I do not ever recall saying that I thought we should have an American health care system. I do not believe that and neither does the Canadian Alliance.
What we are concerned about is that when we send Canadians to the U.S. to have their treatment because we cannot provide it here, it costs, in the case of this one individual, $60,000 to the health care system of B.C. or Canada to pay for this service in the States. That $60,000 U.S. is not helping to support our Canadian health care system. It is helping the public health care system in the United States. That is what I object to. We are using our Canadian health care dollars every time we send one of our patients south of the border.
It is happening all the time. I have newspaper clippings here. The third patient in a week went to Seattle. This was a trauma patient who was turned away from three hospitals in the lower mainland and got shipped to Seattle to get trauma care after a motorcycle accident in which the guy's spleen was split wide open. These sorts of things should be treated immediately. He was sent to Seattle.
Guess what? Our Canadian dollars are supporting that medical system in Seattle. They are not in Canada supporting our health care system and that is the responsibility of this government because it took the money out of the provinces' hands and the provinces cannot deliver the care citizens require. It is the responsibility of the government. The government took $6 billion-and-something out of the health care system, no one else. That is its responsibility. It ought to assume that responsibility instead of trying to pass it on to the provinces.