XPost: can.politics, ab.politics, edm.general   
   From: ConsRCons@govt.cda   
      
   On 1/23/2014 8:56 PM, John Fleming wrote:   
   > Unless you come from a country that doesn't have either (a) a national   
   > health care system, (b) a privately operated health insurance system   
   > or (c) readily available and low cost travel health insurance, there   
   > isn't really a lot of incentie to commit health care fraud.   
      
      
   Is that why there are MILLIONS more healthcare cards 'out there' than   
   there are Canadian citizens?   
   Health care fraud in Canada is a HUGE issue.  And the majority of the   
   fraudsters are Americans.   
      
      
     > Let's face it, if you are an American visiting Canada and you get   
   > sick, you aren't paying your own health care bills anyway.  If you   
   > have health insurance, it gets billed to your insurer.  If you don't,   
   > and qaulify for either medicare or medicaid, medicare or medicaid pays   
   > the bill.   
      
   Nope.  Wrong on many issues in that very short paragraph . . .   If   
   you're an American in Canada and get sick, you PAY UP FRONT to the   
   hospital or clinic where you're being treated.  There is no 'billing   
   your insurer' across the border.  You, as an American would have to try   
   to get reimbursed when you get back to the U.S.   
   The signs are everywhere in the emergency wards, the clinics and   
   doctors' offices.   
      
   > If you are a landed immigrant in Canada, well, once you have met the   
   > requirements to be eligible for health care, that is, lived here long   
   > enough, you go and register for health care and get it for free   
   > anyway.   
      
   Landed immigrants may or may not have coverage.  If they're under   
   'sponsorship agreements' they are issued with healthcare numbers   
   different from those of Canadian citizens.  Same with refugees.   
      
      
   > I'd have to look into exactly how the mechanism works.  But for a lot   
   > of foreign people in Canada, there really isn't much of an incentive   
   > to defraud the Canadian Health Care system in the first place.   
      
   My god, man . . . .  have you been living under a rock?  There is even a   
   well-known internet site that has Americans advertising for various   
   Canadian ID cards and healthcare cards - for a price.  And there are   
   Canadians - or thieves of Canadian identification records - that make a   
   business of selling them those cards.   
   The abuse of our healthcare system by non-qualified holders of our   
   healthcare cards is a monumental problem.   
      
   Again, I ask:  why the hell haven't our provincial and federal   
   governments done something sweeping to stop the abuses?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)