I’ve pretty clearly told you that sort of thing has Constitutional issues - states that tried to limit welfare benefits to only residents of longer than a year were struck down in several cases. Maybe stop trying to act superior to our American cousins when you don’t understand the issue?
The 14th Amendment says you get 100% state citizenship the moment you move in.
What defines “moving in”? Staes can set reasonable requirements, some people have homes in two or more states, some people have no permanent residency.
Under the proposed Colorado single-payer system (which was resoundingly voted down in 2016) retirees on Medicare would not have had access to ColoradoCare AT ALL—but they would still be required to pay into it. That was one of the many reasons I voted against it.
IIRC, “residency” wasn’t defined in the ColoradoCare proposal. There were countless other unanswered questions about it—for example, what happens if a state resident requires emergency care when traveling outside Colorado? The people behind ColoradoCare kept saying “we’ll figure out all that stuff after it passes.” :rolleyes:
Everyone has permanent residency. Residency in U.S. law is the place where a person intends to remain indefinitely. So, it is based upon the subjective intention of the person is difficult to prove otherwise. Evidence is usually the observation of where the person has his drivers license or car registration, where he is registered to vote, etc.
It mainly becomes an issue for in-state/out of state college tuition. Sure, I move from Florida to New York to go to school. I might get a NYS drivers license and change my car tags and register to vote in NY and claim that I want to make NY my new home, but the college is rightly suspicious in thinking that all of that is just a ruse to get in state tuition and my real desire is to move back to Florida after I graduate.
In Canada the cards are free. You also cannot use them for many things, like getting a bank account. So someone could find it hard to open a bank account, but can still access “free” healthcare. In Ontario the cards didn’t have your name on it, nor was there an expiry date. That’s changing now, due to the frequent fraud.
When you go to a doctor’s office, they ask you for your card right away. They do this your first time there (so they can create a profile) and then every time you visit. Unless you’re unconscious at an emergency room, you need the card. If you don’t have it, they ask you for your debit card instead. If you don’t have that, no service!
If the US enacted single payer, it would only really work if every state has the system. Maybe New York will have a great system and people will drift there from Illinois (as a random example), but the gulf shouldn’t be so large that people will go out of their way.
So I’ve been poking around in old statutes, and it looks like the 1961 Sasakatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act provided that it only applied to “residents” of Saskatchewan, as defined by the Regulations.
Regulations from 1961 are not online, but I may be able to track down a hard copy to see how it was defined back then.
Note that we do not have an equivalent to the 14th Amendment requirement that anyone becomes a resident as soon at they come to the province.
In fact, our charter has a provision that directly applies to this issue. Section 6 guarantees the right of any Canadian to move to another province , to take up residence in another province, and to work. However, those rights are subject to “any laws providing for reasonable residency requirements as a qualification for the receipt of publicly provided services.”
So you can’t move to another province for healthcare and insist on a health card right away.
In any event there’s no real incentive to do so, because under the Canada Health Act, the same medical services are covered in all provinces.
A lot of snowbirds keep a close eye on it though. I bet a fair number of them would only come home for Christmas if they didn’t lose their health coverage.
Yes, but statutory requirement, not constitutional right. I believe that the cut-off is if you leave Canada form more than 180 days, you lose coverage.
Responding to the OP, I think the likelihood of a problem with out-of-state free-loaders depends on the state we’re talking about. A state like Massachusetts, which is the hub of New England, might have a totally different experience with single-payer than, say, Wyoming.
I think there would be some spillover on border-towns, but states could price for it, after they were able to get some credible data on the prevalence of free-loaders. And there’s always a chance for neighboring states to cut a deal, kinda like a regional view.
It’s an interesting question. And I somewhat doubt we’ll ever see a state-level single-payer system.