Esmail says no one knows exactly how many Canadians go to the United States each year for medical care. His best estimate for 2006 -- a conservative one -- is 39,282. Whatever the actual number is, however, it is growing.
Clinics in Detroit and Buffalo market speedy MRIs, CTs or ultrasounds to Canadians which, by law, cannot be purchased privately in some provinces, including Ontario.
Ontario residents have three options: wait months for their free public MRI, travel to a province like Quebec where it is legal to buy one privately or travel to the U.S.
It's no wonder private medical and surgical brokers like Timely Medical Alternatives of Vancouver have sprung into existence. Rick Baker said his three-year-old company refers about 100 Canadians a month to U.S. clinics and hospitals for such things as MRIs and knee replacements.
Timely Medical's services came in handy for Lindsay McCreith, a retired auto body shop owner who was told in 2006 he probably had a brain tumor. He needed an MRI fast. But the wait time for a "free" public one was 4 1/2 months and it was illegal to purchase a private MRI in Ontario.
McCreith contacted Timely Medical, which got him an MRI the next day in Buffalo that showed he had a Titleist-sized tumor. Four and half weeks later, McCreith had received the brain surgery that could have taken eight months to happen in Canada -- if he had still been alive. It cost him $28,000 -- for which Canada's government won't reimburse him.
Stories like McCreith's -- and the downsides of Canadian and American health care -- will be exposed Sept. 14 by ABC's John Stossel in his "20/20" special, tentatively titled "Sick in America." Rick Baker hopes Hillary Clinton and her friends will be watching.
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