care.
My grandparents retired to Yuma to get the benefits of cheaper stuff without actually moving to Mexico but several of their friends have crossed the border and stayed for that reason.
Apart from other countries like Australia.
Personal opinion, perhaps inappropriate for GQ:
I grew up about 30 miles from the Canadian border, and I like Canada.
But I’m an American citizen. I didn’t give up that citizenship when I retired or when I got sick. I like North Carolina; I have little or no interest in becoming an Ontarian, and absolutely no interest in giving up my American citizenship.
One of the nice things about the U.S., by the way, is that you are constitutionally guaranteed the right to petition your representatives in Congress for a redress of grievances. Like, for example, wanting to see UHC in place.
Ah, but the UK has “immigrant detention centres” as well…or, at least, they did when I was there. And nothing Australia has can ever beat the Orwellian edifice known as Lunar House.
Note that people here in Minnesota DO travel to Canada to buy their prescriptions, which are much cheaper due to Canadian government price controls. We even had Senator Mark Dayton donate his Senate salary to fund bus trips to Canada for seniors to buy their medications.
I think that part of the reason the countries’ immigration services are so suspicious of each other is that the two countries are so similar in culture and language that it’s so easy for citizens of one country to fit into the other.
I guess you have to use your own brain, then, and figure out that Canada is a sovereign country, just like the United States.
When we use medical services here, we are required to present our Alberta healthcare card every time (medical services are delivered provincially). The clinic/doctor/whatever will then bill the Alberta government for the services we used using our Alberta healthcare number. It’s not just a free-for-all where anybody can show up and get services. (People from other provinces will present a healthcare card from that province, and the healthcare providers will bill interprovincially).