Maybe because poop doesn't show up on an MRI?

Engine MRI

Totally agree. They had to re-do mine 3 times because I breathed. There's no way they could do an MRI this clear on moving people. Notice the 'slice' they look at never changes. MRI's take pictures in 'slices', and if you move, you get a different 'slice'...but the depth of this image miraculously stays in exactly the same plane, even though they are supposed to be getting it on.
I'll second your call of shenanigans. Everybody grab your broom!

I call shenanigans.. I've had MRI's and if I even sneeze, I get told they have to redo them.

Also the difference between conscious action and reflex. They've done MRI scans of brains in highly trained athletes and when performing complex activities like dribbling a basketball, they're brains are hardly working because the activity functions basically on autopilot. Meanwhile, people who haven't done the activity before are thinking super hard and MRI looks totally different. Riding a bike seems very likely the same thing.

Naw, I'm pretty sure an MRI has a flux many orders of magnitude stronger than this and they don't hurt people.

Dude's amazingly calm for someone with severe nerve damage and possible paralysis. I wasn't that calm about it when I broke my back/severed my nerves, and I was at home and not in an accident. I just thought I had a major blood clot in my leg until the MRI said differently.

This is how MRI's are made. Sort of.

Looks like an MRI of a tree.

It's like a physical MRI. cool

Here is a longer 18 minute video of more of Senator Burr's questions to the witnesses. I wish I could find the full hearing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1m0Gxtsz1A

It includes this little gem from Senator Burr, "The American system HAS access to healthcare for everybody, it's called the Emergency Room. Now we don't admit that because clearly we are lobbying for a particular angle, but every American can access healthcare."

Nice slight of hand there Senator, only difference is whenever I go to the emergency room (I live in Canada), I don't get a bill in the mail a few weeks later that I have to pay.

The average American ER visit costs $600 dollars in 2009, today it's probably well more than that, and that's just for simple problems. Anything more serious than a urinary tract infection and you are going to be paying thousands of dollars.

I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll give my 2 cents on my experiences with the Healthcare system in Quebec.

I use the public system and private system and constantly dabble between the two. Wait times can be long for sure. I've had a long running ankle problem since my teens, and to get my first appointment with an ankle specialist here took 1 year and 3 months!

My MRI was covered by private insurance, so it only took a couple days to have the scan done. I was put on a surgery waiting list for just over 2 years. The Dr let me know that he operated at a private clinic in Montreal. I could have had the surgery in only 2 weeks, at a cost of around $5000, but because my pain was minimal and I could still walk, I opted to wait.

Post surgery access to follow up appointments was swift. I could easily see the Dr in a week or two, with very little advanced notice. Follow up MRI's weren't covered by my new private insurance, so I had to wait for an MRI scan, which took around 2 months. I was supposed to have an MRI arthrogram, but the waiting list for that procedure is about twice as long, so the Dr just opted for a regular MRI. Cost for an MRI arthrogram is $875 in private. Again I just waited it out.

I've only needed to go to the emergency room twice, since I've been here, both times I was in and out in under an hour and a half.

I've been to many walk-in clinic's. These are a crapshoot, sometimes they're incredibly fast, sometimes incredibly slow.

I don't have a family Dr, so I opt to go to a Dr at a private clinic for my annual checkups. Even private clinics are a grey zone sometimes, as some services are covered by the provincial plans, so visits to the GP cost out of pocket, but visits to specialists within the same clinic are free.

Finding a family Dr is definitely plausible, it just involves phoning around every clinic and/or Dr in Montreal asking if they have space, but I just haven't invested the time yet. Some people get lucky this way, but even then, getting an appointment with your family Dr can take many weeks, appointment times can be inconvenient (mid afternoon, etc), so I'd rather make the investment of seeing someone at a private clinic, where I can have an appointment at 8:30am within a couple days.

I contrast all this with the fact that I was born and lived in South Africa well into my mid 20's. South Africa has abysmal public healthcare, and being born into a white middle class family, thanks to my parents I had access to private healthcare.

Private insurance in South Africa is less exploitative than in the U.S. Much less fighting with insurers to pay for coverage etc. Access to most Dr's is swift, and most procedure's are well covered. Obviously the overall experience compared to Canadian healthcare was much better, but the S.A private system only barely covers 20% of the population's needs and even with the disparity in wait times for service, the Canadian healthcare system at 100% coverage feels like an undeniable success, and a model that needs to be improved and iterated upon.

The debate around healthcare is tough here. Health issues and frustration with waiting can easily escalate the egocentric side of our human nature, but even with my negative experiences I would never denounce this system, because the broader social contract that has been written is valiant, and the price paid for this is worth it.

Nobody should be financially ruined because of health issues.

Lived in Ontario (28 years), Brisbane, Australia (5 years), Alberta (7 years), and now Texas (14 years).

Agree with pretty much with Boneremake on Alberta, gets more points than Ontario. My Australian experience was good, in both the city and rural (blew an eardrum due to infection in Longreach QLD at Xmas... the doctor was drunk when they wheeled him into emerg, but he was a gentle, caring drunk).

Small things in Ontario are manageable - anything requiring stuff beyond typical emergency room patching up in more rural locations (my definition - anywhere far enough from Toronto that you can't see the nighttime glow, so north of Newfenmarket sort of) is quite lacking (v. long wait times for things like weekly dialysis, MRI, even open MRI, GI tract scoping, ultrasounds, contrast X-rays etc). Parental unit #1 with diabetes requiring 3 times a week dialysis almost snuffed it as there were only 4 chairs in the unit 14 miles from home, got on the list and had to wait for someone to die before getting on the team. Finally snuffed it when they shut down these 4 chairs and the new unit was now a 90 mile round trip 3 times a week for man who could barely walk or see. Died from exhaustion, not diabetes. 2nd parental unit needs an MRI for some serious GI issues, can't keep food down, losing weight rapidly. Wait 4.5 months and we'll see if we can get you in. I'm having her measured for the box.

Having said that, the situation is easier to describe in Texas, the land of excess (excessive wealth and excessive poverty).

Good health insurance plan, preferably through employer with lots of employees = wait times for advanced procedures measured usually in minutes or hours, sometimes days, but not weeks or months. You get taken care of, and your birthing room at the local maternity ward looks like the Marriott (just Couryard though, so no mini-bar or microwave).

Mediocre or no health insurance plan = pray you never get sick enough to require more than what you can buy at the CVS or splint up by watching do-it-yourself first aid videos on youtube, because an unplanned night in the hospital or a trip to emerg in the short bus with swirly lights followed by admission can, for many, wipe them out or sure eat up Bobby's college fund. No exaggeration. I have insurance, but for a reference point, one night in hospital (elective) for a turbinectomy (google it people) including jello and ice cream came in at $14,635. Yes, one night. 24 hours. Do the math. An emergency room visit for a forearm cut requiring 13 stitches (and I didn't even bleed on their white sheets - just cut through the skin to the fat tissue) was billed at $2,300 bucks. Our new baby tried to exit the meatbag as a footling breach, so emergency C-sectioned him out, and one extra night in hospital (2 in total) - all up, billed at just shy of $24K. We now have 3 full service hospitals within 5 miles of our house, and a full service children's hospital in the same radius. And they just started building another. Somebody's making money. If you don't have insurance, or your insurance is shitty (huge deductibles, huge copays) you will eat much of these types of costs. Rule: cheaper to die than get sick.

Ontario and AB might have longer wait times, but even an 83 year old woman in a rural Ontario village with no pension, insurance, income or large stacks of cash can (eventually) get the health care she needs without spending unjustifiable amounts of money. Happy birthday mom.

My 2¢

Canadian from Manitoba checking in here. Things like crutches, prescription medications, and ambulances are out of pocket expenses. Got something like diabetes? Expect to be spending a lot of money every month on drugs.

For life threatening emergencies or even broken bones and stitches our system works great for people, and no worries about going broke, you just go in anyways. Our federal and provincial taxation levels though are also much higher than in the US and a large percentage of that is spent directly on health care. I don't know what level of health insurance that amount would buy each Canadian, but it is important to remember that the Canadian healthcare system is NOT free.

I must say I do prefer the Canadian system to the American one. Largely on the basis of not seeing working class families being financially destroyed by life threatening and uninsured medical conditions.

I can't just say that though without pointing out that our Canadian system has it's own serious flaws. I know of people with back injuries putting them off work until they can get surgery, and that surgery being a waiting time for them measured in years. They flew down to the states to spend thousands of dollars out of pocket to get the surgery in weeks instead, and were financially ahead too over those two years since they could get back to work. Patients showing symptoms that might indicate major heart conditions or other illnesses who would get an immediate MRI or other expensive diagnostic in the states straight away will routinely wait months in Canada.

That is all just a long winded way to say the Canadian system is far from perfect and has very serious problems and flaws in it that are negatively impacting peoples health and financial well being too. It's no magic bullet.

This is a false or misleading statement. The reasons for some Canadians having to wait or not being able to have a doctor are different. Canada has had a terrible drain on it's medical system with doctors and nurses going down to the US, because they make more money there. This has lead to new programs to entice them to stay in Canada. It looks like they have been working, but it's a 10 year study and we need to see the numbers.

As a Canadian who has been though the healthcare system in Ontario, and had family members who've had been through health care in Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, Halifax and Newfoundland.Labradour, I can tell you the parts that work and the parts that don't.

I'm a type I diabetic and I've had cancer twice. I've had a sarcoma in my saliva gland and as a result of radiation therapy, I've had melanoma skin cancer crop up on my body as well. I've had four major surgeries on my body. Two of them were serious complicated nervous system surgeries or lymphatic resecctions. I've been through my fair share of Canadian health care.

First things first. It's not a national healthcare. Anyone saying national healthcare doesn't know what they're talking about. The provinces and territories have their own health care. Granted, the territories get a lot more help from the Federal Gov't, but the health needs of people in Ontario are different from those in Manitoba.

Let's get into the brass taxes. I've had the nerve surgery and radiation therapy that was done on my face evaluated at a hospital in West Virgina as part of a study to compare American HC vs. Canadian HC. For my first surgery, I got to choose my doctor, I was given a list. They recommended one doctor, who was an expert in North America for nerve surgery, but he was recovering from a surgery of his own. They suggested I wait for him to be ready, but if I wanted to proceed, I could wait if I wanted.

I waited and surprise, no facial paralysis. I then had to do 30 days of intense radiation therapy in my parotid bed, to make sure they got it all.

I paid a total of $300 dollars in parking. I also have private health insurance for diabetic supplies, which means any medication I had to get to deal with the after effects of radiation had an 85% payback.

Years later when the effects of radiation had settled and I had a tumour form from the radiation, I had gone to my family doctor, saw a specialist the next day and then within the week I had an excision done. It came back positive and within a week of that, I was given a sentinel node biopsy to see if it had spread.

It had.

Within a month of the first examination, I had a full lymphatic ressection of my left leg and groin done. This wasn't as complicated as the facial nerve surgery, so I got a list and a suggestion of who to do the surgery.

That came back clean, but I now deal with a lot of complications from that.

That surgery cost me nothing.

In West Virgina at a hospital (they didn't tell me which one they used.) The total for all the exams (CT, MRI, etc.) the surgery and the radiation therapy came out to $275,000. Give or take.

This is why it drives me nuts when I see people get things wrong about Canada. We have problems, oh yes we do. For example, don't be over the age of 65 in BC or Quebec. The diagnostics training in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland if pretty terrible. But, I got to choose my doctor, and I saw everyone really quick. Why? Because you don't fuck with melanoma.

So, I'm sorry Trancecoach, I saw that video you linked. The guy lost a lot of credibility at "Communist State of Canada." You're already skewing your message to say something. You are just plain wrong about health care in Canada, the way you talk about. I am living proof of how well it works.

I'm a self employed photographer and the most I've ever had to pay was for parking at the hospital. That was the $300 dollars. I paid my taxes and that paid for my health care. If I didn't, and if other Canadians didn't, I would not be here, as with many other Canadians.

Critique us for the things we do shitty, but I have yet to see anyone do that. I see talking points and misinformation from people just spreading false info.

Get your facts straight. I know how it works in Ontario the best. But, I also know for a vast majority of the other country. I can tell you Saskatchewan has had an exodus of nurses, but that's not bad health care system. That's a gov't system that can't keep nurses in the province. If we can keep doctors and nurses, the system works great.

The guy you linked to, most of his sources for data are absolute crap and he misleads a lot of his talking points. This stupid lottery doctor that happened was because it was an isolated town in the wilderness and there was only one doctor left after the other passed away. So yes, he had to do a lottery for people so he wouldn't get swamped, unless it was an emergency. It was a town, I believe about 10,000 people, but I'm not sure on that.

Find one who uses stretches and massage, one that starts with an MRI or Xray, and above all, one that doesn't crack anything.

Or you could just go to a massage therapist and take the gamble out of it.