Lessons from the North PRI Study By:Sally C. Pipes 11.1.2002
Bus travelers bring the reality of rationed health care and price-controlled drugs over the border
A week before Independence Day, 37-year-old Debbie Thomas found herself on a bus headed over the border to seek medications. This was not, however, one of the highly publicized stories of Americans going to Canada to buy cut-rate prescriptions.
This bus was headed the other way, from New Brunswick to Bangor, Maine, USA, and all 20 passengers were Canadians. A man suffering chest pain sought an echocardiogram, a procedure his Canadian doctor deemed necessary but couldn’t deliver until nearly four months later. Others merely sought pharmaceuticals, currently the subject of political strife.
