Canada, we are constantly being told by single-payer advocates, is a model social democracy with a medical delivery system that we should envy. Oddly, the people who make such claims never want to answer a question that Bill Steigerwald reiterates in a recent column:

If Canada’s national health care system is so dang wonderful, why are so many Canadians coming to America to pay for their own medical care?

And it’s not only pregnant women, like the one who recently had to drive to Montana to have her baby, who cross into the U.S. on a daily basis seeking health care. Thus, Steigerwald inquires further:

Why is the hip replacement center of Canada in Ohio-at the Cleveland Clinic, where 10% of its international patients are Canadians … Why is Brain and Spine Center in Buffalo serving about 10 border-crossing Canadians a week?

By way of answering his own questions, Steigerwald provides the following datum:

Number of Canadians on waiting lists for referrals to specialists or for medical services-875,000.

It would appear that Canadians with sufficient financial means are seeking medical treatment in a country where such waiting lists exist only the the fond dreams of single-payer advocates.

And what about the Canadians who don’t have the money to come here for care? I guess they just pray that their illnesses don’t kill them before the vaunted Canadian system can fit them in.