B.C. Health Minister, Kevin Falcon, it was reported yesterday, plans to offer health care to wealthy Americans as a sort of medical tourism.   Likening it to the inducements already made to foreign students who pay to study in B.C. the Minister was quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying, "It's exactly what we do in post-secondary [education]; we bring in foreign students, we charge them about four times what British Columbia students pay."

Nothing like getting out in front of a story and owning an issue after it comes out and is put to you directly. Despite Falcon's plucky comments yesterday that B.C. plans to offer the pay-for-care scheme to Americans - who he thinks will realize the deals to be had, even at the inflated prices - this only came up after it was reported late last year when a similar pitch made by the Campbell government to Saskatchewan fell flat. Minister Falcon wasn't quite ready to reveal then that the province would be offering medical tourism to U.S. citizens, saying, "I don't want to speculate on other jurisdictions except to know that we've had lots of interest in what we've been doing in the surgical innovation side in British Columbia."

     Could it be because he knew how much of a hot button issue introducing private care to those that can afford it is in Canada?

     It's not the first time Canadian medical tourism has been offered: you may remember the reports of busloads of American seniors coming north to stock up on pharmaceuticals - but alas those aren't free to anybody.

     Falcon has even suggested that new facilities would be built to accommodate the influx of Americans to B.C.'s health care system. This sounds a lot like privatized care through the back-door, and comes at a time when B.C. is already recognized as leading the country in P3 (private-public) projects, including its hospitals.

     Would B.C. residents be left outside gleaming new health facilities looking in?

     Though, according to Health Ministry data, B.C. wait times for medically necessary procedures has decreased since 2001, a fee-based option would mean no wait times  for Americans willing to pay, effectively jumping the queue.

     All this after it came out that doctors with the Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital are taking the extraordinary measure of paying out of pocket to keep nurses from being cut from their operating rooms.

     It's enough to take your breath away, average wait time to get that fixed in B.C.? 3 weeks.