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Frozen hospital budgets While costs have been increasing, Ontario has frozen hospital budgets for the last three years. Four downtown Toronto hospitals have treated 380 foreign patients since 2011 and this year they expect to collect $7 million in revenue. At the same time, medical tourists are travelling to Canada to receive treatment, Canadians are travelling to the U.S. to receive some of those May is Better Hearing Month! oPEn HousE Wednesday May 7th & Thursday May 8th (Corner of Trafalgar Road & Queen Elizabeth Way) Join us at our this outdoor dining set just in time for summer! To enter, visit insidetoronto.com/contests (Contest Closes May 15th) Enter for your chance to WIN oakville Place ­ 240 Leighland Ave. Oakville Representatives from Siemens Hearing Instruments will be here to provide information on the latest in hearing technology. you can even try a set for 2 months RISK FREE* . 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All rights reserved. e Canadians should begin questioning our freedom when it comes to how we spend, or should I say, how we are forbidden to spend our money. The culprit is our broken healthcare system. We do a lot of things right in our home and native land but the present delivery system for medical services is broken. Now, that broken system is doing things that a less polite nation would not tolerate. A well-known Toronto hospital is experimenting with a business model that will allow it to sell medical services to patients from other countries. For example, two patients from outside of Canada paid for radiation treatment. One received treatment for breast cancer for the price of $60,000 and another paid $20,000 for prostate cancer treatment. That hospital pro ted on these procedures, which it can use to support a very tight cash ow; an issue affecting all hospitals. From a hospital's perspective this is a creative way to generate revenue. W Canadians should be allowed to buy health care in Canada Dollars & Sense Peter Watson Guest Contributor 21 | Thursday, May 1, 2014 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com same medical procedures. Many Canadians believe if they get sick here in Canada, they can cross the border to receive good, timely medical treatment in the U.S. Some illnesses, such as cancer, are best treated quickly before the disease has time to spread. The anxiety of waiting for care while knowing you might die because of the wait is emotionally draining. Those same patients may prefer to stay at home, keep their current doctors, be supported by friends and family and receive treatment in Canada. Our entire capitalist system revolves around our right to choose how we spend our money, except with health care. We cannot purchase some critical medical services in this country at a time when critical medical services are a "need" item as opposed to a "want" item. In some cases, these are the most important items we may want to buy. We can travel to another country to purchase medical services and those from other countries can come here to do the same. We have a free country. We can spend our money as we see t but unfortunately we cannot spend money on health care in this country. The chief executive of cer of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario recently was quoted as saying something that is hard to believe. She spoke of the two parallel systems for serving Canadians and foreigners. The quote was, "At this point, it's for people outside of the country but who is to say tomorrow it won't be for people inside the country?" To me, that is like saying we should hire security guards to ensure a Canadian does not receive the same treatment as someone who is not Canadian. If we Canadians want to spend our dollars on medical care in Canada and not in another country, then Canada should happily take our money. Those funds could be used to help pay for the signi cant costs of our universal healthcare system where everyone is able to receive medical treatment. Health care is becoming increasingly more expensive. Every Canadian should have the right to purchase medical services and while preserving its availability for everyone. This nancial contribution will help us all. -- Submitted by Peter Watson, MBA, CFP , R.F .P ., CIM, FCSI., Certi ed Financial Planner * d eReaending att WIN o b a Koer for