A question for the Canadians on this forum. Have you ever gone to the States for medical treatment ? Do you know any other Canadians who have done so.

So thankful I was able to buy my drugs online from Canada since it saved us thousands. Hopefully, the U.S. will stop allowing big pharma to rob decent Americans of their retirement savings.
The medications I buy online from Canada are 10% of the cost of those in the US. Not a 10% discount, but 10% of! My blood thinner cost $375 a month in the US. From Canada, it's $40. I buy two other drugs that reflect that same price difference. There is one drug I still buy in the US. It's for blood pressure and it's cheap, so the price difference is not significant. The one draw back in getting drugs on line from Canada is that you have to plan ahead, because it takes a long time for the medications to clear customs, so you need to be thinking about a month and a half ahead.

Some leaders in Congress are trying to stop US citizens from buying drugs in Canada. They are using the Opioid crisis to justify it, but it's really just a bill written by US drug companies to increase their already shameful price gouging profits.
 

Seconding what Don M said. My in-laws live in Canada, and they find it appalling not only what Americans spend on healthcare, but how so many have NO health coverage at all, leading to more severe illnesses/disabilities because of lack of preventive care. And also the inadequacy of our social services safety net, which contributes to the US's very poor standings in average lifespan. We are ranked so far down we are in company with Third World countries, in fact.

We have over 200 relatives in my spouse's extended family. Not one has ever set foot in the US for healthcare.

Another separate issue: because most hospitals are for-profit chains, they are closing unprofitable hospitals and associated clinics in rural areas and smaller cities, at a rapid rate. Seniors should not assume that moving to a LCOL area will benefit them, because if it takes you hours to get to emergency or access a specialist, that may end up offsetting a low rent or modest property taxes.

HCOL vs LCOL Areas: Everything You Need To Know

 
The medications I buy online from Canada are 10% of the cost of those in the US. Not a 10% discount, but 10% of! My blood thinner cost $375 a month in the US. From Canada, it's $40. I buy two other drugs that reflect that same price difference. There is one drug I still buy in the US. It's for blood pressure and it's cheap, so the price difference is not significant. The one draw back in getting drugs on line from Canada is that you have to plan ahead, because it takes a long time for the medications to clear customs, so you need to be thinking about a month and a half ahead.

Some leaders in Congress are trying to stop US citizens from buying drugs in Canada. They are using the Opioid crisis to justify it, but it's really just a bill written by US drug companies to increase their already shameful price gouging profits.
Thanks I didn't realize blood thinnner meds were so expensive but I expect to eventually be on them. Are they not covered by Medicare? The inhalers I bought through Northwest Pharmacy shipped directly from overseas so they were not actually ever in Canada. I'm sure it seems that Americans are taking drugs off the pharmacy shelves but it doesn't work that way. Yes, it takes a long time to receive the medication because it is coming from UK and other places which means U.S. Customs is involved.

See below to see wants to support Big Pharma.
 
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The medications I buy online from Canada are 10% of the cost of those in the US. Not a 10% discount, but 10% of! My blood thinner cost $375 a month in the US. From Canada, it's $40. I buy two other drugs that reflect that same price difference. There is one drug I still buy in the US. It's for blood pressure and it's cheap, so the price difference is not significant. The one draw back in getting drugs on line from Canada is that you have to plan ahead, because it takes a long time for the medications to clear customs, so you need to be thinking about a month and a half ahead.

Some leaders in Congress are trying to stop US citizens from buying drugs in Canada. They are using the Opioid crisis to justify it, but it's really just a bill written by US drug companies to increase their already shameful price gouging profits.
https://www.northwestpharmacy.com/



Big Pharma’s dystopian DRUGS Act is designed to eliminate your access to affordable drugs from licensed Canadian and international pharmacies, including NorthWestPharmacy.com. We recently reported the good news that Senator Amy Klobuchar, a former co-sponsor of the legislation, has withdrawn her support for this bill but thereafter the bill gained some new Senate and Congressional supporters to Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) original sponsorship -- Senator Mike Braun (R-IN) as well as Congressional representatives Angie Craig (D-MN) and Derek Soto (D-FL), so the fight against this terrible bill is not over.
Here is a current list of Drugs Act supporters who are running in the upcoming midterms:
  • Marco Rubio (Senate R-FL)
  • Darren Soto (Congress D-FL)
  • Angie Craig (Congress D-MN)
  • Josh Gottheimer (Congress D-NJ)
  • Diana DeGette (Congress D-CO)
 
I am going to repost a link that is from the Canadian Federal Government about how to find SAFE Canadian based pharmacies on line. What better source for Americans who want to save money on their medical prescription drugs than the Canadian Government ? Link. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-can...oducts-safely/safe-use-online-pharmacies.html JimB.
That is how we found NWPharmacy. Our doctor used to fax the prescription to Cananda but now they give it to us to fax. What can I say?
 
That is how we found NWPharmacy. Our doctor used to fax the prescription to Cananda but now they give it to us to fax. What can I say?
Happy Heart. Are you satisfied with the service from NW Pharmacy, and their prices ? From your comment's last line I was unsure if you were satisfied or making a complaint ? JimB.
 
There's lots of Canadian pharmacies, and they are not all the same. Prices and service can very. I tried about three of them and now do business with only one in Winnipeg. I would describe their service as impressive, and prices when I first found them were consistently the lowest.
 
Medications costs are one of the reasons we chose the Kaiser HMO over PPO plans. Kaiser runs its own hospitals and pharmacies. Generic prescriptives are $10/3 mo. supply. Branded prescriptives, i.e., still under patent, are full mfg price, however.

Fortunately all our prescriptions so far have been generic and effective.
 
Happy Heart. Are you satisfied with the service from NW Pharmacy, and their prices ? From your comment's last line I was unsure if you were satisfied or making a complaint ? JimB.
Yes, we are happy with them but the problem is you need to plan since the drugs don't ship from Canada but mine came from UK or Turkey manufactures. Customs slow down delivery but I understand they must be suspicious of everything and I support that. They were the same product sold here for many times the price.
 
Medications costs are one of the reasons we chose the Kaiser HMO over PPO plans. Kaiser runs its own hospitals and pharmacies. Generic prescriptives are $10/3 mo. supply. Branded prescriptives, i.e., still under patent, are full mfg price, however.

Fortunately all our prescriptions so far have been generic and effective.
We got rid of Kaiser because they would give us a handful of prescriptions each visit. Once we moved on, our new doctors said they weren't needed and we are doing fine without them. We also found out that Kaiser doctors' bonus are based on how many prescriptions they write, but they claim the doctors have no relationship with drug manufactures. It wasn't until new problems started that we needed to find Canadian drugs and appreciate Canada for it!
 
There's lots of Canadian pharmacies, and they are not all the same. Prices and service can very. I tried about three of them and now do business with only one in Winnipeg. I would describe their service as impressive, and prices when I first found them were consistently the lowest.
Can you share the name? We may soon need blood thinners so I want to keep a list of resources handy. Fortunately, I no longer need the original prescription but the sands in hour glass keep moving.
 
Can you share the name? We may soon need blood thinners so I want to keep a list of resources handy. Fortunately, I no longer need the original prescription but the sands in hour glass keep moving.
It's PharmStore.com
https://www.pharmstore.com/

It's in Winnipeg, and it may be the only one in that Province. Most seem to be in British Columbia. For what it's worth, I am on the blood thinner, Xarelto, for blood clots that got into my lungs several years ago. They are gone now, but my Dr. wants me on the thinner.

The price in the United States last I checked was $370/month.
The PharmStore sells them in 90 day supplies at $21/month

Yes, you read that right. This is not a joke.

But not all drugs are so drastically different. I still buy Verapamil for blood pressure locally. It's not an expensive one.

Plan ahead. It takes a long time to get a prescription through to Canada by mail, and it can take three weeks to get the meds in your mailbox once they get the prescription and clear Customs. It's worth it though. I save over $4000 a year on that one drug. I save about the same on a steroid inhaler I use for asthma.

You can compare drug prices between Canadian outlets using the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA) website.

https://www.cipa.com/cipa-safe-pharmacies

But I'm so happy with PharmStore that I actually had to look up the name of this resource. I haven't used the CIPA website in years. Service and prices can vary greatly from one pharmacy to another and one screwed up and charged me twice for an order and never even responded to my complaint. I have never had a problem or complaint with PharmStore.
 
I recently had to rebut a statement on here by a American who stated that "Many Canadians go to America for medical care " I told him that he was wrong. Now I would like to hear from you on this subject. Have you, or any of your family or friends travelled to the US for medical care ? Thanks. JimB.
I can‘t answer that, but as you probably know the Fraser Institute tracks wait times for care in Canada, and the numbers are not good…
“Waiting for treatment has become a defining characteristic of Canadian health care. In order to document the queues for visits to specialists and for diagnostic and surgical procedures in the country, the Fraser Institute has—for almost three decades—surveyed specialist physicians across 12 specialties and 10 provinces.”
“This edition of Waiting Your Turn indicates that, overall, waiting times for medically necessary treatment have increased since last year. Specialist physicians surveyed report a median waiting time of 25.6 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment—longer than the wait of 22.6 weeks reported in 2020. This year’s wait time is the longest wait time recorded in this survey’s history and is 175% longer than in 1993, when it was just 9.3 weeks.”
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wait-times-for-health-care-in-canada-2021

BTW - in my case, with a well known provider in California, a typical wait would range from “down the hall” to 2 or 3 days.
 
I don't know anyone who has sought out care in the US personally but yes, I have heard of it and it's almost always people with lots of money who want to jump the line in Canada or those that want to take advantage of some experimental treatments not available in Canada so yes, it does happen but it's not that common.

What will happen going forward is unsure because all healthcare systems seem to be overloaded & understaffed lately so it may at some point boil down to who's got the most $$ to get the best & fastest treatment?
 
Thanks I didn't realize blood thinnner meds were so expensive but I expect to eventually be on them. Are they not covered by Medicare? The inhalers I bought through Northwest Pharmacy shipped directly from overseas so they were not actually ever in Canada. I'm sure it seems that Americans are taking drugs off the pharmacy shelves but it doesn't work that way. Yes, it takes a long time to receive the medication because it is coming from UK and other places which means U.S. Customs is involved.

See below to see wants to support Big Pharma.
Sorry, I missed this question about Medicare. "Covered my Medicare" is not the whole story or solution. There are co pays, so you are going to pay something. What I do is factor in the yearly costs of Medicare drug coverage insurance and the co-pays. That's how much I would spend. I spend far less than I would if I had Medicare drug coverage. And Medicare won't pay for Canadian drugs. I save thousands.

Yes, some of them are drop shipped from other countries. My thinner comes from Turkey. It's made by Bayer. I suspect it may be where American Xarelto comes from. Drugs manufactured in Canada are usually more, but not as much as US. Two of my prescriptions come from Canada.
 
This may already have been covered, but just in case ...
"Why Canadian premier seeks health care in U.S.
Danny Williams, the premier of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, traveled to the United States earlier this month to undergo heart valve surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. With his trip, Williams joined a long list of Canadians who have decided that they prefer American medicine to their own country's government-run health system when their lives are on the line."
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/open...-premier-seeks-health-care-in-U-S-3198150.php

"63,000 Canadians left the country for medical treatment last year: Fraser Institute"
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/63-00...reatment-last-year-fraser-institute-1.3486635

Another thing about government supplied medical care, although not in this case Canada. A Usenet forum that I posted to for years got an Australian participant for a few months. He had a lot to say about their system. What irked him the most was the fact that it was an all or nothing deal. He wanted to be allowed to supplement aspects of their care out of his own pocket, but supplementation was not allowed.

Anyhow, I believe the US needs to be very careful before stepping into that morass. From what I have read, France may have a fairly successful system. One advantage is their employment of "The English Rule". The Rule provides that the loser in a lawsuit pays the winner's attorneys fees. Legal costs are a significant portion of the cost of our healthcare system. The English Rule is a great incentive to think twice before initiating a lawsuit.
 
That was 2010 when Danny Williams had the heart surgery. As he said that fortunately was discovered by his doctors and they recommended that he go out of country because it couldn’t be done in Canada, at that time. He’s very rich and already owned property in Florida so it made sense.

As for the Fraser Institute, they’re a right-wing think tank.
Jeremy Snyder, a professor at Simon Fraser University's faculty of health sciences, said the Fraser Institute is sending a strong message that Canada has a big medical tourism problem due to massive wait times at home, which is not true.

"While we do know that a lot of Canadians are going abroad for care, the numbers the Fraser Institute is producing in this report aren't really accurate," Snyder told CTV News. "I don't think there's a really strong backing for them."

I’m not denying that we have a shortage of medical professionals after 2+ long years.
I also know a couple of people in the US who had long waits for their surgeries.
It can happen in many places.
 
That was 2010 when Danny Williams had the heart surgery. As he said that fortunately was discovered by his doctors and they recommended that he go out of country because it couldn’t be done in Canada, at that time. He’s very rich and already owned property in Florida so it made sense.

As for the Fraser Institute, they’re a right-wing think tank.


I’m not denying that we have a shortage of medical professionals after 2+ long years.
I also know a couple of people in the US who had long waits for their surgeries.
It can happen in many places.
So, if Fraser is not being truthful, give us the real numbers.
 
All I’m saying is before pre-Covid restrictions.

Speaking for BC, there have been people, especially children with unique situations who have been sent to the US and their bills were covered by our medical system. Some small border towns used to send people to the US if the financial costs warranted it. Often the American doctors set up offices to cater to them.

It worked both ways. There are border towns that specialized in services for Americans. Even paying for hospitalization services in Canada was less expensive than doing it in the US. Plastic surgeons took advantage of this. Some offices specialize in writing prescriptions so the Americans can get our cheaper drugs. They would have bus tours here.

Unless one is very rich it is too risky for the average person to go to the US for a medical procedure. If one went for a private procedure and was in a car accident while there, their medical travel insurance would be negated. It’s a tricky situation.

Canadians who winter in the southern US states love to go to Mexico for dental services. Much less expensive and quality service. Some will take a vacation to Mexico just for dental care.

Editing. I personally don’t know anyone going to the US for faster service.
People go to Mexico for dental care from here, too. I never have.
 
When i lived in Augusta , Maine, i worked at the Comfort Inn, one time we had a bus load of women who came from Canada to get Breast Cancer treatments at our hospital .. One lady told me that Canada was overflowing with breast cancer patients at that time and they did not have enough facilities ...so our hospital Invited them to come to Augusta, at no cost to those patients ! i imagine these were women who could not afford the treatments in Canada,,
 


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