Bob Barr accidentally touts single-payer health insurance

Writing for his AJC blog Friday, Republican-turned-Libertarian Bob Barr touted the overwhelming success and popularity of Canada’s single-payer, government-run health insurance system.

Not intentionally, of course.

Barr was actually trying to assert how lousy Canada’s health care system is. To do this, he noted the number of Canadians he says have sought medical care in the U.S. since Barack Obama’s inauguration:

Since Barack Obama was inaugurated President just over seven months ago, some 17,500 Canadian sic have come to the U.S. to receive health care. . . . And still there are those in Washington extolling the benefit of a government-controlled, single-payor heath care system .  .  .  like they have in Canada.

17,500 people. That’s abooot enough Canadians to fill a hockey arena, eh?

But there are 33 million people in Canada. Bob Barr is telling us 99.91 percent of Canadians will not seek medical care in the U.S. this year. If anything, Barr’s number proves Canadians overwhelmingly prefer their own health care to American healthcare.

Keep in mind Canadians are wealthy and mobile. 75 percent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S and 1.4 million Canadians made overnight visits to the United States in June alone.

With millions of Canadians traveling to the U.S. annually, 17,500 is a shockingly low number.

Some perspective: If a mere one-percent of Canadian visitors to the U.S. sprained an ankle, chipped a tooth, needed Flonase, had a heart attack, choked on a sandwich, or bought prescription sunglasses while visiting the U.S., the number of Canadians receiving medical care in the U.S. annually would be somewhere in the 150,000-200,000 range.

Canadians clearly prefer their system to ours.

Some more perspective: How many Americans travel abroad for medical care?

A Deloitte survey estimates 750,000 Americans traveled abroad in 2007 for medical care. By next year, Deloitte estimates 6,000,000 Americans will go overseas for medical treatment.

750,000 to 6,000,000 is a wide range. But using the Bob Barr Method of Measuring Health Care Satisfaction by Tallying Medical Tourism®, it means America’s 300,000,000ish citizens are 277 to 2,222 percent more likely to travel abroad for health care than Canadians are to travel to this U.S, and therefore much more dissatisfied than Canadians.

Bob Barr is an accidental socialist.