Deborah Millar-Jervis and husband Robert Jervis were faced with a choice.
They could continue paying roughly $1,600 US a month for health insurance or leave the United States and move to Canada.
The staggering, and rising, cost of their insurance did not include doctors visits, dental care, prescriptions or the deductible amount they had to meet before accessing coverage.
So, four years ago, the couple packed up their home in Blaine, Wash., and moved four hours north to Penticton, B.C.
“We loved living there [in the U.S.], we had a great place,” Millar-Jervis said. “But we just decided that the cost of medical [insurance] in the United States was just prohibitive.”
The couple holds dual Canadian and American citizenship, so it was fairly easy for them to move to B.C., where Millar-Jervis is from.
Immigration lawyers on both sides of the border say it’s becoming more common for older couples who have lived for years in the U.S. to return to Canada during retirement because of the cost of health insurance.
But for Americans with no ties to Canada, moving north with the hope of accessing affordable health care isn’t that simple — and some say the rules around medical inadmissibility are too strict.
Immigration lawyer Lee Cohen says he’d like to see Canada offer more than one type of permanent resident application. (CBC)
“If there is a health issue with one of the family members, that can be fatal to an immigration application,” said Lee Cohen, an immigration lawyer in Halifax.
Michael Greene, a partner at immigration law firm Sherritt Greene in Calgary, said if one family member has a serious medical condition, the whole family can be refused: “And, yes, this happens very often.”
“It’s really quite crushing for people because they get nine-tenths of the way down the road and then they find out they’re being rejected,” he said.
Medical inadmissibility
For people applying to become a permanent resident in Canada, each family member must pass the medical exam. Applications can be denied if it is believed a person would put excessive demand on the health or social services in their chosen province.
That amount is updated annually. As of June 2018, the number is three times the Canadian average cost for health and social services — $102,585 over five years, or $20,517 per year.
If a family is assessed to exceed that amount, it receives a procedural fairness letter.
“They can challenge the basis for the calculation or the diagnosis of the prognosis,” Greene said.
“For instance they’ll look at blood sugar and say, ‘You’ve got kidney damage and we think you’re going to need dialysis or kidney surgery.’ You can sometimes get a doctor to give a competing opinion.”
But if the family is unable to show why the cost estimate is too high, the application will be denied.
“People want to come here because they can’t get care in their home countries and they think that they can take advantage of our health-care system,” Greene said.
“Unfortunately for them, it usually results in disappointment.”
Many Americans rely on crossing the border into Canada and Mexico to buy prescription drugs, which are often much cheaper outside of the U.S. (Shutterstock)
Cohen said he has seen applications rejected because a family member is deaf or there is a child with special needs, or there is a history of cancer.
“I think it can be very cruel,” he said.
But Cohen said when it comes to calculating the cost of excessive demand on the health-care system, it is often “subjective analysis that takes place — and it’s not always an accurate analysis.”
Cohen cited an example of a young American couple who approached him a few years ago, wanting to move to Nova Scotia. The female member of the couple had advanced breast cancer, he said, and the application was going to be denied because of it.
But they had strong academic backgrounds, “high-paying” jobs lined up and would be consumers and taxpayers. Cohen said they hired a medical economist to look at their financial contribution to the province.
“At the end of that study, the cost-benefit analysis weighed very heavily in granting permanent resident status to this couple,” he said, adding that the couple was eventually accepted.
“What it highlighted for me was the degree to which we pay attention to what we gain by having an immigrant family come into Canada, regardless of the illness — and what we lose by saying no to them.”
‘It just gets extremely expensive’
But many older families who have the option to move to Canada are doing so, says Len Saunders, a U.S. immigration lawyer based in Blaine, Wash., who is also a dual citizen.
He said insurance premiums in the U.S. increase as people age. Saunders turned 50 last month, which raised his monthly cost by $500 US.
“When people get into their 70s and 80s, it just gets extremely expensive. What I’ve seen over the last 10, 15 years.… If they’re dual citizens, they’ll decide to move back to Canada,” he said.
Saunders also said the attempts from the Trump administration to cancel Obamacare, which will be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court this fall, as well as the high rates of unemployment because of the COVID-19 pandemic are sending people in search of affordable health care.
U.S. immigration lawyer Len Saunders says when he turned 50, his health insurance went up to $2,500 U.S. a month.
“Costs have risen substantially,” Saunders said. “So you’re going to see a lot of people looking up to Canada for a much cheaper alternative to the U.S. health-care system.”
Millar-Jervis said there is no doubt in her mind that she and her husband are in “a better position” living in Penticton.
“In the U.S., everything is extra, extra, extra. And sure, it’s a great medical system — if you can afford it, if you have the money. And that’s why a lot of people don’t have it,” she said.
“So if you have the option to go to Canada, you go. We have a lot of friends who would still come to Canada if they could.”
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump is refusing to say how he voted on Florida’s abortion measure — and getting testy about it.
The former president was asked twice after casting his ballot in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday about a question that the state’s voters are considering. If approved, it would prevent state lawmakers from passing any law that penalizes, prohibits, delays or restricts abortion until fetal viability — which doctors say is sometime after 21 weeks.
If it’s rejected, the state’s restrictive six-week abortion law would stand.
The first time he was asked, Trump avoided answering. He said instead of the issue that he did “a great job bringing it back to the states.” That was a reference to the former president having appointed three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who helped overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022.
Pressed a second time, Trump snapped at a reporter, saying “you should stop talking about it.”
Trump had previously indicated that he would back the measure — but then changed his mind and said he would vote against it.
In August, Trump said he thought Florida’s ban was a mistake, saying on Fox News Channel, “I think six weeks, you need more time.” But then he said, “at the same time, the Democrats are radical” while repeating false claims he has frequently made about late-term abortions.
In addition to Florida, voters in eight other states are deciding whether their state constitutions should guarantee a right to abortion, weighing ballot measures that are expected to spur turnout for a range of crucial races.
Passing certain amendments in Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota likely would lead to undoing bans or restrictions that currently block varying levels of abortion access to more than 7 million women of childbearing age who live in those states.
NEW YORK (AP) — In a new video posted early Election Day, Beyoncé channels Pamela Anderson in the television program “Baywatch” – red one-piece swimsuit and all – and asks viewers to vote.
In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, set to most of “Bodyguard,” a four-minute cut from her 2024 country album “Cowboy Carter,” Beyoncé cosplays as Anderson’s character before concluding with a simple message, written in white text: “Happy Beylloween,” followed by “Vote.”
At a rally for Donald Trump in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the former president spoke dismissively about Beyoncé’s appearance at a Kamala Harris rally in Houston in October, drawing boos for the megastar from his supporters.
“Beyoncé would come in. Everyone’s expecting a couple of songs. There were no songs. There was no happiness,” Trump said.
She did not perform — unlike in 2016, when she performed at a presidential campaign rally for Hillary Clinton in Cleveland – but she endorsed Harris and gave a moving speech, initially joined onstage by her Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland.
“I’m not here as a celebrity, I’m not here as a politician. I’m here as a mother,” Beyoncé said.
“A mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided,” she said at the rally in Houston, her hometown.
“Imagine our daughters growing up seeing what’s possible with no ceilings, no limitations,” she continued. “We must vote, and we need you.”
Harris used the song in July during her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate at her campaign headquarters in Delaware. That same month, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, publicly endorsed Harris for president.
Beyoncé gave permission to Harris to use the song, a campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss private campaign operations confirmed to The Associated Press.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May pay tribute to the life of Murray Sinclair, former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sinclair died November 4, 2024 at the age of 73. (Nov. 4, 2024)
