Closer to the last, it seems. Not counting the number that gets prescriptions filled in Canada.
That article was from 1993 and I’m seeing an estimate of 600k…and that estimate seems pretty soft. Is there anything more recent? Surly if this is a major problem that’s been going on since 1993 there would be some firm stats on how many Americans are stealing healthcare from Canada, right?
(I really don’t know the answer to this, but would be interesting to see what the firm figures are…it would go a long way to answering the OP, I should think, since if indeed literally millions of Americans are going up north for health care it could reflect a desire by some to move north)
The several couples I know who are perpetually stuck on the opposite sides of the border would have more kids, so there’s that effect on the population. Not sure which country they’d settle in, though.
I made a search myself, but couldn’t find much. there is a pretty good study of numbers going the other way, but not a lot on this. The report itself doesn’t seem to be online. In 1993 not a lot was. Note that the 600k figure is just for Ontario, I think.
I can see how there would be a pressure. Health care can be expensive in the US if you pay out of pocket, its free in Canada, and because its free, if it is anything like here, no-one checks you identity. We have no reason to.
So I can see the motivation.
Er, when was the last time you got health care in Canada? Because they DO check your identity, because health care isn’t free.
In Ontario, you must bring a Health Card, a photo ID that looks a lot like a driver’s license. If you want health care covered by the provincial health insurance plan, you show the card - or an equivalent provincial card from your province of residence, so they an bill that province - or you pay. You simply cannot walk into any health care provider and get free care; they always, always, always ask for the card first (except in an emergency, and then they’ll ask AFTER.) If you don’t have the card, you pay. Hell, my family doctor will threaten me with a bill if I don’t bring the card despite the fact they have the number on file.
This system has been quite a bit tightened up since 1993, so frankly I doubt a lot of Americans are coming up here for free health care. It just isn’t that easy; unless they have a way of forging health cards or using other people’s numbers, they’d have to pay for care, and getting a phony health card or number, while possible, is not a casual effort. You’d have to know how to game the system.
Yes, in BC they’ve actually merged them.
You’d still have to hire lots more doctors to treat all those people and there are only so many to go around. Fortunately, Canada steals all it needs from India and China (to nearly the same degree we do here) so that would be okay.
What a wonderfully practical idea. Unfortunately that means that New Brunswick will not be following suit in the forseeable future.
That’s just silly. How many people move from conservative states to liberal states within the US now for political reasons? If your thesis were correct, NY would be growing by leaps and bounds and Texas would be shrinking. Guess what is actually happening?
People move for jobs, family and better weather. I’ve never known one single person who moved for political reasons.
Well, I did, I guess. DOMA was the law of the land in the US, and so I moved to Canada: I moved away from my family in Southern California, had no job to go to, and the weather here is certainly not better than San Diego’s. I guess you could say “love” rather than political reasons, but politics were a huge factor in deciding to leave and in deciding where to go. (And in deciding to stay now that the law has changed so that we could come back.)
Had you not wanted to marry someone, would you have moved?
Of course there are exceptions, but the point John Mace makes is obviously true in the aggregate; people clearly don’t usually move for political reasons. If your statement was literally true that million of American liberals would happily move to Canada for political reasons, you can’t rationally explain why they have not already moved to more liberal states. Why have all the Democratic voters in Alabama, Texas, and Utah not moved? Why isn’t Canada awash in American liberals applying to move here? A few do, but not in the vast quantities you’re suggesting.
The reason is that people move for personal reasons, not political, and that’s a good thing or else political change would be locally impossible.
That wasn’t my statement.
Edit: And to answer the “had you not wanted to marry someone. . .”—if I reframe that as “if you were single, would you have wanted to move?” the answer is probably “no, I was fine where I was.” It wasn’t about marriage per se, but about the ability to live in the same country as the object of my affections. I suppose you could lump that under the “for family” reason.
Just to be clear, it was Velocity who made the outlandish claim, not Dr. Drake.
Just curious, would the people fleeing ISIS be considered moving for political reasons? Or personal?
We’re talking about the US and Canada. No one is fleeing ISIS in either country.
If we’re talking world-wide, yes people move for political reasons all the time. But in the context of the US and Canada, not so much.
I was more interested which, those fleeing ISIS would be, actually. Political? Personal? I could see it either way. I was just curious, I realize it was Canada/US that was being discussed.
Just a few nitpicks on two of your comments …
The “cold” part is true if you look at Canadian land mass overall, much of which is uninhabited. But almost all major Canadian population centers are towards the southern end and have climates very similar to that of the northern US. Parts of southern Ontario are actually further south than parts of California, and have a thriving wine industry. I mention this with particular affection because I’ve been on numerous visits to Ontario wineries and some wonderful winery lunches in the same kind of exquisitely beautiful weather that reminded me of my visits to Napa Valley.
As for Canadian retirees, yes, but thousands of so-called elderly “snowbirds” flee to Florida every winter even now, sometimes trailers in tow, with their left blinkers going! 
You’re glossing over the questions of costs, co-pays, and risks of coverage denial. I truly believe that most Americans cannot even imagine a health care system where health insurance is considered a human right and provided as a guaranteed public service, and where no one has ever heard of insurance industry machinations like “co-pays” or “deductibles”.
And how many people live in those parts of CA that are north of the southernly most part of Canada?
Yes, most of Canada is within about 100 miles of the northern border of the US. But that is the northern border. The states in the US that are experiencing a population boom tend to be well south of the US/Canadian border. No? Sure, there is North Dakotan, but that hardly stands up to the states in the US further south.
Seriously, though, is it your position that the northernly location of Canada is NOT an impediment to folks moving? That people don’t take climate into account? Because that position would be hard to defend based on overall migration patterns within the US.
missed the edit window:
The idea that Ontario wineries produce wines on par with Napa is… well, not even laughable. It’s, frankly ridiculous.
Frankly, if you did a double blind taste test that included wines from Ontario, California, and a control group - let’s say Argentina - I am totally confident, like bet-a-lot-of-money confident, that you would not have a snowball’s chance in hell of correctly identifying which is which.
That said, you are correct; Canadian weather is horrible, and the curious habit of Canadians to deny it with irrelevances like “A tiny bit of northern California nobody lives in is a bit north of Pelee Island!!!” has always struck me as weird. Even in southern Ontario the weather is horrible. Winters are cold, long, and blizzard-filled, and summers are very humid. You can avoid the extreme cold by living in Vancouver or Victoria and environs, but the summers aren’t very warm and it rains a lot.