Greg Ruetz. The name is not going to sound familiar to anyone that’s not already aware of his story. But the 58-year old Conestogo (near Waterloo ON) businessman is truly invested by a very strong instinct of survival. And for his courage and refusal to bow down before the statist socialized deficient medical system Canada is always so eager to brag about, he deserves a warm pat on the back. Had he not jumped the fence separating us with our neighbors to the South to get quality healthcare, I’m not sure he would be alive today.

Ruetz, then 57, was thought back in the spring of 2004 by Canadian doctors of having a possible malignant cancerous growth on his right kidney, that could probably still be removed in time. However no one knew for sure, and for the hypothesis to be verified Ruetz had to go through a four-week wait for a CT scan. When told he had to count an eight-week delay before it could be removed surgically, faced with a gruesome 12-week anxiety-filled waitathon, Ruetz boldly decided to pile up some savings from his family business, got in the car, and drove all the way from Waterloo ON to Cleveland OH, where he was admitted to the Cleveland Clinic instantly, got a CT scan in a matter of hours where doctors quickly diagnosed his cancerous growth as a malignant tumor, then they rushed him to the Surgery department where he was able to receive the appropriate treatment and head back home.

But as is the state of healthcare in the United States, being uninsured as a Canadian patient, he also brought home a quite hefty bill. It cost him a little more than $50,000 for the whole medical adventure. But even if he could afford it, Mr. Ruetz had the brilliant idea of sending the bill to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, so he could get reimbursed, because if he had patiently stayed on the waiting lists, he’d probably be dead right now. At first the OHIP categorically refused to grant Ruetz funds for his surgery, offering to give him back a measly $3,833 U.S., covering the CT scan, arguing that after getting the scan Ruetz could have gone back to Ontario for surgical removal of the tumor. (Somehow, although the Ontario Health Insurance Plan acknowledged that a four-week wait for a CT scan to diagnose a suspected kidney cancer was too long a delay, it didn’t feel the same about the two-month queue to surgically remove it.)

But the savvy Ontario businessman kept to his idea and kept on fighting. And he won. In its March 17th, 2005 decision, the Appeal Board of the OHIP gave him the answer he had been waiting for. Mr. Ruetz was fully reimbursed by the Province of Ontario’s own OHIP for medical care obtained in the U.S., thus causing an interesting turmoil among the supporters of Canada’s overworked, insufficient, crumbling and sometimes dangerous socialized public health care system. Here are Greg Ruetz’s final thoughts, as he was interviewed by phone by the Globe and Mail for an article:

“I think the most important thing is that we got good care, it was a malignancy. Obviously, if you can’t have that treated, it’s going to cost you your life.”

“It’s hard not to be impressed with the facility. They treat you so extraordinarily well in there and give you such confidence that where you are, you are going to be okay.”

“We thought we had, on medical grounds, a reasonable position that we should be, or could be, reimbursed. I would never want to invite that [cancer], but it was an incredible experience to see how good medical care could be.”

And here’s what a fellow reader from Tampa FL, Eric Johnson, a former Canadian, has to write about Canada’s health care system:

“The problem is not the technical capabilities of Canadian health care, but the socialized aspect of it. In the U.S., hospitals and doctors compete for patients. If you can’t provide good care, including good service and bedside manners, you will not be employed for very long in health care. In the Canadian model, there is no reason for doctors or nurses to go beyond what is technically required. They get paid regardless of the quality of their service or how quickly treatment is delivered. They are government employees and, as such, enjoy incredible job security and lack incentives to motivate them to go beyond minimum requirements. After living in the U.S. for over ten years, and after having two family members die from lack of medical care in Canada, and experiencing the contrasting quality of care in the U.S., I can honestly say that I pity Canadians who believe the Canadian model is a positive example of Canadian culture. Waiting times imposed by government rationing are like bread lines in the former Soviet Union. It’s cheap and universal, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. Waiting times are not health care - they are health-corrosive. Canadians should be allowed to purchase third-party insurance (high deductible, low premium) for care in the U.S. for catastrophic illnesses like cancer.”

Johnson hit the nail on the head. Socialism = Everyone gets the same. Quality gets drawn to the bottom. Better is impossible.

Please Stephen Harper, as Conservative Prime Minister elect, scrap the system as it is and work with the provinces to instigate two-tier healthcare in Canada NOW!

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Source:

The Globe and Mail, January 28th, 2006,
“His cancer couldn’t wait, panel rules” by Lisa PRIEST