The Future of American Medicine?

I just saw a tweet from 24thstate.com. It's about the tragic realities of socialized medicine in Canada. He linked to this story from the Hamilton Spectator (emphasis added):

A critically ill Hamilton preemie turned away from McMaster Children's Hospital is all alone in a Buffalo intensive care unit because her parents don't have passports to get across the border.

Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was full when Ava Isabella Stinson was born 14 weeks premature at St. Joseph's Hospital Thursday at 12:24 p.m.

Doesn't that change the reason given in the first paragraph for why the child is alone? I mean, Ava's not alone because of an insufficient supply of passports, she's alone because of an insufficient supply of NICU beds at McMaster Children's Hospital. What in the world!?!

Note that the bureaucracies of Canada and the US didn't have any trouble expediting the travel of the newborn--presumably without a passport. Here's a hint for the geniuses at Foggy Bottom: if you let the mother cross the border with her baby, there will be fewer stories about the deficiencies of both socialized medicine and your competence.

Skipping down a few graphs, the article continues:

A second area mom has also been separated from her children since being turned away from McMaster's NICU, which is closed to new admissions about 50 per cent of the time.

...

Dr. Peter Fitzgerald, president of McMaster Children's Hospital, said he's in discussions with the Ministry of Health about getting more beds for the NICU, which is already the largest and most modern in Ontario.

So it would seem that little Ava and her mother got the finest (or, at least, "most modern") socialized healthcare available in Ontario. Well, not literally "available in Ontario".